Week 29 - Scotland - Isle of Skye to Ireland - Enniskillen

Our first stop on Monday morning, was the Eilean Donan Castle next to the picturesque village of Dornie. The castle is on an island situated at the point where Loch Long, Loch Alsh and Loch Duich meet, and linked to the mainland by a stone bridge with three arches. It was a really beautiful and romantic setting and it was easy to see why the Eilean Donan Castle is Scotland's most photographed castle. After taking a few photos we drove towards Loch Ness. We stopped to take some photos of the ruined Urquhart Castle on the shores of Loch Ness, then we drove on into Drumnadrochit where we parked next to the village green and had lunch at The Courtyard Restaurant.

After lunch we drove to Glen Affric which the Lonely Planet called one of the most scenic glens in Scotland. We drove past shimmering lochs, mountains and unlike the other glens we had seen, it was heavily forested with the native Scots Pine and birch. The single track road ended after about ten miles or so and we had to retrace our steps and drive back to the village of Cannich where we were able to get back onto the main road again. After this we drove towards the Argyll Coast crossing over Loch Linnke on the impressive Spean Bridge, passing Fort William at the base of Ben Nevis, crossing over the Connel Bridge and passing Castle Stalker perched on a tiny offshore island near Appin. We arrived in the waterfront town of Oban at around 6.00 pm and checked into a double room at Corran House with bay windows and a view of the harbour and waterfront. As it was still sunny and warm we walked along the esplanade past the pier around the harbour and the town.

We woke up to another beautiful cloudless day on Tuesday. After breakfast, we walked into the centre of town to the end of Argyll Street where we climbed up Jacob's Ladder - a flight of stairs leading to McCaig's Tower, a Victorian folly built by a local philanthropist for the sole purpose of providing work for the town's unemployed stonemasons. The tower looked very similar to the Colosseum and there were sweeping views of the surrounding bay and town from the top. We strolled back into town to the Oban Distillery where we tried the Oban 14 year old Scotch which had a slight smoky and salty aftertaste. The man at the distillery was really knowledgeable and also gave us some Oban Cask Edition (55% alcohol) and Lagavulin 16 year old Scotch which was extremely smoky. We walked back to the car after our tasting and drove towards Stirling. On the way we stopped in the village of Doune to visit Doune Castle (which featured in Monty Python and the Holy Grail). It's one of Scotland's best preserved 14^th century castles. We had lunch in Doune village before driving to Stirling. At Stirling we drove straight to Stirling Castle located at the narrowest point of Britain. We walked around the ramparts for a while enjoying the views from the castle walls and then we joined a guided tour around the castle. We walked around the gatehouse, courtyard, Great Hall with its impressive wooden hammerbeam roof (very similar to the hull of a ship) and Chapel Royal (which had four beautiful tapestries from the Hunt of the Unicorn series on display) with the guide while he explained the historical significance of the castle. After the guide left us, we paid a visit to the Great Kitchens which gave us a taste of life in the medieval kitchens, and then paid a visit to the Tapestry Studio where a weaver was working on another tapestry from the Hunt of the Unicorn series. We headed back to the castle entrance where we joined a guided tour of Argyll's Lodging – a restored 17^th century townhouse that was the home of the Earls of Argyll, located near the entrance to the castle complex.

It was a short drive into Edinburgh along the M9 but once we were in Edinburgh we had to find somewhere to stay. This was not so easy because we had to find somewhere where they had parking facilities. After spending a couple of hours driving through the city centre and around, we found a room at the Travelodge West End, with parking and ensuite and the added bonus of being only a fifteen minute walk into town.

We got up late on Wednesday morning and then strolled into town. We walked through the Princes Street gardens and up Castle Hill to Edinburgh Castle. We spent a little bit of time walking along the ramparts where we saw the One o'clock Gun, Mons Meg (a giant 15^th century siege gun built in Mons), Dog Cemetery (for regimental mascots and officers' dogs) and enjoyed panoramic views of New Town. After that we joined a free guided tour. The guide spent half an hour giving us a potted history of the castle and pointing out the main features of interest, and then he left us to our own devices. We went to the Royal Palace to see the heavily guarded Scottish Crown Jewels (a glittering crown, sword and sceptre) and the Stone of Destiny (an incongruous looking block of sandstone with rusted iron hoops at each end). Then we went to the neighbouring Royal Apartments where we saw the room in which Mary, Queens of Scots gave birth to James VI of Scotland (James I of England). We walked around the complex for hours visiting the impressive Scottish National War Memorial, the Great Hall with its hammerbeam roof and display of weapons, the tiny St Margaret's Chapel (the oldest building in Edinburgh), the Military Prison, the Prisons of War Exhibition and the Royal Scots Regimental Museum. While we were visiting the Great Hall, a couple of staff members dressed as Oliver Cromwell's roundheads showed us how the muskets and halberds were used. At one o'clock we watched the master gunner fire the One o'clock Gun and then we walked into the Old Town to visit St Giles' Cathedral with its striking crown spire. One of the most interesting parts of the cathedral was the Thistle Chapel which is the place of worship for the Knights of the Thistle. The chapel was decorated with intricate stone carvings and there were elaborately carved wooden stalls for each of the 16 members – coats of arms, animals and angels playing various instruments (including the bagpipes). Outside on one side of the cathedral was the Mercat Cross – a replica of the original where merchants and traders used to transact business and royal proclamations were read. On the other side was a cobblestone Heart of Midlothian set into the pavement marking the site of the Tolbooth. Passers-by traditionally spit on the Heart for good luck and we could see where a couple of passers-by had left their mark!

We walked to the National Gallery of Scotland to try and see the rest of the collection before the gallery closed at 5.00 pm. On our previous visit we had only managed to see the ground floor and basement galleries so this time we went straight to the upstairs galleries where we saw some European Renaissance and Impressionist art including works by Da Vinci, Gainsborough, Botticelli, Van Gogh, Degas, Monet, Gauguin and Cezanne. One of the most memorable paintings was a portrait of Lady Agnew of Lochnaw by John Singer Sargent.

We sat in the neighbouring Princes Street Gardens for a while, then had some dinner before we started the long walk back to the Travelodge.

On Thursday morning we checked out of the Travelodge and started the drive south to Cairnryan. It was a beautiful day and we drove through the lowlands and border areas with rolling hills dotted with fat sheep and cattle. There were no lochs or heather anymore. We even saw some fields of corn! At Ayr, we hit the coast again and then drove along the coast road with views past seabirds on rocky outcrops to offshore islands like the tiny Ailsa Craig. Just outside the village of Maybole we stopped to visit Crossraguel Abbey. All that remained of the 13^th century abbey were the walls of the church, cloister, chapter house and domestic premises. However in the garden was a fairly intact dovecote, complete with individual niches for the doves. At Cairnryan, we stopped at the local pub for a late lunch. After rushing through lunch, we drove down to the P&O ferry port where we were able to purchase a ticket for the 3.00 pm fast ferry to Larne.

We arrived at Larne at 4.15 pm and drove off the ferry. We drove north along the A2 coast road to Ballycastle. After we drove through Cushendall, the road turned into a single track lined with deep pink flowering fuschia hedges and large trees. We started getting concerned as we weren't sure if we were going the right way so we were very relieved when we arrived at Cushendun and the track turned back into a two lane road. We arrived in Ballycastle and drove down to the waterfront where we checked into a small room at the Ballycastle Backpackers Hostel.

After breakfast on Friday, we packed up, checked out of the hostel and drove along the coast road. We left the main road and drove along a winding track to the scenic Ballintoy Harbour which had white limestone and black basalt cliffs and rock pools with a rocky island offshore. Then we drove back to the coast road and drove past Whitepark Bay – a white sand half moon shaped beach. Later we stopped to take a photo of the fragmentary tower remaining of Dunseverick Castle perched on a high crag. Then it was the Giant's Causeway with a good walk along the cliffs above before descending down a path and climbing amongst the columns of solidified lava. We had a well earned cream tea back at the visitor centre disappointed we hadn't seen the eider sea duck from which the eiderdown filling used in quilts comes. We drove on to Bushmill's Distillery where we tasted the original blended whiskey and a 12 year old single malt Irish whiskey. Then we drove to Portrush stopping on the way to photograph the evocative ruins of Dunluce Castle built on top of a sheer basalt cliff. At Portrush, we had lunch before walking around the headland of town and past the harbour back to our car. We set off for Londonderry and checked into a room at the Derry City Independent hostel. We liked the hostel and decided to take the room for another night to have a rest and recover from our head colds.

It was raining when we woke up on Saturday morning. After breakfast, we started the Lonely Planet walking tour around the city walls of Derry stopping at each gate where there were sets of stairs that we could get on and off the wall. There was a long history of conflict between English/Protestant and Irish/Catholic continuing up to the present. Murals had been painted to commemorate key events in the "Troubles" on the gable ends of houses in the Bogside Catholic area, and these were visible below one section of the wall. There was a statue of George Walker, a Protestant hero which had been blown up by the IRA. It seemed peaceful enough now and we walked outside the wall into a small market with beautiful home-baked goodies. We continued right around the wall taking a couple of detours to see the Columba Cathedral and the Chapel of St Augustine. After lunch we went for a walk around the Diamond – the area within the walls. Then we walked around the Bogside area admiring the murals before walking back to the hostel.

Like Saturday, Sunday was a pretty average day with rain and clouds. After breakfast we checked out of the hostel. We drove past rock-strewn, green, heather-topped hills bordered by streams which reminded us of Scotland. Except that here the landscape was scarred by ditches from which peat had been dug and the smell of burning peat from the chimneys was in the air. We drove into County Donegal (in Eire) through the small waterfront town of Dunfanaghy which was a highlight in the Lonely Planet. Because the weather was so bad, we couldn't do any of the suggested walks. We drove on through Donegal County through the Glen Gesh Pass with its pine topped mountains and lush green valleys, until we reached the attractive Donegal Town on the River Eske. We decided that we would stop there for a Sunday carvery lunch – but first we had to take some Euros out of the ATM! We had lunch at the Abbey Hotel where we had a choice of three different types of potato! After lunch we walked to the harbour where a large Napoleonic anchor was on display and then around a bend in the river to the ruined Donegal Castle. We took a few photos of the castle in its picturesque setting and then walked back through town to our car. We drove back into Northern Ireland into County Fermanagh along Lower Lough (pronounced Loch) Erne to Enniskillen where we checked into a room at the Bridges Youth Hostel.

Week 28 – Scotland – Anstruther to Isle of Skye

We slept in until after 8 am on Monday morning. We had a full breakfast in the restaurant which included haggis and black pudding. We didn't like the black pudding, it was very solid and almost rubbery, but the haggis was surprisingly nice. It was quite peppery and herby with a pleasant oatmeal texture. After breakfast we we drove up the coast back on the Fife coastal trail. We passed more fishing villages and beautiful countryside of rolling hills covered with golden wheat fields, or lush green dotted with black faced sheep and solid Angus cattle before stopping at St Andrews. We walked through the attractive town to the cathedral. We walked around the ruined cathedral and enjoyed the views of the sea, harbour and castle. Keith went for a paddle in the sea which was cold but became steadily colder the longer you stayed immersed! Suzie did not venture in, stating that she had already been in the North Sea – it must have made a lasting impression on her. We had a picnic lunch in the cathedral grounds and then walked back via the castle and the impressive university buildings. Everywhere through the town were beautiful flower baskets and beds in bloom. We drove on towards Dundee just after the Tay Bridge. We had to stop as our camera had had a seizure and was refusing to operate. We parked in the CBD and tracked down a camera shop where we decided to cut our losses and buy a new camera. To repair the old one was going to take an indeterminate time and an indeterminate amount of money as it had to be sent away. After the treatment of Bikaner desert dust, water showers at Victoria Falls and a drop onto the ground in Japan it was probably not going to be claimable under the warranty! We drove on towards the highlands through Coupar Angus to Blairgowrie where we found Shocarjen House B & B with a view of the forest, church tower and roosting pigeons from our room.

It was raining again when we woke up on Tuesday morning. After breakfast we packed up the car and headed north into the Highlands. We drove along Glen Clova - the longest and loveliest of the Angus Glens. The drive was really scenic. We were surrounded by steep heather-clad Highland hills dotted with sheep and large Angus cattle. We saw pheasants, grouse, partridges, hares and hedgehogs. At Clova, the road came to an end and we turned around and drove along the other side of the Glen. It was really cold, windy and wet - 10°C!

We stopped at the Spittal of Glenshee Hotel for a rest and a light lunch and then we continued on to Braemar. We stopped briefly at Craithie to have a quick look at the stone church attended by the Royal Family when they are at Balmoral Castle. Then we drove on to Tomintoul, where with the help of the Tourist Information Office we found a lovely room at the Findron Cottage B&B.

On Wednesday our first stop was the Glenlivet Distillery. We spent some time browsing around the display and the shop before we went on a guided tour of the distillery. The young lass showed us the barley which is malted by soaking in water for ten days to germinate which converts the starch to sugar. Then it is dried and milled into husk, grist and flour. After that it is soaked in three batches of hot water to remove the sugar and the solid waste is used for animal feed. Yeast is added to the liquid to convert sugar to alcohol and is distilled twice to concentrate the single malt Scotch whisky. Then water is added and the whisky is stored in a wooden barrel for at least three years. (Irish whisky is distilled three times.) We were shown through the factory where we saw the stainless steel vats used for mashing (soaking the milled malted barley), wooden vats used at the fermentation stage and the copper stills and spirit safes for distillation. We saw a small warehouse full of barrels containing twelve year old whisky, eighteen year old whisky and a couple of barrels of forty eight year old whisky (£10,000 for a 700 ml bottle). We left after tasting the fifteen and eighteen year old product with a dash of water. We drove towards Grantown on Spey through more beautiful country side. We saw a red squirrel with a pine cone in its mouth, a handsome donkey keeping horses company and numerous hairy Highland cattle. We drove on to Inverness where we stopped at Tesco for lunch of blackberries, mango and yoghurt. We travelled north over Bonar Bridge and stopped at Edderton to see the Pictish Edderton Stone in an atmospheric church graveyard with views over Moray Firth. We drove on to Carbisdale Castle and walked over a rail bridge with a river below. We decided to stay at Lairg for the night.

On Thursday morning we drove towards the east coast from Lairg and turned north to drive up the coast. It was an amazingly beautiful day with strong sunshine and hardly a cloud in the sky. We saw sheep running for no reason. The coast was magical with small beaches and cliffs plunging into the sea for long stretches. The sea was impossibly flat and in the distance an offshore oil rig was visible. Green grass covered the ground up to the cliffs and stone walls divided the land right up to the sea. We stopped numerous times for photos before we reached Brora where we stopped at Clynelish Distillery to try their Scotch which was reputed to taste of heather honey. It tasted like Scotch whisky to us! We drove north enjoying the scenery until we stopped at Caithness cheese farm off the main road. We tasted many cheeses and bought half a pepper cheese before continuing to Wick. We stopped there to try a scotch at the Old Pulteney Distillery and then drove around the corner to have a look at the 12^th century castle of Old Wick. It was built by a Norwegian chieftain in 1160 and all that remained was a ruined tower, however its location at the top of steep cliffs overlooking the sea was spectacular. On both sides the rock had cracked into a huge ravine which meant that the water surrounded the tower on three sides. Only a narrow strip of land ran down to the base of the tower connecting it to the mainland. A thin window was still visible in the rock of the upper level of the tower. Seabirds were nesting on the surrounding cliffs where they were safe from any predators. We walked to the edge of the cliff in front of the tower ruins with a large flat piece of rock sticking out of the water in front of it like an air craft carrier. We drove north to John O' Groats where the Orkney Islands floated in the flat sea in front of us. We turned west along the coast to Dunnet Head, the northern most point of England. We saw some baby rabbits, fly fishermen on small lakes and enjoyed the views of Orkney Islands, cliffs, seabirds, passing ships and the light house. We continued on along the coast to Thurso where we stayed in a static caravan for the night. From our lounge in the caravan we saw the sun set over sheep in the field next door. We watched Underbelly on the tiny TV in our caravan before bed – it was good to hear some Australian voices.

It was a cold night and we got out of bed reluctantly on Friday morning. Unlike yesterday it was a pretty cloudy and cold day. After breakfast, we packed up the car and then walked along the sea front into Thurso to have a look around. Then we drove along the winding and spectacular single lane road to Tongue. At Tongue, we got out of the car and walked along the 2 kilometre track to the 14^th century ruins of Castle Varrich. All that was left of the castle were the remains of a tower with thick walls constructed from sandstone blocks. We enjoyed the wonderful panoramic views of the surrounding countryside and the Kyle of Tongue (kyle is a narrow channel of water) from the castle. Then we drove across the causeway across the Kyle of Tongue to the cliff side village of Durness where we stopped for lunch at the Loch Croispol Bookshop & Restaurant. After lunch, we got back in the car again and headed out on the road (single lane again) to Ullapool. Again, the scenery was spectacular with granite rock outcrops, green and purple heather hillsides scored with burns (streams), icy lochs dotted with islands and Ben Hope in the background. Keith kept stopping the car to take photographs. We decided to stop for the day at the little fishing village of Lochinver, and we found a lovely room at the Tigh Lios. After checking in we went for a walk to the edge of the village to visit Highland Stoneware. Outside the shop were some wonderful mosaic armchairs and a car. Inside the shop were stoneware crockery items beautifully painted with local landscapes, flora and fauna. We were sad that it wasn't practical for us to buy anything (K wasn't!). We walked back into the village for a drink of the local ale Deuchars at the Caberfeidh Bar and then we went to the Lochinver Larder to try some of their famous pies for dinner. We started with a steak and ale pie and a chicken, sage and onion pie. They were so delicious that we went back there for our dessert of chocolate, banana and toffee trifle and black forest meringue, and we also bought some savoury pies and sweet pies for lunch tomorrow.

Saturday was an ordinary looking day with lots of dark clouds as we drove back the 11 miles to the turnoff to Ullapool but the scenery was still spectacular. We had to make it to Ullapool to fill up with petrol. It was another fantastic drive with mountains wrapped in cloud, golden moors, water pouring out everywhere and lochs ringed with golden seaweed around every corner. We stopped at Ullapool briefly to visit the local market and admire the huge ferry which was going to the Lewis Islands (The Hebrides). We bought a compilation CD at a market so we had some music in the car and a couple of oat slices called flapjacks before heading off to Kinlochewe where we stopped to eat our venison and cranberry, and pork, apple and cider pies from Lochinver Larder. It was so cold we ate them in the car and they were just as good cold as hot. Then we aimed for the Kyle of Lochalsh which was the gateway to the Isle of Skye. There is a bridge now so we didn't have to get a boat like Bonnie Prince Charlie. We drove into Kyleakin just over the bridge but kept going into the island proper. We went to the Tourist Office at Broadford but they had no accommodation available and sent us to the hostel up the road. We could see that Skye was a tourist hotspot and when the hostel had nothing left we were a bit concerned. Luckily Ewan turned up at the hostel just as we were there to say that he had a room in another hostel around the corner – it turned out that it was his and his girlfriend, Ava's bedroom. We took it even though it wasn't that great. We spent a pleasant evening in the hostel chatting to some other tourists from Australia, India and Germany before heading off to bed.

After breakfast on Sunday, we took the scenic drive to Elgol. The drive included views of Bla Bheinn mountain across Loch Slappin and Cuillin range from Elgol Harbour. Driving on the single lane roads added extra excitement as you had to pull in or reverse when you came across oncoming traffic. Then we retraced our steps and headed north to Talisker Distillery. We enjoyed the distillery tour and the whisky which had a distinctive smoky, salty aftertaste. Then we drove to Dunvegan stopping on the way at the Dun Beag Broch – a ruined tower. It was impressively situated on a high point with double stone walls so that people or livestock could move in between the inner and outer walls. Then we drove past Dunvegan castle to the Coral Beach – made from the bleached exo skeletons of coraline algae (maerl). We walked a mile and the beach was blindingly white. We drove on to the Trotternish peninsula and just south of Uig we stopped at a magical glen of ruined turrets and small conical hills called the Fairy Glen. Then we drove to the Kilmuir cemetery to see Flora MacDonald's grave, the unfinished piper's headstone and the stolen Scottish king's gravestone. We continued around the peninsula and saw the Quiraing, a basalt escarpment with impressive cliffs and pinnacles. Further on was the Old Man of Storr, a 50 metre high pinnacle of basalt. Our final stop for the day was at Portree and we walked around the pretty harbour lined with brightly painted houses before heading back to Broadford.

Week 27- Kenya - Nairobi to Scotland - Anstruther

After breakfast on Monday we caught a taxi into the city centre. We wandered around the city centre, stopping at a coffee shop for an excellent coffee. The city was very busy and there were hardly any tourists visible but it felt reasonably safe. The ubiquitous chicken shops were labelled as Fish & Chips! We bought tickets for the impressive looking Kenya Archives building and enjoyed the mix of sculpture, art and history. There were good displays of masks, weapons and artefacts from all over Africa showing how the tribes/regions all had their slightly different cultures. There was also excellent Swahili metalwork with its Indo Arabic style eg the copper and brass coffee pots and engraved trays. Furniture and carving in wood, especially ebony, and stone was impressive. Afterwards, we caught a taxi back to Wildebeest Camp. We updated our diary in the garden and admired the many birds, giant tortoises and a couple of Sykes monkeys who dropped in to check out the rubbish.

At breakfast on Tuesday, we chatted with Andy from the UK. Andy has been visiting Kenya regularly for the last five years and was involved in the establishment of a school in Kitale (West Kenya). He made a couple of calls on his mobile and organised for Victor who runs a school in the nearby slum of Kibera to take us on a day trip tomorrow to visit the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, the KWS Orphanage, the Giraffe Centre and the school in Kibera. After breakfast we caught a taxi to the recently renovated Nairobi National Musuem. The museum housed an anthropology display showing man's evolutions through fossil finds of skulls and skeletons, a display of stuffed mammals, tribal displays of masks, spears, beadwork, beaded ceremonial attire and jewellery, an extensive display of stuffed birds, decorated gourds, an elaborately carved ivory horn, paintings and photographs. The museum was really well set out and we spent a pleasant few hours browsing through the well labelled displays. We had a late lunch at the nearby Savanna Coffee Lounge. We both had salads because we knew that we were going to meet Janet and Wendy (Keith's cousins) at Carnivores Restaurant for dinner. After lunch, we had a look around at the curio shops in the museum complex and then we caught a taxi back to the camp. The traffic was really bad so the taxi driver took us back a different way. We drove through the Nairobi suburbs which were almost first world, with large apartment complexes and big houses. The high fences and walls topped with razor wire and CCTV cameras were a dead giveaway.

Back at the camp we had a shower and then caught a taxi to Carnivores. We got there early so we had a walk around the curio shops and talked to the guy who was playing the drums outside the shops. We ordered a bottle of Chilean wine and had a look around the restaurant and took photos of the cooking area where the cooks were roasting large cuts of meat on spits over charcoal grills. Janet and Wendy turned up half an hour later with their friends Anna and Sarah and then we began feasting in earnest. After a spicy courgette soup to start, a waiter put a Lazy Susan on the table with condiments on the top level and a selection of salads on the bottom level. They brought out heated plates and gave us a potato each and then waiters began stopping by with large skewers of meat which they sliced off on to our plates. We had a choice of chicken, pork, crocodile, ostrich, lamb, beef, pork spare ribs, ostrich meatballs, lamb's liver, chicken liver, turkey and bull's testicles. There was a choice of about six desserts and we finally chose ice cream and chocolate gateaux to have with a cup of tea. After dinner we got a lift back to the camp with Janet, Wendy, Anna and Sarah.

After breakfast on Wednesday Victor picked us up in the blue Soweto Academy minibus and we drove to the Kenya Wildlife Service Orphanage. We drove there on a bumpy dirt road that cut through the edge of Kibera – one of the world's biggest slums. The road was lined with corrugated iron shacks and there was a fetid ditch filled with rubbish on both sides. We saw some unaccompanied small children crossing the street in front of us. Victor told us that the slum children learn to fend for themselves at a very young age and they look after other younger children, which is why they felt ready to have their own children when they were in their teens.

Our visit to the KWS Orphanage was really rewarding. We saw warthogs, a spot nosed monkey, Patas monkeys, Sykes monkeys, vervet monkeys, cheetahs, leopards, caracals, serval cat, lionesses, a young male lion, silver-backed jackals, spotted hyena, vulturine guinea fowl, crested guinea fowl, crowned crane, African grey parrots, ostrich and white tailed mongoose. We drove to the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust where we spent an hour watching the orphaned baby elephants being hand-fed from large bottles and frolicking in the mud and dust. We walked around the pens and saw a couple of large rhinos. After that we went to the Giraffe Centre in Langata. We climbed up the stairs to the second floor of a rondavel where we collected a handful of pellets to feed three eager giraffe whose heads were at the perfect height. One of them was head-butting people to get their attention. By this time it was quite late and we all ready for lunch. Victor drove us across town to the Small Village Restaurant & Bar which served Ethiopian food. We ordered a mixed platter of rice pancake, topped with salad, vegetables, beans, pureed lentils, two kinds of spiced mince, three kinds of spicy beef strips, beetroot chips and potato chips. We also had a layered fruit juice – papaya, avocado, passionfruit and watermelon. Everybody really enjoyed the meal which we ate with our hands.

Victor drove us back to Kibera after that. Kibera was a five kilometre stretch of land around a dank river which housed 2 million people. We drove past lots of little shops, shacks, toilets (which cost KES 3), water taps (KES 5), makeshift cinemas (KES 10), butchers, mosques, hair salons and mobile phone shops. Apparently everything in the slum costs money. A lot of residents could not afford the KES 3 to use the toilet so they resorted to "aerial toilets". This involved defecating into a plastic bag and then throwing the bag into the street at night. We noticed that a lot of the shacks had makeshift antennae on the roof. Victor told us that this was so that the residents could watch the news on TV or listen to the radio. Apparently they were very interested in the news because they were constantly hoping that that government would make some changes which would improve their living conditions.

Our first stop was the primary school that he ran. The "playground" was very uneven and steep with views of the slum on the opposite slope. We looked in on a class in session, talked to the children and then went to his office to sign the Visitors Book. Then we drove through the slum to the Soweto Academy. We met the principal Johnstone first and looked in on a class. Then Victor showed us the projects that the school was running to raise additional funds. They had some pigs, cows, chickens, and a water bottling plant. Right next door to the school through a gate in the corrugated iron fence was a clinic. Just before we left, we climbed up on to the roof of the school where we got some panoramic views of Kibera including a couple of bridges over the stinking river. We drove back to Wildebeest Camp via the Sailing Club which was once on a dam but the dam was now filled with water hyacinth due to the pollution from Kibera. The man at the sailing club told us that the last time anybody sailed was 1997!

On Thursday we had to pack up and check out. We spent a lazy day walking around the local area, surfing the net and organising a hair cut for Keith. Then we were off to the airport in the taxi with relatively little traffic and our last sight of Nairobi by night. Everything went smoothly at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport with short lines and fairly tight security. We boarded the British Airways flight and watched Avatar before a poor sleep interrupted by screaming babies which didn't bother us much with our noise cancelling ear phones.

We arrived at Heathrow Terminal 5 at 5.30am on Friday and found the BA lounge which was fantastic. We sat in the lounge for a couple of hours eating breakfast, reading the paper and checking our emails, while waiting for our flight to Edinburgh. The flight to Edinburgh was mercifully short - only an hour – and after collecting our luggage and taking some money out, we went to the Tourist Information Office to see if there was any accommodation left in Edinburgh. Jackie at the Tourist Information Office was really helpful and spent a good hour searching her system and calling hostels, B&B's and hotels for us with no luck - everything was booked out because of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. As a last resort, she called the Airport Travelodge and thankfully they had a double room available for the next couple of nights! After that, we walked to the car rental centre and organised a rental car to be collected on our departure from Edinburgh. It was 1.00 pm before we were able to catch a bus to the hotel. We checked in, had a shower and a cup of tea and then caught a bus into the city centre. After catching buses in Africa, the Scottish bus was pure luxury. We didn't have to wait until it was full before we left and it was clean, new and modern with bright tartan seats.

We fell in love with Edinburgh straight away. The temperature was in the high teens and the sun was shining making for a pleasant walk around town. We strolled around the city centre admiring the lush green flower-filled parks, the beautiful stone buildings and churches with Edinburgh castle providing a dramatic backdrop. We went to Sainsbury's to buy a late picnic lunch of chicken and salad followed by blackberries and raspberries for dessert, which we ate sitting in a park. After buying the Scotland and Ireland Lonely Planets, we walked along Princes Street watching the street entertainers, browsing the street stalls and exploring some interesting-looking side streets before catching the bus back to the Travelodge. It was after 7.00 pm by the time we got home and we couldn't believe how late it was because the sun was still out!

We walked to the bus stop on Saturday morning and caught a bus into town. We got off the bus at Princes Street and walked along Princes Street and up the hill towards Edinburgh Castle. We arrived there just before it opened and the area in front of the entrance was crowded with tourists. The entrance gate was flanked by statues of William Wallace and Robert the Bruce. The Lonely Planet walking tour of Edinburgh began at Castlehill – the start of the Royal Mile. We paid a quick visit to a very touristy "tartan-weaving mill" (really a shop) to have a look for the Erskine (Keith's maternal grandparents) and MacGregor (Keith's middle name) tartans and then began the walk. The walk led us to some interesting cobbled alleyways and side-streets along the Royal Mile where we climbed up and down some steep sets of stairs and closes.

About half way through the walk, we went to the Quaker's Tea Room where we ordered a cup of Earl Grey tea. Our tea had just arrived when we were invited upstairs to watch Tibetan monks destroying a sand mandala (colourful sand sculpture) that they had painstakingly created over a couple of weeks. Seven Tibetan monks dressed in deep red and saffron coloured robes performed the ceremony. They chanted and played cymbals, horns, bells and a drum for fifteen minutes before they destroyed the sculpture. After we finished our tea we browsed though the stalls at a street market before finishing the walking tour.

After lunch we walked through Princes Street Gardens past the Scott Monument to the National Gallery of Scotland. The National Gallery was a classical building with Ionic columns housing an extensive collection of European and Scottish art. We spent a couple of hours there – but we only had time to visit the ground floor galleries (Italian, German, French, Dutch and Flemish artists) and the basement galleries (Scottish artists). We left when the gallery closed at 5.00 pm and decided to walk along the route taken by the sightseeing tour buses. We walked along Regent Road and paid a visit to the Burns Monument and the Calton Cemetery. After cutting through Regent Park we found ourselves in front of Holyroodhouse Palace. We walked back towards the centre of town past the Scottish Parliament to "Monster Mash", a cafe which was highly recommended by the Lonely Planet. The cafe was full and we had to queue for ten minutes for a table. The food was classic British style and very large portions. We had steak pie with mash and sausages with mash and couldn't quite finish our meals. After dinner we walked to the bus stop and caught the bus back to the Travelodge.

We were so lucky with the rain today. It rained while we were in the restaurant, but when we left to walk to the bus stop, it stopped. It also rained when we were on the bus, but it had stopped by the time we got off the bus.

On Sunday morning, we packed up, checked out and walked to the bus stop to catch the bus to the airport. At the airport, we went to the car rental centre to collect our rental car – a new silver Peugot 207 with less than 5,000 miles on the clock. It was wonderful to have our own wheels again!

We drove to the village of Roslin – seven miles south of Edinburgh – to visit the Rosslyn Chapel, immortalised in Dan Brown's novel "The Da Vinci Code". We arrived there one hour before it was open to the public, so we went for a walk down a steep lane by the side of chapel past the Roslin Cemetery. At the foot of the lane, we came across the remains of the Rosslyn Castle. Only the exterior sandstone walls remained. We carried on walking down the hill along a damp mossy forest path which led us back up the hill to the rear of the chapel. Back at the chapel, we paid our entry fee and went in. The chapel deserved its title of Scotland's most beautiful and enigmatic church. The interior was intricately carved with literally hundreds of flowers, vines, angels, scenes, biblical and pagan figures. Some figures had associations with the Freemasons and the Knights Templar. Mysteriously, there were carvings of maize – which were difficult to explain since the chapel predated Columbus' discovery of the Americas. After walking around the chapel reading the helpful information boards which detailed the chapel's history and explained some of the more significant carvings, we sat and listened to a talk/presentation by one of the staff members. We walked downstairs to the crypt before heading off for lunch.

Then we headed north. We drove across the Forth Road Bridge and up the coast on the Fife Tourist Trail. The scenery was really beautiful – rolling green pastures and yellow wheat fields on our left with the North Sea coast on our right. We drove through a number of fishing villages before we decided to stay at Anstruther. We parked our car and walked along the main road to look for somewhere to stay. Most of the B&B's had no vacancies – but we finally found a lovely room at The Waterfront Restaurant. After parking the car and checking in, we went to "The Wee Chippy" for dinner.

Week 26 - Tanzania - Dar Es Salaam to Kenya - Nairobi

We had a sleep in on Monday morning and after breakfast we walked to the Kilimanjaro Express bus company which was just a block away from the hostel and bought our bus tickets to Moshi for tomorrow. The great news was that we could catch the bus right there so we didn't have to go back to the bus station at Ubungo. Then we walked around looking at the street vendors and street markets. It was much busier today and there were mobile street vendors selling drinks, cigarettes or sweets who were jingling coins and making a kind of loud kissing/sucking sound with their lips to attract your attention. There were excellent fresh fruit and vegetables being sold on the street. We had lunch and then walked to the fish market. We could smell the fish market long before we reached it. The main market was in the centre with food stalls on one side and a couple of small auctions in progress on the other side. By the time we reached the market, a lot of the fish had been sold and most of the stallholders were either cleaning up or taking a nap on their benches. We walked back into the centre of town past the Askari Monument to African soldiers who died in the first world war.

On Tuesday, the alarm went off at 5.45 am and we dressed and walked to the offices of the Kilimanjaro Express where the bus was already waiting. Thankfully the bus looked exactly like the picture on the bus ticket – modern and with proper seats. There was no air conditioning but the windows next to our seats worked so we weren't worried. Twenty minutes later the bus drove to the main bus station at Ubungo where more people got on. The bus left Ubungo on time and miracle of miracles, it wasn't full, there were no people standing in the aisles and there were no livestock!! At the beginning of our journey the bus stopped and a man carrying a large bag got on. Then he started spruiking to all the passengers. We thought he was a preacher and his bag was full of bibles but his bag was full of aloe vera hand creams, body lotions, scrubs, and soaps – all manufactured in China! He was really slick and well spoken and managed to sell quite a few items! The landscape changed and we drove parallel to an impressive mountain range. There were fields of aloe vera and we could see green fields planted right up into the mountainsides in places. We finally arrived at Moshi at 4.00 pm and parted ways with Gustavo. We walked to the Bristol Cottages where we checked into a room with an ensuite bathroom. There was a TV in the room and free WiFi!! To our delight we found that the satellite TV had lots of channels including BBC World and the HBO movie channel!

We slept in until 8.30 am on Wednesday. After breakfast, we had a chat to the travel agent in our hotel to find out how much their safari packages would cost. They were really expensive so we decided to research our options and see if we could do it ourselves. Once we were in town we were accosted by Justice who offered us a day trip to Marangu Village at the base of Kilimanjaro. To check him out, we walked with him to his "office" which turned out to be a store selling local arts and crafts. We were approached by several touts after shaking off Justice – all of whom seemed to be offering variations on the same theme with different pricing. We walked along the streets checking out the stalls. We noticed a lot of shoe stalls – and even some ladies who were operating mobile shoe stalls by wearing shoe-festooned sandwich boards and carrying a single shoe upon their heads. We walked through the markets and then had lunch at the Kilimanjaro Coffee Shop. We met Noel and Dianne there and they were also investigating day trips to Marangu Village. After comparing notes, we decided that the deal offered by Justice was the best and we all headed back to the art and crafts store to organise the trip. Justice wasn't at the store but his brother "Am Jay" was so we arranged the trip with him. At our request he painstakingly wrote out all the details of the trip onto a piece of paper. Then we said goodbye to Noel and Dianne and headed back to Bristol Cottages.

We set the alarm for 6.30 am on Thursday and had an early breakfast at the hotel so that we could be ready in time for our trip. It was a forty minute drive to the Marangu Gate to the Kilimanjaro National Park. This was the start of the "Coca Cola Trail" up Mt Kilimanjaro. It was a hive of activity with climbers arriving and porters unloading back packs from jeeps. To our disappointment it was a really cloudy day so we couldn't get a view of the mountain. It was noticeably cooler up there and really lush and green. Our next stop was the forge at Marangu Village. The blacksmiths were working in an open shed. Three men were sitting in front of charcoal fires heating steel rods to make into Masai spear tips. They kept the coals glowing red hot by using bellows. Two men were periodically pulling the red hot rods out of the fire and hammering them on an anvil until sparks flew. All of them were barefoot and just wearing shorts and T-shirts – no protective clothing or equipment in sight! Keith was really thrilled because we saw a pair of chameleons around the corner – the male had horns.

From there we took a walk around Marangu village. We walked past women who were doing their washing and one lady who was sitting at the front of her house removing the husks from maize. The front of her house was almost obscured by husks. We walked back to the van through some small coffee and banana plantations and then we drove to the markets. The markets were really busy and vibrant – there were stalls selling second-hand clothing and shoes, large stems of green bananas, dried fish, tomatoes, okra, eggplant and maize. We got back in the car and were driven to another part of the village. Next to a house was the entrance to a "cave". This cave turned out to be a long narrow red earth tunnel where the locals used to hide when the Masai invaded. We were able to walk most of the way bent double but in some parts we had to crawl on our hands and knees. The tunnel was airless and dark so we were all very relieved when we emerged sweating and covered in red soil.

We drove back to the market area to have lunch at Mama Lishe's. It started raining over lunch and we had to dash back to the car in the rain. We went to the "Chagga Museum" – which was really a house which had been converted into a museum by an enterprising old man. There the friendly proprietor proudly showed us around his display of traditional household items which he had labelled in capital letters. In the grounds of the "museum" he had built a traditional Chagga house – a dome shaped dwelling thatched with banana leaves. The house was partitioned inside with a small cow living on one side of the partition. After our museum visit we drove to Ndoro Waterfalls where we had to walk down some muddy slippery steps to the bottom of a lush green gorge to view the waterfall from the bottom. Then we headed back towards Moshi, stopping at a bar on the way to taste some banana beer – served in plastic buckets. The banana beer was quite sour with a bitter aftertaste and on top of the froth layer were millet seeds. Suzie didn't like it but Keith drank the whole bucket.

On Friday morning we caught an early bus for the short trip to Arusha. As soon as we got off the bus we were surrounded by touts eager to sell us a safari, find us a hotel room or take us for a taxi ride. We managed to shake most of them off and we walked to a hotel opposite the mosque where we looked at a room. It wasn't as nice as the room that we had stayed in in Moshi so we decided to go and check out some other options. Suzie stayed with the bags while Keith went to look at the McElly's Hotel (the so-called sister hotel). It was a new hotel so the room was modern so we decided to stay there. After getting a quote on some safari options and car hire from the hotel, we went for a walk around town. We went to the Hotel Naaz to get some information about car rental pricing and then we went to the Tourist Information Office where we found some information on the national park fees. We did the numbers and worked out that even if we did a self-drive safari it would only be marginally cheaper than doing a packaged safari with the hotel – and we could still be disappointed. We decided that we would skip the East African safari thing and head on to Kenya. We walked to shops and bought a bottle of KWV Shiraz 2008, a bottle opener, biltong, asparagus, Kalamata olives, Dutch Gouda cheese and Ryvita crackers. We ate half of the food and drank half of the wine while watching a movie on TV and we really enjoyed our picnic in our room.

We slept in on Saturday morning. After showering, we went to the hotel restaurant where a buffet breakfast had been set up. To our relief, there were no eggs in sight! After breakfast we wandered into town where we bought our bus tickets to Nairobi for tomorrow. We were really pleased because they were going to pick us up from our hotel and drop us off at the Wildebeest Camp in Nairobi which saved us from haggling with taxi drivers! Then we walked to the central markets where there were the usual stalls selling second hand clothing and shoes and vegetables. As we walked through the markets and town we saw lots of Masai men wearing their distinctive red, purple and tartan Shukas (blankets) and simple sandals made from tyres. The Masai women had accessorised their Shukas with beaded collars, bracelets, anklets and earrings. Some of the older men had stretched earlobes with large holes in them. For lunch we went to the Everest Hotel & Chinese Restaurant – none of the food was really authentic however it tasted pretty good and we enjoyed it. We went back to the hotel after that. Suzie found out that she had booked the accommodation in Edinburgh for the wrong date and spent the rest of the afternoon frantically searching online for some alternative accommodation. At sunset we went up on to the roof of the hotel to look at the view of Mt Meru which was clearly visible for the first time. We enjoyed the rest of our wine with cheese, olives, asparagus and crackers for dinner.

On Sunday, we got up and had breakfast early because the bus company was collecting us from the hotel at 7.30 am for the trip to Nairobi. After a few hours of bad roads we reached Namanga town on the border. There was some spectacular scenery of wheat fields and maize fields and a large mountain. There was a lot of deforestation and overgrazing leading to erosion and dust storms. One area was like a moonscape – completely devoid of all vegetation. Everywhere were groups of cattle and sheep herded by Masai in their Shukas carrying wooden staffs.

We got our Kenyan visa from a grumpy Kenyan customs officer and while waiting at the bus Suzie bought a bead bracelet from some Masaai women who were being harassed by a policeman to move on. After a brief toilet stop at Paradise Gallery curio shop we continued on to Nairobi where the Riverside Bus Company eventually delivered us to Wildebeest Camp after some persuasion. We had bought the bus tickets on the understanding that we would be dropped off at Wildebeest Camp but the bus driver refused and we had to talk to some miserable sod who called himself a manager before they relented. Wildebeest camp had a lovely garden area and we were staying in a permanent safari tent reminiscent of Flatdogs camp at South Luangwa.

Week 25 - Mozambique – Ihla de Moҫambique to Tanzania – Dar Es Salaam

On Monday morning we had breakfast on the terrace and then we walked to the bank while Gywn did some work on the car. The ATM was "nao operaҫao" so we walked back to the hostel in the rain. Jorge turned up and he had some old Portuguese coins that Keith bought. We waited in the lobby of the hostel reading and surfing the internet while Gwyn finished off with the car. We didn't leave until 11.00 am. At a little after midday we reached the Namialo turnoff where we turned right towards Pemba. There was a big group of people there trying to hitch a ride to Pemba and we stopped and picked up Tracey from Melbourne. However 15 minutes later, disaster struck. Gwyn stopped the car because he noticed that there was a problem with the gearbox. He decided that the best thing was for him to turn around and go back to Nampula – so we decided to try to hitch a ride to Pemba. By this time it was raining heavily. It took us about 20 minutes to flag down someone who was going to Pemba and at the same time another vehicle going in the opposite direction offered to shadow Gwyn to Nampula. We said a sad goodbye to Gwyn and then climbed into another vehicle – a late model Toyota Landcruiser driven by some guys who were working for Elvis Construҫao – a road building company. Everybody in the car was drinking beer – including the driver! It took us another five hours to reach Pemba during which time we hit a chicken! The guys proudly showed us the office of Elvis Construҫao in Pemba and then drove us to Pemba Magic Lodge at Wimbi Beach, 3½ kilometres away. We checked into a double chalet and then went to the bar where we bumped into Brian the Irish diplomat who we had met at our hostel at Mozambique Island. We ordered our dinner at 7.30 pm and while we were waiting, we sat around talking with Richard (from the UK), Brian and Tracey. Brian who has been in Malawi for the last three years kept us entertained with stories about the superstitious and fanciful ideas that the Africans have (old man who stopped the minibus from going up a hill because he had a cow in his pocket, old lady who caused a drought in her village by keeping all the rain in her pot and the lady who gave birth to a stone baby). Our dinner didn't arrive for hours and through a comedy of errors the meals came out in dribs and drabs so Suzie only got her dinner at 11.00 pm.

The next morning we woke up at 6.30 am and Keith went to the beach for a swim before we had a leisurely breakfast with Richard, Brian, and Tracey and wandered around the camp taking photos. In the middle of the morning, we got a lift with Russell (the owner) into town. While we were walking around town we saw some street vendors suddenly leap up, gather up their merchandise and start running. When we looked around, we saw a couple truncheon wielding police officers jump out of the back of a pickup truck and chase them. On the way back to the lodge, we stopped at the Pemba Beach Hotel to have a look around. The resort building was Moorish/Arabic in style with a marble fountain in the courtyard, arches, beautiful silk carpets on the walls, mosque lanterns and wooden lattices patterned with eight-pointed Arabic stars. The bar was decorated with mounted heads of various antelope and warthogs and black and white drawings of game hunting scenes. We had a quick look at the beach opposite the hostel and then we went to the restaurant. We had a late lunch of Portuguese pizza and spent some time on the internet and packed our bags ready for tomorrow. We had an early night because we were being picked up by a taxi at 3.45 am to catch a bus to Mocimba do Praia.

On Wednesday, the alarm went off at 3.30 am - just as the taxi driver knocked on our door. We dressed quickly and then jumped into the taxi. The taxi dropped us off at the bus depot which seemed to be just a busy street lined with people, buses, minibuses, and chapas (pickup trucks). We found our bus and we managed to get a seat at the back of the bus with lots of leg room. We were really pleased with ourselves. However our pleasure was short-lived - minutes later a group of women and children got on the bus carrying large bags. The children sat down on the floor in front of Suzie and a pile of bags were dumped unceremoniously at Keith's feet. After a short time the seats were full and the bus took off. But the bus only did a lap of the town – to try and pick up more people!! The bus did another four laps of the town before it was considered "full" - 53 seated adults, 20 standing, at least six children, three babies and two chickens – so we didn't leave Pemba until after 5.00 am. There were no windows in the back of the bus so it was a long hot bus ride. Two of the ladies that were sitting in the back row with us had babies that they were breast feeding and at one point we noticed one lady breastfeeding the other lady's child!!

We arrived at Mocimba do Praia at 1.00 pm and we decided that rather than face another early start in the morning we could at least get to Palmas which was closer to the border. When we got off the bus, there was a chapas (light pick-up truck) leaving for the border. The chapas looked really full so we weren't sure but then Gustavo (from Argentina) who was on the chapas told us that he'd been waiting at Mocimba do Praia for two days for transport to the border so we decided to take it. We climbed on to the chapas and our luggage was strapped to the roof of the cabin. After a bit of scrabbling about we managed to seat ourselves on the rim of the tray. This was quite painful as it was a dirt road and really bumpy. As we drove along more people got on and Keith stood up and held on to the bars at the front. At one stage Keith counted twenty five people in the back! Suzie found a small spot sitting on the spare tyre which was a bit less painful but after an hour and a half of bumpy roads she decided to stand up. This was the only time that she wished she had a bigger bottom! Finally after about three hours we reached the border crossing. Unlike the other border crossings this one was a pain. Customs insisted on inspecting everyone's luggage and then the Mozambique border police took our passports and told us that their big boss (who was sitting in the back of the office) wanted money to buy juice! Unlike the other travellers we didn't give him any "juice" money. Gustavo had an issue with his passport which held things up further so it was almost two hours before we were able to get back onto the chapas with our luggage to be transported to the Rovuma river crossing. All the luggage was loaded into a dugout canoe powered by an outboard motor and then everyone from the chapas piled on. We thought that the canoe was overloaded. We got off to a bad start because once everyone was in the canoe, it hit the bottom and we had to be pushed off. From there things went from bad to worse. Night had fallen and there was no moon so it was really dark. The river was really shallow so the canoe kept running into sandbanks and having to be pushed. Finally when it seemed that we had hit a stretch of deeper water, we came across some hippos so we had to change our course – back into the sandbanks. Finally we arrived at a sandy beach and we had to transfer to another canoe. The boatmen were carrying our luggage on their heads! After a very short trip we scrambled up the bank and onto the back of another chapas. We paid the boat people and in all the confusion and shouting Keith lost his wallet to a pickpocket. Luckily we had planned for this happening at some stage during the trip so we made it a habit to carry only a small amount of cash and an expired credit card in the wallet. Unfortunately Keith still had the Portuguese shipwreck coins in the coin section so we lost those after only having them for a couple of days! The Mozambicans and Tanzanians thought it was very funny that the mzungu had been robbed which made us feel very uncomfortable.

We arrived at the Tanzanian border post at 8.30 pm and the immigration man had gone. Eventually, we worked out that we had nowhere to sleep, nowhere to eat and there was a small crowd who had had too much alcohol shouting and fighting in the village. Kilambo village had no electricity and in the dark, the village and its drunken inhabitants looked really sinister. Samson, the customs man showed us to a restaurant which was closed but which gave us tea and mdazi (like a donut but minus the sugar) for USD 20 thanks to Gustavo and we slept on Samson's lounge room floor on the cushions from his sofa. It was a pretty awful night, the room was airless with heaps of mozzies and we had only our filthy clothes to sleep in.

The next morning we got up at 6.00 am and went to immigration where we got managed to get our visas for Tanzania. Then we jumped on the back of another chapas and headed off to Mtwara. It was a beautiful morning and the bush in Tanzania looked thicker and greener. We were dropped off at Mtwara bus depot and shown to the Blue View Hotel where we had a delicious breakfast. We chatted to a couple of missionaries from the USA and with their help worked out where to go to get money and look for accommodation. We walked down to the water to see Msemo Lodge and it had wonderful views over the coral and sea. We had lunch and did a deal with Gasper the manager so that Gustavo could sleep with us without having to pay for another room. We walked back to town to book a bus to Kilwane Mosoko but decided to catch a couple of minibuses instead so we didn't have to get up early to get on the Dar Es Salaam bus. A feature of Africa seems to be these ludicrously early starts of 2.30 am to 5.00 am for transport. Another Tanzanian feature that we noticed today was the bright new tuk tuks around Mtwara which made us feel like we were back in India. We caught a tuk tuk to Msemo Lodge with all our luggage which had been stored at the Blue View for the day. Gustavo had to hang on as if he was on a chapas and we got lots of laughs as we careered along the dirt roads. We had showers amidst several short blackouts and it felt like a layer of dirt and grime was peeled off.

We woke up early on Friday morning and had our breakfast overlooking the beach. Then we caught a taxi to the bus depot and got on a minibus to Lindi. On the way we saw tall coconut palms with notches cut into the trunk to allow people to climb up to get the coconuts. Three hours later we arrived in Lindi and transferred to another minibus. We arrived at Kilwa Mosoko at 4.30 pm. There was a porter with a trolley so we put our luggage on it and went to check out the rooms at a nearby guest house. The rooms were only just OK so we decided to get in a tuk tuk and go to the Kilwa Seaview Lodge because it was on the beach and had rooms for three. We got a lovely airy room on the top floor of a "banda" (A-frame chalet) with a double bed for us and a single bed for Gustavo. We had a chat to the manager Mike and found out that there was a one hour time difference between Tanzania and Mozambique so it was actually one hour later than we thought. We spent some time settling in our room and showered amidst some short power cuts. This was a bit of a problem because the water supply was powered by electricity! After dinner we watched the news on BBC World for the first time in weeks!

On Saturday, we had an early breakfast and then walked into town. We walked to the old boma administrative building where we bought tickets for the island and met our guide. We walked with the dhow master and the guide to the harbour and set sail in the dhow. There wasn't much breeze so we had to sail across to a point south of the Portuguese fort on Kilwa Kiwisani and pole/paddle our way past the mangroves for 500 metres. The water was clear and the dhow was silent which made it a very peaceful experience for us. The dhow sail picked up the breeze very well, as it was a big expanse of sail relative to the small boat. The design was so simple yet effective that you could appreciate that it had not changed substantially for a couple of thousand years. We reached the Portuguese fort and had a look around before walking through to the ruined two-storey Makutani Palace, then a small mosque before the great mosque. While it was all very ruined you could appreciate the huge size of the complexes and the great mosque was very atmospheric with its rows of arches and domes echoing Cordoba. There was a huge fig growing through one wall. Next to it was the smaller Persian mosque. We walked to the ruins of the Malindi mosque and cemetery which contained several substantial tombs. Then we walked on to the Husuni Kubwa palace complex overlooking the passage to the mainland. It had a pool and collapsed dome and we saw a large skink trying to eat a centipede. The dhow arrived in the mangroves below and we had a fast return journey with favourable wind. It showed us how fast the dhow could move. On land again we walked to the shop and bought some chocolate and organised our bus tickets for Dar Es Salaam. Then we walked around the general market streets and then visited the food market with an outside fish section and beautiful vegetables and fruit inside. There were okra, potatoes, tomatoes, bananas, dried fish, cinnamon, cardamom, pepper, coriander, cassava, tamarind, two types of eggplant, dried mango, ginger, garlic, red onions, bean pods, palm fruit that looked like a pear and much more. We spent a lovely afternoon by the pool talking to Wolfgang (the owner of the lodge) and playing with his sons. Then we went back to our room for a shower and to pack up our stuff before dinner. When we tried to leave our room for dinner, we discovered that the door to our room was faulty and we couldn't open it from the inside. We spent a good ten minutes whistling and calling for help before we were rescued by some other guests.

The alarm went off at 5.00 am on Sunday morning and we picked up our packed breakfast and loaded our bags into the taxi which took us to the bus depot. As usual it was totally overloaded and we didn't have the best seats in the back corner when we left at 6.00 am. The sun rose as we drove fast until the tar road ended. We stopped many times to pick up more people and one lady had a chicken in a special one chicken woven basket. The girl on the back seat found a huge chongolola climbing on her during the trip and we saw many kingfishers and a troop of baboons on the way. The landscape was mostly flat and green with many mango trees, paw paw, maize fields, cassava, and coconut palms. We had the usual onslaught of desperate cassava, orange, dried fish, cashew nut and drink sellers at each stop. The bus stopped at a local diner where the locals had a choice of kebab skewers, chicken pieces in soup, and tea. We arrived at Obungo 8kms from Dar Es Salaam and caught a taxi to Jambo Inn where our reservation was missing!!! The place was full so we checked out Safari Inn and Econolodge and took the latter as a triple for TSh 35,000. We walked around town a bit and it was all very dirty, dodgy and vibrant. We walked down to the harbour where there was plenty of shipping from container ships to ferries to Zanzibar. There were plenty of touts as we turned homewards at City Hall on Morogoro Road. We tried to go to the internet cafe but there was no electricity so no internet. Dar is the capital city of Tanzania but no electricity – people might say Africa is improving but it is still pretty hopeless.

Week 24 - Malawi – Liwonde National Park to Mozambique – Ihla de Moҫambique

After a fantastic breakfast on Monday morning, we met Iriam who took us on our canoe safari. Iriam poled the canoe out into the Shire River through the reeds and we saw open billed storks, great white egret, African jacana, Burchell's coucal, little egret, black crake, squacco heron, pied kingfisher, azure kingfisher, reed comorant, white-fronted cormorant, spur winged geese, Egyptian geese, glossy ibis, yellow-billed stork, hippos, waterbuck, impala and vervet monkeys. The river was really wide which gave you the impression that you were on a lake. The scenery was really beautiful with palm trees, baobabs and reeds lining the river bank and Chinguni Hill in the background.

Back at the lodge we walked through the hole in the fence into the national park and spent an hour wandering around. We heard something large crash through the undergrowth but we couldn't see what it was.

We had organised to do a walking safari in the afternoon but things were in a state of chaos and we ended up doing an evening game drive with five people from the overland tour group that had arrived today. In the park we saw vervet monkeys, impala, hoopoe, waterbuck, tree squirrels, white-breasted sparrow weaver, yellow baboon, guinea fowl, warthogs and sable antelope. Then we drove around for quite some time without seeing anything. In desperation our guide stopped the vehicle and we went for a walk towards the river. To his relief we saw elephants in the Shire River. Back in the vehicle again our guide set up the spotlight and we saw Mozambican elephant shrew, kudu, hippo and scrub hares before we headed back to the lodge.

On Tuesday morning we had planned to get a lift to Liwonde so that we could catch a matola to Zomba to take some money out at an ATM that accepted our Mastercard. But it was chaos this morning. There was no sign of Peter (the manager) or Darren (the owner) and no one could tell us when or if the shopping vehicle was leaving. We had another delicious breakfast and made sure that we were ready to catch a lift on any vehicle that was heading to Liwonde town. We waited around for an hour or so for a shopping vehicle to go into town. In the meantime, Peter arrived and Darren staggered out of the other dorm looking rather the worse for wear after sharing a bottle of scotch the night before.

Darren made a phone call to a contact that he had in the Mozambican Embassy and he was told that we should go to Lilongwe or Blantyre to get a visa as we would not be able to get a visa at the border. We had a quick change of plan – we decided to stay overnight in Blantyre to get our visa and return to Liwonde to stay on Wednesday night so that we could catch a train to Mozambique on Thursday morning.

We packed up our stuff and got a lift to the Liwonde minibus depot in the shopping vehicle at 10.00 am. We were able to get straight on to a minibus that was just leaving and thankfully this time it wasn't too overloaded or smelly with only sixteen adults and two second hand 4WD tires. At one stage a lady got off the minibus and the driver (who was married) asked her for her cell phone number. After she gave it to him he asked her what the best time to call her was. Much to everyone's amusement, her reply was "Don't call me at night, because that is when I am with my husband!" We arrived in Limbe around two hours later after passing through the attractive previous capital of Zomba. After walking around Limbe market, we caught another minibus for the 6 km drive to Blantyre. When we arrived at Blantyre we went straight to the Mozambican embassy only to find that they closed at 12pm for visa applications for the day. However, we found out that we could get a visa on the spot tomorrow morning on payment of an extra fee. On the way out of the embassy we bumped into Gwyn from the UK who was driving his Toyota Land Cruiser around Africa and was going to Mozambique. He was happy to give us a lift and we agreed to catch up later at Doogles Backpacker Hostel. We walked through town and checked into a double room at Doogles and then walked back into town to buy some supplies. Back at Doogles, we had a chat with Gwyn and looked at some maps.

After breakfast on Wednesday morning, we dumped our bags in Gwyn's car and then walked into town to the Mozambican Embassy to lodge our visa applications. We deposited money into their bank account to pay for our visa and when we saw that their USD rates were favourable we tried to buy some only to find that they had "run out"! We collected our passports and walked back to Doogles to meet Gwyn. We jumped in the car and went to Shoprite, where we bought water, biltong and rusks. We filled up the car with diesel and then drove to the border through the small town of Mulanje sitting in the shadow of picturesque Mount Mulanje and surrounded by beautiful green tea plantations. At the border we saw people bringing large bunches of green bananas into Malawi.

We crossed into Mozambique at the border town of Milange. It felt very different to the other African countries that we had been to. There was a long straight and wide avenue with a flower filled island leading up the hill to a white government building which reminded us very much of the Avenidas in Central America. We found somewhere to eat and ordered lunch and sat down to wait. We waited almost two hours before we were served with an enormous platter of rice, shredded raw cabbage and a small grilled chicken which we ate with the spicy salty peri peri sauce they supplied. After lunch we headed towards Mutuali along a dirt track past little villages, banana plantations, vegetable plots, smiling Mozambicans and brick kilns. At one point we came to a muddy bridge with two trucks on the other side. We stopped the car and got out to see if we could drive around it. Eventually the trucks and another 4WD crossed the bridge, so once they had got through we negotiated it without any trouble. We pulled off to the side of the road and set up camp. This involved removing the solar panels from the top of the car and then flipping open the rooftop tents. After a light dinner and chat we climbed into our rooftop tents and went to bed.

We woke up at 6.00 am on Thursday morning and after breakfast, we packed up the tents and re-strapped the solar panels to the top of the car. We drove through Mozambique villages with a constant flow of cyclists and pedestrians in between. We drove past fields of sunflowers and cassava and occasional mango trees, banana plants and papaya trees. Most of the larger places had a white monument surmounted by a red star dedicated to the Mozambican heroes. We saw many Kingdom Halls with Portuguese signs about Jehovah. The markets and road side sellers had bananas, tomatoes, onions, capsicum, dried fish and garlic. Some of the roadside stalls were also selling cooked rats (including fur) on a skewer. We had heard about this in Malawi where it was called "Malawi sausage"! There were some vestiges of Portuguese architecture but they were uniformly faded and in poor condition. We passed many amazing mountains which looked like massive granite stones pushed up from within the earth. We went through Lioma which had many buildings and food warehouses and another village with a vibrant market selling all sorts of Chinese made goods and a lot of bicycle accessories. The trees, shrubs and tin huts by the side of the road were all stained red by the red dust. We kept driving and some of the scenery was beautiful, before we pulled over behind a ruined house and drove up onto a flat piece of granite with wonderful views over the countryside. This trip is really showing us what you can do with a 4WD. As we were putting up the rooftop tents the locals arrived to check us out and Gwyn went to talk with them and ask permission to sleep overnight. It was a really quiet night whereas the night before we had heard a lot of noise from people and the road.

On Friday morning, we were woken up at around 6.00 am by some curious Mozambicans. Chingador, who spoke surprisingly good English was curious to know what we were doing there and wanted to know why Gwyn didn't have a "wifey". We got up after that, packed up and made tea and porridge for breakfast. While Suzie was packing up one of the rooftop tents, the ladder broke! We set off at around 8.00 am. Today the roads were much better, it seemed to be smoother and there were hardly any potholes so we made good time. We reached Nampula at around 11.30 am. We parked the car near the museum and went to the Nampula Sporting Club for lunch. After lunch we got back in the car and headed off towards Mozambique Island. This time when we passed the roadside sellers they were selling cassava and cashews and we stopped to buy some cashews. We also lots of firewood and charcoal for sale. The red dust disappeared and was replaced by white sand and we could smell the salt in the air. We drove across the 3.5 km bridge to Mozambique Island at a little after 3.00 pm. We settled on a room at Patio dos Quintlinhos opposite the green mosque. It had high ceilings, an ensuite bathroom and an extra bed for Gwyn on a kind of mezzanine floor. It was wonderful to have a shower after three days! The owner Gabriele was really helpful and suggested a few dining options so after our showers we went for a walk around town. At Bar Watalofu, we had some Laurentina Beers (stout) and decided to stay for dinner. We ordered a bottle of wine to have with dinner. They didn't have a bottle opener so the waitress bought the bottle to the table with a long stick with which she proposed to push the cork through. We talked them out of it and a waiter got on his motorbike and went to get a corkscrew. We wandered through the streets past an impressive building with huge white columns which turned out to be an old hospital. We went to bed at 10pm and slept deeply.

We were woken by the call to prayer at 4.30 am on Saturday morning from the mosque but we went back to sleep walking up again at 6.30 am. We had breakfast of tea, fresh doughy bread rolls, butter, papaya jam, butter and bananas on the sunny terrace overlooking the mosque. We spent a little time loading photos and checking our emails after breakfast before heading out for a walk around the island. We walked slowly down to the southern end, passing crumbling mansions with rusted wrought iron gates, and weed-filled plazas paved with black and white cobblestones. There was a tree with roots hanging like hair opposite the bridge and a dilapidated old church with small cemetery. Off the southern tip was a coral rock platform with a stone jail built on top. We walked through the cemetery's old gravestones and workers renovating the church before wandering up the east esplanade with coral rubble and rubbish everywhere. This was a poor part of Makuti town but as we walked it gradually improved. We met up with Jorge at the Luis Camoes statue and he showed us the ruined sporting club with excellent blue tiles of animals, boats, plants etc, the beachside pool ruined by a cyclone in 1994 up to the northern tip where you run into the impressive Fort Sao Sebastiao with huge rock walls built up to the sea. The guard told us it was Mtc 200 to get in but we thought it was dodgy so we had a rest on the beach wall overlooking a clean beach and mangrove patch until we saw a couple leaving the fort. They were Andrew from the UK and Julie from South Africa who chatted to us for a while – they told us the tickets were Mtc 100 from the museum and showed us the old Portuguese coins they had bought. They ended up driving us to a restaurant where we had a coffee and talked until lunch when we left to visit the adjacent renovated and derelict buildings including a statue of Vasco Da Gama. Then we went to a small restaurant where we had to wait for ages for excellent lula (squid) and peixe (fish) with chips and salad and very hot green peri peri. After lunch we walked to O Paladar to order our dinner from Senhora Kiu Kiu. We continued on south to the original slave market where slaves were auctioned on top of pillars before being shipped off to various colonies. We walked through the fishermen's boats where fish were being sold (some very small) including garfish, and then Makuti town again where kids were playing soccer in the streets. We walked back through the middle avenue and saw the women doing a traditional tofu dancing with lots of African drumming rhythm, colour and movement. Then we were back at the hospital building and another white church before heading back to the Casa do Gabriele to have a rest before dinner. The sun went down and the call to prayer issued from next door and a large bat appeared on the ceiling of the lounge area where we were sitting.

Sunday morning's call to prayer was a hectoring repetitive which seemed to be endless and it took a while for us to go back to sleep again. After breakfast on the terrace which was not so sunny this morning, we headed to the museum leaving Gwyn at the hostel. We walked to the museum where the ticket allowed us to visit three museums. We were shown around the Museum of Sacred Arts by the caretaker who only spoke Portuguese. He showed us religious icons, paintings, carvings and some crucifixes. There were some beautiful wood and ivory carvings and some items had been shipped from Goa and Portugal. We went back to the Museum of Decorative Arts which was housed in the Palace and Chapel of Sao Paolo originally built as a Jesuit college and subsequently used as a governor's residence. Abdul showed us around several bedrooms, dining rooms, living and receptions rooms containing French furniture, intricately carved Indian furniture, Portuguese and Chinese (Macau) ornaments, and carpets. In particular one wall hanging showed a Portuguese wreck with an exhausted sailor on a beach of an island full of beautiful women. Another showed a battle commemorating a victory over the Moors in Portugal. There was also a great painting showing the Portuguese (all with moustaches) forming an agreement with a powerful Mozambican chief by becoming blood brothers in 1862. The chapel contained a seventeenth century pulpit made by Chinese artists in Goa. Abdul took us to the Maritime Museum on the ground floor where we saw models of Portuguese galleons and caravels, and the finds from a shipwreck dated 1552 that was recovered in 2001. The most notable items were coins and Ming porcelain in surprisingly good condition. As we exited the museum we saw a guy carrying a lobster which we bought for Mtc 120. We took it back to the hostel and boiled it up – absolutely delicious. We headed out to the Hindu temple where we found a Gujarati priest looking after the temple. He was the only Hindu on the island but others from the surrounding regions apparently attended the temple. The usual small orange painted deities of Nandi, Ganesha, and Hanuman were accompanied by the phallic shiva linga. We went to the fort and climbed up the walls to walk around the top. It was very large with a fully enclosed area housing many different buildings. The walls were very thick and built from blocks of coral rubble with some kind of mortar in between. There were cannon at emplacements around the whole perimeter, some mounted on wheeled carriers. Two enormous ramps gave access from the ground level. There was a gate to the front to give access to a chapel facing the sea which is the oldest European building in the southern hemisphere. The fort was the oldest complete fort in sub Saharan Africa. The cistern was a huge underground structure collecting all the run-off from a large area of roof. Inside you walked down some steps to the water level but another set of steps was visible under the water level giving the fort a substantial water supply. We also saw a structure of wall niches which may have been for pigeons. We left and walked back to a shop selling interesting books about Mocambique and the island but we couldn't buy anything. There were also kids selling old coins apparently found by locals and fishermen dating back to the 1600s. We walked back to the hostel where there was a fishing boat landing. There was a crowd on the beach bidding for the numerous beautiful blue striped sardinhas and we saw a large barracuda and small bonita, as well as other smaller fish. We rested and showered at the hostel before heading out to dinner.

Week 23 - Zambia – South Luangwa National Park to Malawi – Liwonde National Park

We slept in on Monday morning because in the middle of the night we had been woken up by the hippos grunting and snorting. We could also hear something outside munching on the grass. We tried to look out of our windows but it was too dark to see. When we looked out of the window in the morning, we could see vervet monkeys in the trees and elephants in the garden. On the way to the restaurant for breakfast we went past several elephants. They seemed to be all over the place. After breakfast we organised our move from the chalet to the safari tent. Our tent was great. It had a concrete verandah and had twin beds and bedside table. Out the back was our outdoor bathroom - an area surrounded by bamboo screens with a shower, basin and toilet. We had to store our food in the communal kitchen to keep the baboons and elephants from breaking into our tent to steal it. However the elephants were hanging around the kitchen and tent area so it was after 11.00 am before we were able to move into our tent. There was a lot of excitement as a big bull elephant had lain down under a tree for an afternoon snooze near the restaurant. We went for a bit of a walk around the camp area and then to the lagoon where we saw a family of banded mongeese and a couple of elephants.

At 3.30 pm we went on an evening game drive. We had a cup of tea and some slices of cake before jumping on to our game viewing vehicle with our guide and driver Malama and spotter Aaron. Before we had reached the Mfuwe entrance to the park we had seen an elephant (who stood on his hind legs to reach some succulent leaves), puku, white fronted bee-eater, African fisheagle, yellow baboons and vervet monkeys. Inside the park we drove over the Luangwa River where we saw hippos and a 3 metre long Nile crocodile. Then we saw a Crawshay's zebra (no brown shadow stripes), great white egret, common impala, lionesses and young male lion next to the remains of a buffalo kill, an African white backed vulture, a hooded vulture and a waterbuck with a yellow billed oxpecker. We stopped for a drink on a grassy river bed two hours into our game drive just as the sun was setting. After our drink we set off again, this time with Aaron manning a strong spotlight. We saw a night jar, giraffes, spotted hyena, rust spotted genet, African civet, and a white tailed mongoose. We were just on our way out of the park when a small leopard ran across the road in front of us. So all in all it was a very fruitful game drive.

We went for dinner once we got back to Flatdogs Camp. After dinner we were escorted back to our tent and Tyson (the night watchman) showed us a hippo who had come up into the camp to eat "sausages" from the sausage tree. We also watched the hippo "make toilet" on a bush – he dispersed his dung with rapid flicking of his tail!

On Tuesday we made it to the restaurant just in time to gulp half a cup of tea before heading out on our combination walking safari/game drive with Robbie our guide and Jones our scout, who was armed with a semi-automatic rifle. We drove some way into the park, parked the vehicle next to some scrub at the edge of a small clearing and got out. While Jones was loading his rifle, Robbie pointed out some Lilian's lovebirds and some long tailed glossy starlings. Then we began our walk. We walked in single file with Jones and his rifle leading the way. Robbie showed us how to identify zebra, giraffe, puku, impala, porcupine, civet, hyena, elephant and kudu droppings and how to distinguish between buffalo, giraffe and zebra hoof prints. The civet droppings showed how a particular tree was germinating from excreted seeds. We walked for a couple of hours, stopping to look at various birds, trees and animal droppings. The little five are the ant lion, leopard tortoise, rhinoceros beetle, elephant shrew, and buffalo bird. Robbie told us about the seven year life cycle of the ant lion and how they excrete by shedding their skin. We saw a termite mound of the type which grow fungus. We were able to get quite close to a dazzle of zebras before they became uncomfortable and moved away. Back in the vehicle, we spotted hippo, buffalo, jacana (sometimes called Jesus birds because they appear to walk on water), bushbuck, waterbuck, lions, white browed coucal and yellow baboon. On the last part of our drive we looked at a rhinoceros skeleton next to the lagoon and came across a large herd of buffalo crossing the road. Every so often one of the buffalo seemed to panic and the rest of the group would follow suit, galloping across the road in fright. We stopped to admire a pair of African fish eagles and as we did so, Keith caught a glimpse of a beautiful civet with yellow and black markings slinking into the bushes next to the vehicle. We headed out of the park spotting a hammerhead, African gymnogene (or harrier hawk, which changes colour of its face from yellow to red when excited and has a double jointed knee to allow it to put its talons in any direction into holes in trees to capture snakes, lizards, and baby birds), Retz hermit shrike and about thirty elephants. Back at Flatdogs Camp, Keith went for a walk with the camera. He saw hornbills, baboons, vervet monkeys and blue waxbills. After a swim and relax by the pool where we talked to a Dutch family, Keith went to the lagoon where he saw female puku, the mongeese and a water monitor climbing up a tree.

In the early hours of Wednesday morning, we were woken by the sound of hippos making toilet, tramping and munching through the garden. We arrived at the restaurant at the same time as the Dutch family only to discover that they had forgotten about us and had packed away the early bird breakfast of cereal and jams as everyone had left for the game drives. The waiter started putting the crockery, cutlery, cereals and jams back out again and as soon as our backs were turned, the monkeys ran inside the restaurant and started stealing the cereal. They were very bold and we spent a lot of time chasing them away from the table. The waiter took the cereal back into the kitchen so one of the monkeys stole a dish of jam instead! He wasn't able to run very fast holding the jam in his front paws so he dropped it and we were able to retrieve it.

After breakfast we talked to the Dutch family. They were driving to Chipata to drop off their vehicle (which they had rented in Malawi) and it was being driven back to Lilongwe which was our next destination. They contacted the car rental company and arranged for us to be given a lift in the vehicle from Chipata to Lilongwe.

We went back to our tent and collected our back packs and met Geoffrey (our driver) at reception. We loaded our packs into the back of a very beaten up Toyota 4WD. It had a piece of chip board instead of a rear windscreen and one of the windows in the very back was made out of a clear plastic bag. The road to Mfuwe was not bad – it was terrible. There were two sections of tarred road but the rest of the road was unsealed, and littered with rocks and potholes. Geoffrey drove most of the 130 kms at 30 kms per hour so it was almost four hours before we arrived covered in a fine layer of red dust at the Crystal Springs Hotel in Chipata where we had agreed to meet the Dutch family.

We paid a quick visit to the supermarket and changed our remaining Zambian Kwachas into Malawian Kwachas. The largest denomination note we got was 500 Malawian Kwachas – equivalent to around USD 3 so we had big wads of cash. Then set off for Lilongwe with David from J&K Car Rentals. From there the journey was a breeze, the border crossing was painless and the road was tarred and straight.

We arrived at Lilongwe at 2.00 pm and David dropped us off at the Mufasa Lodge. To our horror it was full and the next hostel that we tried was also full. We went to the Budget Lodge and managed to check into a dingy room with twin beds and shared bathroom. Then we went out to find out about transport to Monkey Bay. We walked to the Lilongwe Bus Station via a couple of local minibus stands. We walked across the Lilongwe River and on the banks we could see some markets and a shanty town with people bathing in the river.

On Thursday morning we decided to try and catch the early bus to Monkey Bay and we caught a minibus to the Lilongwe Bus Depot. We saw a guy getting bashed up by a crowd because he had been caught stealing. We arrived at the bus stop at 7.30 am and the bus was already three quarters full. We managed to get some seats at the back which had heaps of legroom. A young trendily dressed preacher spoke and sang to the bus in Chichewa and took donations. The trip took four and a half hours passing numerous small villages and roadblocks. Whenever the bus stopped it was mobbed by people selling drinks, samosas, fruit and vegetables. We met Robert from the UK who was a part owner of Mufasa Rustic Lodge (called "Rustic" because no electricity) at Monkey Bay where we were heading. At Monkey Bay village we drove 500 metres on a dirt track to the Mufasa Rustic Lodge and got our first view of Lake Malawi. The setting was stunning with a 50 metre beach between two headlands, blue water, a huge baobab, and no people apart from the staff. We climbed up a steep goat track to the top of the kopje behind the camp. We had views over the adjacent bay, an island over the channel, Lake Malawi as far as the eye could see, rice paddies on the other side of a swamp, and behind us the Monkey Bay settlement. There were dassies on the rocks below us and we could see African fish eagles in the distance. We had lunch with the staff at 5.00 pm! Then we spent the next couple of hours having a beer with Robert while they prepared dinner. We ate dinner by candlelight and at around 7.30 pm and after chatting for a while, we went to bed.

On Friday we woke up as soon as it became light. Keith went for a walk while Suzie stayed in bed. After breakfast we walked to the harbour where we saw the weekly Ilala ferry and some baboons in the trees near the harbour. We went and had a look at a rather dilapidated boat called the Chauncey Maples and then we walked across the airstrip to the Venice Beach Backpackers to have lunch and see if we could use the internet. Back at Mufasa, we had a swim in the lake and Keith went for a paddle in the canoe.

After breakfast on Saturday, we walked into town to catch a matola (light pick-up truck) to Cape Maclear. We waited for 20 minutes for a matola to fill up then we climbed on board, stepping over bags of sugar, biscuits, cane mats and seated ourselves on a sack of clothing. We set off down a bumpy dirt road to Cape Maclear. It was a 45 minute drive past a couple of "brick factories" where we could see grey mud bricks drying in the sun. In some areas the grey bricks were piled up in kiln-like stacks with holes underneath to allow for fires for firing the bricks. Some kilns had been lit – the exteriors were covered in mud and the bricks were changing from grey to orange. After being dropped off by the matola we walked along the gravelly beach to the Mufasa Cape Maclear Lodge where we put our camera and laptop on to charge. We strolled along the beach and along the main road looking at some of the crafts stalls. Then we headed back to the Mufasa Lodge for a delicious fish lunch. After lunch we walked along the main street to catch a matola back to Monkey Bay. We got dropped off at the hospital where we managed to get some Coartem anti malaria treatment pills. Back at Monkey Bay, we took a walk down to the swamp near the entrance of Mufasa and saw fireflies flickering on and off above the grass. It was really magical.

After breakfast on Sunday, we walked into town to catch a minibus to Mangochi for the first leg of our trip to Liwonde. On the way into town a guy in a small late model Toyota van stopped and offered us a lift to Mangochi. When we arrived at Mangochi we were swamped by touts trying to find out where we were headed next. Our bags were grabbed out of the rear of the van and a scuffle between rival minibus operators ensued with some punches being thrown. Eventually we managed to retrieve our bags which had been placed in different minibuses and put them into a minibus that was nearly full but we ended up sitting around for almost an hour while they crammed more people and luggage in. Finally the minibus was push/clutch-started and we headed off only to stop a couple of hundred metres down the road to pack a couple of sacks of dried fish on top of our back packs behind our head. When the minibus started again we were covered in a fine layer of white flakes which smelt of fish. We arrived in Liwonde about an hour later and got dropped off in the town after crossing the Shire River. There were no rooms available at the Shire Camp but the owner organised three guys to take us to the Bushman Camp by bicycle. One bike took our packs and we each went on the back of another. Half way there a clapped out 4WD stopped and took us the rest of the way. We arrived at the half constructed camp and checked into the dorm after chatting to the owner, Darren. The dorm had an earth floor and no electricity!! Luckily there was plenty of space as we only had to share it with four Irish medical students. We went for a walk to the river bank which was actually marsh and lagoon with the river proper some distance away. We walked along bush paths seeing lots of signs of hippo and some fresh waterbuck dung. We returned to the camp and had a fabulous dinner at a big communal table with all the other guests and we were munched by the mosquitoes. We had a shower and went to bed to the sound of hippos grunting again.