World Wittering

The Blood of Cheese Hearse duly did the trick and we were deposited anon at the border town of Chipata. Here we were, naturally, but quite politely and with some skill, ripped off on a currency exchange and then bundled into a Toyota Corolla – which then cruised the streets until it was filled with seven people, plus baggage, and could depart for the border crossing itself.

After a nervous few kilometres swerving cyclists, potholes and oncoming juggernauts to the soundtrack of the protesting suspension, we reached the barrier and had our final experience of those lovely Zambian immigration officials. Passports stamped with bored indifference, we stumbled, fully laden through no man’s land and into Malawi, the self-styled Warm Heart Of Africa TM.

The first demostration  of this warmth was the lack of a visa fee – bonus – but then it was back to business as usual as we haggled with taxi drivers wanting an exhorbitant amount of money to take us the few kilometres to the nearest town, Mchinji, where we could catch a bus to Lilongwe. Ludicrous price duly negotiated, we loaded the bags in the boot and climbed into the ubiquitous Toyota Corolla, whereupon we were informed that the journey would not be commencing until the necessary four additional passengers had arrived and been similarly fleeced.

It was the middle of an overbearingly hot day involving an early start, crowded bus stations, noisy people wanting our money, what can I say? Words were exchanged with the taxi drivers, some of them quite short, ancient words introduced by the Saxon hordes when they reached our shores over a thousand years ago. Lee declared her intention to hitchhike and stomped to the side of the road with her shoulders set in a purposeful attitude.

I confess, after our previous hitching experiences, I wasn’t optimistic, particularly given the singular lack of traffic in the vicinity – not one car had passed us since we’d been dropped on the Zambian side some half an hour before. I felt a humiliating climbdown and a long wait for the Toyota to overfill were the only likely outcomes.

And then, moments later, like the shopkeeper in Mr Benn, a shining white pickup truck appeared, towing a large, slightly surreal boat. It was waved through the barrier and pulled up next to Lee at the roadside. There were some agonising moments of verbal to and fro and then the overwhelming relief as a thumbs up was signalled. I jumped out of the car and wrenched open the boot, summoning super-human strength from somewhere and managing to carry all of our bags towards the vehicle at once.

By now the taxi drivers had cottoned on to the latest developments and began shouting and waving at me as I staggered closer to our salvation. With a couple of lunges, the large packs were quickly lodged in the rear and I jumped up into the cab alongside Lee and expressed my relief and thanks to the driver, a rotund Zimbabwean who introduced himself as Peter. A couple of taxi drivers crowded around the drivers side window and started hurling abuse, demanding that Peter should not give us a lift and even threatening to call the police to arrest him for the heinous crime of denying them the opportunity to fleece a tourist, or somesuch.

Peter calmly waved away the protests, called their bluff on the police threats and we were on our way to Lilongwe. Peter proved to be excellent company, regaling us with stories of his days as an overland truck driver, driving hordes of demanding backpackers from London to Cape Town with plenty of high jinks along the way. Now he was based back in Zim and was running a fleet of cargo trucks throughout Southern Africa – the jaunt with the boat to Malawi a pleasant diversion to get him out of the office for a few days.

The time passed easily and we reached Lilongwe just after dark, pulling into the prestigious, but comically named, Crossroads hotel complex where Peter was staying. We felt it the least we could do to furnish our new friend with several beers – locally brewed Carlsberg no less – and a rather decent Chinese meal to express our gratitude. Needless to say, it would have been rude not to join him, and so it was getting on for ten o’clock when our taxi dropped us at our backpackers, the Mabuya Lodge.

Our only desire, to collapse into bed in a double room with ensuite, was immediately dashed as the owners, Janey and Tim, a jolly English couple, informed us they were fully booked. Relief was attained though when the pitching of our trusty tent was given the go ahead. Tim then asked the only remaining salient question, did we want a beer before or after completion of the aforementioned erection. With an unexpected show of chivalrousness, which leapt out of me from a deep dark place where I like to keep it hidden, I told Lee to grab herself a cold one and I would do the necessary on my tod. She concurred without missing a beat, the rest of the bar stared at me with a mix of admiration and disbelief, and ten minutes later the tent was up and I was ensconsed at the bar trying to see if I could taste the difference between a Carlsberg Green and a Carlsberg Brown. I couldn’t. Even after several tries.

The unbearable morning heat inside the tent cut through the hangover like broken glass and made a lie in an impossibility, I also seemed to have come down with some sort of flu bug. We broke fast with strong coffee and banana milkshakes and then made our way into town. Alas, Lilongwe, capital city though it may be, had little to offer on the architectural, cultural or historical front and so I soon repaired to an internet cafe to blog while Lee sorted our bus tickets out for the next day (despite the fact we had clearly agreed that we would leave on the Sunday, thereby enabling me to spend a pleasant Saturday afternoon watching England beat Estonia at football and then make it a double by somehow emerging victorious against Australia in the rugby World Cup Semi-final – not that it mattered of course). It was also decided that Lee would visit the bank and stock up on enough cash too keep us going for the expected month or so until we would be in a town where we could next withdraw it.

It was dark when the blog was complete and we caught a taxi back to the camp. We had a brief row about the bus ticket date of departure important national sporting occasion fiasco and then Lee produced a plastic bag full of Malawian Kwache. She’d been unable to change any into dollars and so we were left with a wad about the size of two house bricks to somehow transport covertly and without arising the interest of hostile parties. It had been a long and trying day after a late boozy night after a long trying day and so we opted for an early night.

We broke camp and took our taxi to catch the bus at the mercifully civilised time of 11.00. It was the usual story with an abundance of people, livestock, produce and interesting aromas couples with a shortage of legroom, comfort, punctuality, functioning suspension – but I was at least able to catch the second half of the footie on the World Service, at least as long as I stuck the ariel out of the window and re-tuned every two minutes or so.

Six or seven, who knows, maybe it was eight hours later, we arrived in Mzuzu and were soon being overcharged for a taxi in traditional fashion. Once more there were no available rooms at Mzoozoozoo (can you see what they did there?) and so we pitched our tent “anywhere you like, just watch out for the dog turds” and then continued our study of the local beverage – Lee deciding Green was the superior brew while I felt inclined to disagree and professed my belief in the power of Brown, Carlsberg not Gordon. My head full of mucus and prone to long bouts of sneezing uncontrollably, I retired early.

In the morning we met a bald Italian by the name of Alex who struck up a conversation with us about our travel plans. I ran him through my proposed route across the lake by ferry to the Mozambiquan border and onwards by bus to Beira where we were to meet my mum on November 6th. Alex pooh poohed this as the babblings of a madman, declaring that it would be hell trying to traverse that part of northern Mozambique by public transport and coming to our aid with the offer of a lift – by an amazing coincidence his wife and kids lived in Beira and he would be driving there two weeks hence. All we had to do was return to Lilongwe in time to get our Mozambique visa in advance, thereby minimising potential border corruption style hassles, and he would pick us up and drop us in Beira twelve hours later. We exchanged phone numbers and, having downed three espressos in very quick succession, he was off.

This left our time in Malawi shortened by a week and meant that we had to have a very vocal and public disagreement about our next destination – Lee wanting to stick with the plan to make for Livingstonia, a remote mountain town with less than integrated public transport links, I wanted to bin that idea and head straight for the lake as quickly as possible and get stuck into the legendary party scene.

Needless to say, Lee won, by the simple tactic of declaring her intention to go to Livingstonia with or without me. I was forced to declare foul play and back down, winning only a concession to save time by travelling by taxi, and stating my full intention to be in a huff for the entire duration as a protest at such a low blow and clear contravention of a promise made to her own mother that mine would always be the final word in such circumstances.

We telephoned our taxi driver of the previous evening and broke camp in bad temper. The taxi arrived and I left it to Lee to negotiate the price. Agreement was reached and the bags were loaded, we pulled out of the gates and another man got in the car. It transpired the taxi was his and it would be him driving us to Livingstonia. We had travelled about a hundred metres when he started to renegotiate the fare, forcing me to suppress a smile. Lee maintained her morning’s tactic of sticking to her guns and calling bluff and told him to accept the price or turn around and take us back, he backed down.

Minutes later, we pulled into the petrol station (every African taxi journey includes a visit to the first available petrol station and the request of a proportion of the fare in advance to cover fuel, it just wouldn’t be cricket any other way) and the driver tried his luck once more, using everything from rising fuel prices to the poor quality of the road and the short notice as justification for almost doubling the price. Lee gave him the hairdrier treatment and we were deposited straight back to Mzoozoozoo and square one.

The drippy looking American girl who appeared to be running the place launched into a well rehearsed diatribe about African taxi drivers, Lee ordered a beer and I settled down on the porch to continue reading Richard E Grant’s film diaries, which I had brazenly pilfered from their book exchange. One of their regular taxi drivers was telephoned, a price agreed and, ten minutes later, duly arrived. The bags were in the boot and a cursory confirmation sought of the agreed tariff, the man smiled bashfully and raised the fare by fifty percent. The bags were swiftly removed and we stood back as the American girl proved that appearances can be deceptive and verbally lashed the poor sod with an admirable vehemence that, despite its ferocity, seemed merely to bounce off him, the effect mortally weakened by the fact that he simply couldn’t care less whether he ever got a booking from them again, which, she promised, he wouldn’t.

More beer was procured, one Green one Brown, I returned to my spot on the porch and another taxi was summoned, this time with a protracted telephone warning that any attempt to renegotiate upon arrival or during the subsequent journey would be likely to result in testicular removal and insertion into a destination free of solar radiation.

This time we were in luck – the driver, Owen, was lovely and, better still, had a really nice sporty looking Toyota. He confirmed the price had not risen, loaded the bags and we were off – to the petrol station. We had a further short stop so that Lee could stock up on essentials for the journey – 3 Green, 3 Brown and two huge bags of crisps – I wondered if she was trying to get me drunk and buried my head further into the paranoid rantings of Withnail in between mammoth sneezes.

Two hours of bendy mountain roads, flu, alcohol, crisps and the paranoid rantings of Withnail meant that, upon arrival, I was in an even worse mood than before -so much so that I was able to completely block out the stunning beauty of our destination.

The Mushroom Farm is a wonderful rustic encampment on the side of the mountain with panoramic views for miles over the flat plains stretching below to the shores of Lake Malawi, a shimmering turquoise expanse which, in turn, merges imperceptably at the horizon with the azure of the cloudless sky. I didn’t copy that off the promotional blurb, I actually made that up myself. Dotted through the woods were a lovely thatched bar area, a couple of lounging areas, one with space for a fire, a collection of chalets and a raised, covered dais covering the composting toilet – OK, all slightly on the hippy, tree hugging side, but in a nice way.

We checked in and pitched camp on an earthen shelf with aforementioned stunning view and I carried on sulking. Night fell, we gathered for dinner – vegetarian naturellement – with the owner, Mick, a dour Australian, his chirpy Irish girlfriend Liz, a strange English guy who refused to shake my hand “because you’re ill” and another English bloke who looked like a bearded ginger Action Man. I refused to utter a word, barely ate a thing and retired to bed, confirming Mick’s query – “You a bit crook mate? with a mumbled affirmative”. In my absence, Lee filled them all in on my unreasonable and childish behaviour.

As was becoming painfully clear, camping in Africa means early mornings as the stifling heat makes staying inside the tent unbearable after about 7 am. Still not on speaking terms, Lee set off to hike to Livingstonia via some waterfalls and I repaired to one of the lounge areas to read, doze and sniffle rather pathetically. Upon her return we finally made up, I even conceded that it had been a good plan to come as it really was so spectacularly beautiful and she told me what a ridiculously hard hike it had been up to the town in such hot conditions but that the waterfalls had been beautiful and the people very friendly and she had to go back tomorrow with money and buy some lovely big ornately carved wooden chairs to send home – talk about kicking a man when he’s down. I sighed, ordered some beer and asked the barman to light the fire in the seating area.

Just at that moment a pair of Finns joined us and began recounting a horror story of a three day hike through Nyika National Park with a guide who’d turned the whole thing into a high speed forced march through unbearable conditions - all without porters to carry their heavy packs and camping gear. This was a trip we’d planned to do ourselves but abandoned due to the time constraints – what a relief, our mood was immediately lifted and the evening progressed swimmingly. Even that night’s generic vegetarian brown casserole was less than entirely bland and the Finns proved to be good company, though lacking the je ne sais quoi that would, for instance, allow me to remember their names.

Owen arrived at 6.30 next morning and we were soon packed and ready to depart. On his advice we declined to drive to Livingstonia to purchase the large, heavy, ornately carved wooden chairs as it was a well known fact that they were enormously over-priced. Instead, he took us to Chitmebe Beach where there was a row of stalls selling hundreds of items from tiny carved bowls and boxes to, ahem, large, heavy, ornately carved wooden chairs. Lee promised me faithfully she’d buy two for no more than a certain amount and in no more than a certain amount of time and left me sweating and reading in the back of the car.

Soon, the heat became impossible to endure and I sought shelter in shade. Alas, the only shade in the vicinity was that provided by the craft stalls. Still, I got away very lightly, having only to purchase a wrist band of dubious quality. Lee was in the throes of haggling, and, after only three times longer than the fifteen minutes agreed upon, had tied up the deal for only twice as many of the chairs, plus the bonus of a free set of salad, y’know, implements.

Seeing it was pointless to do more than harumph mildly, I loaded the car and Owen set about driving us back to Mzuzu suicidally quickly. Just outside town he rendezvoused with another driver, had us transplanted into the other car with an agreed price and the promise to take us to Nkhata Bay by way of the post office and was off in a cloud of dust. The taxi dropped me at a fancy hotel where I sipped icy Coca Cola and carried on with my book while Lee tried to find someone willing to ship her weighty purchases homeward without charging more than they actually cost.

An hour later, task completed at the third port of call (DHL wanted over $1000!), she returned and we drove to the lake, one of my most looked forward to destinations of the whole trip. We headed to Mayoka Village, the backpackers widely held to be the best on the lake, a sprawling collection of thatched wooden chalets spread out on a hillside overlooking the lake. Upon arrival, were made to feel immediately at home with a Green and a Brown and a couple of sandwiches in their spacious bar. Once refreshed, we were led to a shady ledge on the hillside within a stone’s throw of the water, where we could pitch our tent. We had a couple of hours of hammock before tucking into the delicious Free Tuesday Buffet and then calling it a night almost indecently early, another worrying side effect of camping to go with the unreasonably early mornings.

Wednesday duly arrived and we had a wander down into town after breakfast, including a quick visit to the Soweto Leisure Centre, a local bar full of character and characters, for a fizzy pop and then popped into an internet cafe to check email. Here we met Stuart, another Mayoka resident who mentioned that a group were coming down that afternoon to go to the Bongo Beat Bar (formerly the Golden Dawg) to watch the Russia v England game on the big screens. I confirmed I would be happy to join them.

Cometh the appointed hour, cometh the men, Stuart, an English Everton supporter from somewhere near Coventry, Craig, a Scot living in Scarborough with the voice of Mick McCarthy and Wolfgang, a German, oh and Lee, from Norn Iron, living in England – three to two in support of the Russians then. Fortunately, as everywhere else we’ve been, the locals were all England fans. Unfortunately, England were unable to muster anything more than their usual drivel and two of us returned to Mayoka disappointed at the mortal blow which had been dealt to our hopes of qualification for the European Championships.

Back at the bar, Lee soon made her excuses and took herself off to bed and I sat down with Craig and eyed a bottle of absinthe someone had brought with envious eyes. Soon, I was introduced to Gary, the owner, and he took me out into a secluded spot and introduced me to a friend of his who’d brought him some essential supplies. Gary seemed to be quite hyper and wasn’t making a great deal of sense and so we returned to the bar and sat back down with Craig, Wolfgang and John, another English guy of advanced years and an old friend of Gary’s. Wolfgang demanded some decent music, blues if possible, and I nipped to the tent to grab my ipod and obliged.

Gary, it soon transpired, was off on one and he began to order whisky shots for everyone in the bar. Time wore on and the numbers depleted until just our table and a group of locals were left. More whisky shots were dispatched and the subject somehow turned to child abuse, with Gary saying something along the lines of the majority of abusers having suffered abuse themselves. Craig instantly bristled and could be heard shouting in full McCarthy tones “He’s saying it’s alright to bum kids!”

All hell broke loose, Craig repeated his accusation interspersed with generous and colourful helpings of critical analysis of Gary’s person, Gary refused to clarify his position, seeming to spout huge long rambling sentences without actually saying anything comprehensible, John sort of whimpered his belief that Gary really didn’t mean that and Wolfgang just kind off sat with a thousand yard stare, obviously desperately uncomfortable but seemingly unable to move, perhaps the blues mojo had got him transfixed.

Finally, as it seemed Craig was about to embark on a course of violent retribution and it was clear that Gary was unwilling to say the simple words necessary to avoid it, I had to step in. I told them both to shut up, I told Craig I didn’t believe Gary had meant what he thought he’d meant, explained in words of one syllable to Gary exactly what Craig thought he’d meant and that all he had to do was answer a simple yes or no question and, finally, put Craig’s accusation to him in the form of a yes or no question. Gary’s reply was an unclear stream of consciousness babbling that reminded me of Dennis Hopper in Apocalypse Now when he’s clearly off his head, greeting Martin Sheen in the Cambodian jungle. This was a little spooky as Gary does physically resemble Dennis Hopper, but more his later Blue Velvet or Speed incarnation. Craig’s response was to start shouting obscenities. I decided I’d had enough and retreated to the bar.

Here I met and fell into conversation with hot local talent Rudy K, who proceeded to play me the cd he’d just made – two tracks of top quality Malawian reggae, the lead song entitled “Don’t Propose Your Friend Wife”, an admirable sentiment. Rudy and I fell into musical chatter, naming songs we both liked which I would find on the ipod and play, and forcing down the whisky shots that were still appearing with alarming regularity.

Eventually I decided that I needed to play some authentic South London music to represent what was happening back on the streets I’d left behind. For some reason this took the form of a Nicky Blackmarket and Micky Finn classic jungle compilation. I cranked the volume up to full blast, spouted a load of meaningless rubbish about “the sound of street level” or somesuch and then set about trying to teach him my patented knee driven jungle dance. It can only be a sign of how drunk he was that he didn’t simply laugh in my face.

By the early hours of the morning there was only Gary and I and the bottle of scotch left. Not the first one obviously, that had been polished off hours earlier. Gary was barely comprehensible or vertical, but I probably wasn’t either. We rambled on about who knows what for an age until it became clear to me that Gary was in full Uncle Monty mode and trying to seduce me with all his talk of my beautiful spirit and wonderful personality. I decided to confront him head on and launched into a forceful rebuttal of his advances, telling him in no uncertain terms that it wasn’t going to happen and spouting a highly emotionally charged sermon detailing the purity of my love for Lee. I wish I could remember how it went because it seemed to have the desired effect of fobbing him off in a way that all he could do was admit that our love was so noble and beautiful that any attempt by him to burgle me would be to stamp on the delicate flower of love’s young dream – could come in handy for a wedding speech I’m thinking. I decided to go to bed.

The following day was spent lolling about with the mother, father and grandparents of all hangovers. Lee managed to harangue me enough to get me to swim to a platform moored a hundred metres or so out in the lake. What was I thinking? What was she thinking? After a minute or two of lying on it the bobbing motion had made me feel ill but I was still too weak to swim back. I got into the water and had to float hanging onto the side until I thought I had enough energy left to make it back. By the time I reached dry land I was convinced I was going to die.

I staggered to the bar – only because it was the nearest place I could lie down. I was amazed to find Gary there. I was even more amazed to find that Gary was still drinking – it was two in the afternoon and he clearly hadn’t slept. He was perched on a bar stool, still swigging his whisky shots, babbling incoherently and periodically tipping over and landing heavily on the concrete floor.

Finally, enough was enough and his wife was summoned to retrieve the situation. She and one of the staff carried him down the steps to the lake where they dunked him in the water baptism style – perhaps they were trying to exorcise some demon – he surfaced, stood, staggered, fell, thrashed about a bit and was then dragged back onto dry land and carried up the hill to bed. For a while no one could quite look each other in the eye. Then he became the number one topic of conversation with me as star witness to the night before, I just wanted peace and quiet. It was an early night.

Naturally, considering the state I’d been in, Lee had organised a fishing trip on the lake for early the next morning with Stuart and his wife, Amanda. We set off at 7am with Captain Billy and his cousin Gift across the fairly turbulent waters for a couple of hours. Then we dropped anchor and threw some weighted hooks over the side and held onto the end of seventy metres of string as it slowly unrolled down into the murky depths. Captain Billy caught a fish almost immediately, then nothing. Periodically, we would feel a tugging and reel in the full seventy metres of line hand over hand – then it would appear that we’d either imagined it and the bait would be there, or that we hadn’t been quick enough and the bait would be gone.

After about ten minutes I was feeling ill and praying for it to end. Fortunately, it wasn’t long before Stuart and Amanda were feeling equally nauseous. This made my bargaining position with Lee far stronger, and stronger still when Stuart actually threw up over the side. Captain Billy caught one more fish and then we demanded to be taken back. It only took twenty minutes or so longer for Captain Billy and Gift to pack the gear away and then we were motoring back to base at top speed, reaching there in only 45 minutes, great.

We were given the good news that the chalet we’d decided to move into was ready – the best in the place with a large stone bath. We’d had enough of waking up being sunbaked at 5.30 am and being fit to drop by 8pm. We didn’t even bother taking the tent down, just dragged our bags up the hill, ran the bath and lay there, me feeling like death, Lee, of course, having enjoyed it immensely.

The day’s activities were only just beginning, however. There was only just time to drag myself down for some lunch before I had to pull on my red number 8 shirt and get down to the town’s pitch for a Mayoka XI versus Locals football match – to be played in the searing heat at three in the afternoon. Reaching the pitch it became clear that the opponents were a group of boys no older than twelve and no taller than five feet. Naturally, they scored first after a horrific goalkeeping blunder from our side, but gradually we got into the game and, by the time I’d been subbed, completely exhausted after ten minutes, a couple of overlapping runs from full-back and a mazy but ultimately fruitless dribble like a Macmanaman of old, then brought back on for the final ten, we were 4-2 up at the final whistle. Honour just about intact, there was only one thing for it, another long soak in the bath.

We returned to the bar in time to catch an excellent show by a troupe of Tanzanian acrobats, finally obtain some essential supplies and to run into an extremely drunk Rudy K. After another delicious buffet meal, Lee retired early again and I ended up propping the future reggae megastar up and trying to get a coherent sentence out of him. It took half an hour before he remembered me from our previous meeting. He produced the copy of his cd he’d promised me, which I duly paid silly money for. Then I, perhaps erroneously, happened to mention I knew a guy in London who would know anyone who might be interested in new Malawian reggae talent and could forward the cd to them. Before I knew it, I seemed to have promised him I was going to break him in London and he was discussing plans for making a video to accompany the single.

I backtracked hastily, but then seemed to be possessed by the spirit of Ian Faith, legendary manager of Spinal Tap, as I began to dispense sage advice on how he should develop his musical career further and overcome his fundamental problem – raising cash for studio time without having to resort to the retail of proscribed herbs. I outlined a plan for him to get a couple of mates together, obtain an acoustic guitar and some bongos – “What’s your friend over there called with the dreads”, “Bongo Noah”, “Bongo Knower?” “Yeah”, “What about him on bongos then?”, “Oh yeah” – and put together a set of reggae standards, Bob Marley songs, together with his own material and play it to backpackers at the various lodges around the lake. We knew Gary would let him play at Mayoka as he’d financed the recording of the first two songs. If he got established at Mayoka, word would soon spread and he could start passing the hat round several nights a week and easily get the cash to record more of the songs he already had written, and he could sell cd’s at the same time – it seemed like genius.

I asked how much Gary had paid to finance the first recording session, approximately $30. “Right,” I said, “I’ll be in Lilongwe on Friday – book the session, I’ll pay for it, I’ll be there, maybe I’ll play a little bass or something.” I was clearly getting a little carried away. I continued banging on about the importance of getting on email, how he could send songs online, set up a MySpace account and so on, all the time slightly concerned he was too wasted to remember anything I was saying so I wrote alot of it down for him. Around one o’clock he could barely stand and I was just repeating the same things over and over again – time for bed.

After the first night in a bed since Lusaka, a delicious lie in, the first in ages, and a substantial breakfast, it was time to join the lads for a stroll down to the Bongo Beats Club for what promised to be a top day of sport. The day began perfectly with the Merseyside Derby which we won with style, panache and the aid of two penalties – the second given in stoppage time during which the big screen projector had packed in causing everyone to rush into the smaller bar area and crowd round a tiny television set. We only learned of the award of the penalty and its subsequent scoring when the screams of celebration began. Craig, another Liverpool fan, and I were ecstatic, our jubilation made even sweeter by the presence of Stuart, an actual Evertonian, and his clear distress at the blatant robbery that had been committed on his team in their back yard.

Stuart stomped hom distaught. Craig and I stayed for the beginning of an Arsenal game, but then Ellie, Craig’s wife, and Lee arrived and it was clear that another game wasn’t an option. Instead we walked back up to Mayoka for some quality time lying about doing nothing at all. Still, at least I could listen to the match on the World Service.

After an evening barbecue where it was entirely feasible we paid good money to eat some of the fish caught on the fishing trip we’d paid so much good money for, we headed back down to the Bongo and settled in for the Rugby World Cup Final. Fortunately there was no repeat of the group game whipping and we acquitted ourselves reasonably. Deep down I knew the derby result was the one that really mattered and so wasn’t more than a trifle disappointed.

We returned to Mayoka and downed consolation beers. Stuart and Lee were up for a big one but I couldn’t physically cope with another late night and retired to bed. I believe Lee staggered in at four.

Next morning we treated ourselves to another lie in and hearty breakfast, caught up with Gary who, sober, was a much pleasanter character and treated us to his life story which involved a chain of South African hairdressing salons, addiction to crack cocaine, selling his body for money in Johannesburg’s Little Nigeria and finding redemption at Mayoka and with his wife, even if he did sometimes fall off the wagon. It explained alot.

And then it was time to leave. I was really sorry to go, Mayoka Village is a really special place – beautiful surroundings, sympathetically developed, lovely accommodation and excellent facilities, the friendliest and most professional staff we’ve encountered in Africa, a wonderful vibe and a fantastic group of people – I would recommend it to anyone, and have done constantly since we left.

Oh, and thanks for a legendary night Gary, I’ll never forget you.

But off we had to go, catching a minibus with the regulation twenty people in it to Kande Beach, a couple of hours down the shore. We were deposited at the side of the road and set off to trudge the twenty minutes or so to the lodge. To make our journey more enjoyable, a local youth walked with us and pestered us continuously to come see his shop. Drenched in sweat, we finally reached the camp, checked in and pitched our tent. The location was lovely, a proper sandy beach with a nice thatched wooden bar overlooking it. We’d arrived in time to see our reason for coming as well -as we sipped a refreshing beverage, a procession of horses were ridden bareback into the sea for a swim.

In the morning, Lee was up early but I managed to drag my slumber out beyond eight o’clock, a tent record. Then I indulged in a very large full English breakfast and spent the rest of the morning in a hammock in preparation for the afternoon’s exertions. At two we were picked up by the dusky, and very well spoken, Alexa and driven to the stables where a collection of horses rescued from Zimbabwe had been nurtured back to full health and excellent condition. Here we met blonde, and equally well spoken, Caroline and Johnny, a scruffy brummie missing his front teeth but attached to the aforementioned dusky Alexa and, presumably, waking up each morning thanking his lucky stars.

We were introduced to the other riders, a motley crew of gap year types from an overland truck, and then to our horses. And then we were off. We walked a bit – what is the horse word for walk? – and then they insisted we trot, something I’m really not very good at you’ll remember, then Lee did some cantering while we continued trotting and, just as it seemed like ti was going to last forever, we’d reached the camp. We changed into swimming gear and the horses were relieved of their saddles and then we made our way towards the beach. There was a stone ramp which all the horses went down, as they must do every day, leading to the beach. All the horses except mine of course, who suddenly bolted and launched itself over a low wall and down onto the sand. Amazingly I stayed on. Then we had a quick dip in the sea and the ordeal, erm, the experience was over. Bar, beer, dinner, bed.

In the morning we shared Owen’s car with a German homeopath back to Lilongwe. On the journey Lee complained of feeling nauseous and then asked for the car to be stopped so that she could vomit copiously out of the doorway. Quick as a flash, our Teutonic complementary medic had whipped out a leather bound folder containing sinister looking vials of white granules and administered a dose. Half an hour later the car didn’t quite stop in time and Lee left an orange strip down the rear wing, the homeopath didn’t look suitably embarrassed.

We reached Lilongwe and checked into a decent hotel, as per previously stated travel protocols. Lee had regressed into some sort of childlike state which meant that she had to have ice to suck on – the hotel obviously didn’t have any – total darkness and complete silence – and no, you can’t watch the bloody television.  I made her as comfortable as possible and left to amuse myself at the internet cafe before enjoying a solitary dinner with my book and turning in.

In the morning, with Lee sufficiently recovered to move, we took a taxi to the Mozambique embassy and put in our visa applications. The form called for us to state the border crossing we would be using and so we called Alex to ask him. He gave us the name but then told us there was a change of plan – he was now leaving on Friday and would pick us up from the border town of Dedza. We then headed back to Mabuya camp, decided Lee was still not quite up to staying in the tent, plumped for a pleasant chalet with a proper double bed and spent several hours reclining with a book and the World Service. Then it was back to the embassy to collect the visas, back to the camp, an early night for Lee and I was forced to watch Liverpool losing to Besiktas in the Champions League – arse.

I woke up in a cold sweat the next morning with a feeling of dread that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Without really knowing why, I reached for my passport, found the Mozambique visa, checked the date and turned to Lee to inform her that our visas commenced one day late. She sighed and then, completely unexpectedly, offered to go and sort it out while I stayed in bed – bizarre.

Later, disaster averted, we caught a minibus to Dedza, found a not altogether unpleasant hotel, had a wander, found a little local place for lunch, had an almost acceptable meal and then I turned in – sleep patterns all over the place, I blame the tent/chalet mixture, body clock clearly didn’t have a clue how to cope – after disposing of the final essential supplies. Lee went for a stroll round town, there wasn’t much to see.

That evening, the phone rang, it was Rudy K calling to tell me he was in Lilongwe. Despite the fact that I had told him to call me before he left home to confirm everything was still going to plan, and that Alex had changed his plans and it was beyond my control, I felt terrible. The disappointment in his voice when I told him where I was and that I couldn’t make, and therefore pay for, the session cut through me like razor blades. The phone went dead and I couldn’t work out whether I’d done anything wrong, I didn’t sleep well.

We got up and called Alex to find out what time and where to meet. He said he’d had car trouble, was running late but would meet us at 11.00 at the police road block just outside of town at the junction for the border turn-off. We checked out, locked our bags in a storage cupboard and went back to the local place for an almost acceptable breakfast. At the prescribed hour we reported back to reception and found it deserted. In a state of mild panic, we searched the compound for the receptionist but found only some maintenance staff who told us that she’d gone home, taking the key with her of course. We demanded they send someone to get her, phone her, break the door down, anything as long as we got our bags immediately. After a very tense twenty minutes that seemed like a lifetime, the receptionist finally appeared, strolled casually in and opened the door for us to retrieve our bags.

We saddled up and started to yomp up the road through the drizzle, drawing stares from the locals which we were not in the mood to acknowledge with our customary waves and smiles. Eventually, I reached the junction, it was just after 11.00. Lee was some way behind so I waited, scanning the road, until she caught up, then we walked the final couple of hundred metres to the road block.

There was no sign of Alex. We dumped the bags and waited.

At 12.00 I tried to call him – we’d waited that long because he’d sounded so uptight on the previous call and we didn’t want to add to his stress – I got a recorded message stating that the number I was dialing was temporarily unavailable. What could that mean? One distinct possibility was that he’d already crossed the border. We waited another twenty minutes, constantly trying the number and then, with one or two choice epithets, we picked up our burdens and began the long, slow trudge to the border.