Maouli Bwanjie

Hey there blog fans, well the plans have changed again and I'm still in Malawi. Having spent two weeks luxuriating on a tropical island I'm back on the mainland and planning to head into Zambia. But more of those plans later.

We headed over to Likoma Island on the 19th on the beautiful if antiquated Ilala ferry (made in Glasgow circa 1800). It was a beautiful moonlit journey marred only by Mat the "I wish I could kill all the taxi drivers in Namibia" Pratt. He introduced himself and then never left. Some people really never should come to Africa, much less volunteer there for two years. Something tells me Matt will be going home early, either that or languishing in prison after a murder spree. Having learnt that Matt would be on Likoma for Xmas too, we jumped off the ferry one stop early for Chizumulu Island and spent four days as the only guests at Wakwenda lodge. The island is tiny, with thousands of blue and yellow fish lurking all over the rocks. It's home to a colony of yellow kites that fish out of the lake in competition with the eagles.

Sooner or later we got bored of our island paradise and decided to risk Matts rants and headed over to Likoma after all. Here's a lesson for all budding travellers, if you have to hike 4km with your rusksack after a 2 hour ride in an exposed Dhow, have breakfast and take water, we didn't, we nearly died. We staggered into Mango drift like a couple of tomatoes on bambi legs. Lesson learnt.

Christmas was surreal, you can't really get your head into the "jingle bells" spirit when you're looking at palm trees and crystal clear waters. New years went the same way, we were on the ferry on the way back to the Mainland and at about 10pm I remembered what day it was and went looking for beer. They had none. Happy new year. Luckily we had stowed a bottle of "the big five", pure cane spirit, evil stuff that will give you more of a trip than a hangover.

Recipe: The Big Five

1 large bottle of medical alchohol
scotch flavourings.

Cures what ails ye.

So when the boat comes in at 3am and we have nowhere to stay sleeping on deck seems like a plan. Then the storm comes in. Then the rain. Never mind chaps we can sit under this canapy. One more verse of "roll out the barrel" (Ralphs's still singing Auld Lang syne but no-one minds). Then the wind picks up. It's a funny thing, but in the tropics rain can fall horizontally, then you really get to test out your rain-mac. At 5:30 we cut our losses, the sun has come up, we've stopped seeing pink elephants and the rain has stopped too. We stagger to our matola and ride on to Mzuzu. Happy new Year.

So on to Zambia and then Botswana, but these things are apt to change so once more I have to warn you that I may be missing in action for a while in the wilds of central africa. Hakuna Matata