Safari cont.2

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There may be a few of these....


So very very very early start- i.e. about 4 in the morning- and it just happens to be my birthday!!!!! great start :S. Slept for a good few hours on the bus. This birthday turned out to be very unexciting. We were in the truck driving for a total of about 12 hours. YAY. We got to camp all absolutely knackered- amanda paid for an upgrade for my bday (we got a bed instead of a tent!) it was very much appreciated about 6 of us crashed in one very small room (Steve snored alot) had a few birthday drinks from people and luce bought me a piece of choc cake 😊 then bed about half 10 - no one not even me was really in the mood for partying tonight!. The next day we crossed the border into Malawi- if only we had known what a 'fun' week we were about to have! We got to a nice campsite on the evening of the 28th- i claimed it as my rebirthday and we all had a few drinks etc- was a lot better than the origional! Except for the fact there are a LOT of midgys or whatever those little fly things were called. and by a lot i mean a lot. Right after we went to bed there was a literal storm of them! Not nice. The next day we set off early to get to the next camp. Teh road was a long winding hill road. We drove for about 20 minutes and then we were at a stand still. A lorry had dropped its load. 2lorrys had then attempted to overtake on each side- one getting stuck in the mud the other getting stuck against the cliff edge. There was a small very very muddy dirt lane up the side which was free only problem was it was next to a sharp cliff drop. Mr. isaac (the legend) our driver attempted to get up but we were sliding all over the place so thought against it. Now you woudldve thought people coming would get out there cars/ trucks/ TANKERS to have a look see if they could make it. But this is africa so they didnt. We stood and watched as a tanker bombed it down the steep mud sloap next to the cliff drop. It slid towards the truck then towards the cliff edge then the tanker slid at a 90degree angel to the bit where the driver was. God knows how he made it we all thought he was off the cliff- scary stuff! We were there for a good few hours watching people bomb it up / down we even had to turn some peoples 4x4 on for them (they coudlnt figure it out)! Eventually the road was getting cleared they just had to move the lorries load which ironically turned out to be a load full of tarmac. UNLUCKY. We decided to go back to camp and hold out a day! We spent most of the rest of that day just playing football on the beach!

The next day was when the rain began. Right at brekfast as i was attempting to be helpful and take down ians tent for him- as it turns out it went very badly and all the happened in the end was a soaking wet alice and a half packed tent with puddles in it which had accidently been dropped in the mud and put inthe truck wrong- ooops! I did get better at the whole tent putting down thing though believe it or not!. That day was another day of driving - we went to a national park and set up camp. In the national park were really small winding bumpy roads- not ideal for a truck and therefore becuase of this one of the windows of tokoloshe was broken by a big branch. Isaac out driver loves his big yello truck and was not happy. So he got his macheti out of the truck and began to hack not just teh branch but the tree down- the rangers were too scared to say anything i think!. One settled in we were taken on a private walk for a few hours round the park managed to see some elephants and some hippos quite close up ( which appeared to be getting closer every time they ducked under the water!) We then saw some monkeys, termites etc and a lot of turds (mainly elelphant) which our leader kept touching and smelling :S ! WE got back to camp at dusk and had dinner. I say camp i mean a piece of grass in teh middle of a natural park. Also this piece of grass just happened to be less then 10m away from the lake. The lake were there were crocs hippos and elephants that you could hear! What was even better was our guide explained to us how hippos and elephants only tend to attack if you were between them and water - and where were we between the lake and their 'sleeping grounds'! what a great idea. They then told us we better make sure theres big gaps between our tents because if there isnt room the elephants/ hippos will just trample the tents( liek what happened a few years ago apparently!) they then expected us to sleep!. A few of us sat round the camp fire- there was very little to do and anyfood etc wasnt a good idea as it attracted the animals! So we sat and talked calmly- until we heard an elephant, very close. That was it, we spent the majority of the rest of the evening sitting in silence listening- never a good idea - there was plashing trampling trumpetting and however youd describe hippos noises very load! The splashing waws the worst- it sounded like they were getting out of the water and all you could see was nothing it was pitch balck apart from our truck light!. At one point you could hear them coming! It was amazing to hear but sooo scary the 5 of us left up literally ran to the truck which was now locked and looked like idiots frantically rattling it trying to get in! That was the worst nights sleep. It was soo sureal going to sleep to the sounds of elephants trumpeting but at the same time soo scary because they were soo close and you could tell they were! I woke up in the night needing a pee (there is a point to this) started making my way to the drop toilet( not nice by the way!) got about half way heard hippos very very close in the shrubs and pegged it back. If you wanted to no i peed outside the tent! classy aye! Was very scary woke up early - apparently we had had a few go through the camp through teh night. In teh morning went over to the lake and was lucky enough to see a big group of elephants less than 100m away with babies all bathing! It was amazing to see was about 6 in the morning - watched them slowly swim/walk to the other side of the lake!

Unsuprisingly i spent most of teh next day on the truck catching up on lost sleep!. The next campsite was quite nice - we were camping literally metres away from the beach of lake malawi! It went downhill from here- it rained ALOT. It rained - bucketed it down ALL night and all day. Inthe next day afternoon went on a village walk. It stopped raining for about 2 hours which was nice! We walked with some locals who explained to me all about how their family system works- they have a boys and girls generic name which they add to the end of their own depending on their sex. It seemed like quite a poor village- we went to the orphanage which was at a local church becuase when it rains they have no other shelter! We met soem of the kids and gave them some pencils and pens and a skipping rope which they loved 😊 . Some of them were only there for the day so that theyre grandparents/ quardians could work. My guide alex told me about how his mother ( a headache- i assume that may be aids?!) and father (cancer) died when he was about 15 so hes now head of the family. luckily he was shown some craftmanship by his dad before he died so he now spends all year round finding suitable wood and trying to sell carvings. It was really interesting to see how they lived and to talk to him about it! We spent tmost of the rest of our time in that camp watching crap like jerry springer etc to kill the time whilst it flooded outside! eventually we got over-bored an d did some beach running and a bit of swimming in lake malawi (oops!) by now our tent was soggy and my sleeping bag was beginning to damp a bit :S . The next morning was even worse! we woke up the rain was turrentail - ran to the shelter had some brekkie and then laughed as one of our tents began floating towards the lake. Whilst laughing me and luce realised our tent seemed to be in a similar looking stream- i now had a quite damp sleeping bag!. Later tehat day we actually had a few hours of sun! so a few of us ventured to kande beach and went on a pedalo on the lake. Me and racheal peddled for basicaly the whole time (steve and ash were lazy adn sat and drank beer and gave directions!) we peddled to an island tied up and had a little explore/ rock climb. Had another little swim in the lake- they pretended to peddle off (not funny!) and then went back to shore. We grudgingly headed back to camp only to find it had got worse. The bar which was our only sheltetr from the rain apart from our tents was now REALLY ant infested. The sofas chairs floor everywhere was crawling in them 😞 . The next morning we all woke up happy to be getting out of there! The truck looked liek a big clothes line- everyone was just hanging all theyr damp ( and now ant infested clothes everywhere in an attempt to dry them!

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