Day 279 Malawi 08/08/2011, Bush House Chizga Rest-house, Chilumba. Repairs, a walk on the beach and a certain amount of hanging around.

The guest-house may have been a bit rubbish, but we both slept quite well. It was certainly peaceful after the continual noise of our hotel in Karonga.

For some reason I have forgotten to mention in my last few blogs that I have been nursing a slightly buckled rear wheel. Probably caused on the stretch of unsealed road between Babati and Kondoa. This morning, I went to have a look at my wheel and discovered that I have two broken spokes! It looked like we would be giving any cycling a miss today, as I would have to make an attempt to replace the spokes and straighten the wheel. A job that I have been dreading since we set off; I understand the principle of wheel truing but actually doing it is a whole other thing. Working as carefully as I could, I am quite pleased with how straight I have got the wheel. I am just not certain how tensioned the spokes are supposed to be. I am not convinced that I am going to find someone capable of rebuilding my wheel this side of South Africa. With a bit of luck I have repaired it well enough that I will have no further problems, but I will be keeping a close eye.

The repairs took a bit less time than I expected, but we still decided to stay put, as did Thomas. We told him to go on without us but he decided that he may as well stay here. Knowing the way Africa time seems to work, it would be just our luck that the ferry would arrive early and be gone by the time we got back!

Some time during mid-morning the ticket guy arrived at the guest-house to tell us that the ferry had left Nkhata bay and was on its way. We are now expecting it sometime around 8pm. It looks like we wouldn't have had to worry about missing the boat after all.

With not much else to do, we had a wander down to the beach and dipped our toes into the water. It will be nice to get to one of the beach resorts, so we can have a proper swim.

By now it was midday and the temperature had risen dramatically, so we had a slow walk back to the guest-house. Fingers crossed that there are no more delays, because we really have exhausted the things to do. Having said that, I still haven't had a haircut, the recommended barbers has been closed all day, perhaps I should wait until Nkhata Bay!

A quick update, 8pm came and went and we were left sitting on the grass outside the ferry port waiting for a seemingly non-existent ferry. By now we are used to this, we seem to have had a bad run of luck when it comes to ferries. The only one that has actually gone when we expected, was the ferry that we left England on! At least we were coping better than Thomas, who had taken to pacing around and swearing about the ferry. When we found ourselves surrounded by children, our white skin glows like a beacon in the dark, it all got too much for him and he went off to sit on his own. Interspersed with the now expected 'give me money'; 'give me torch'; 'buy me water or food' and the rather hopeful 'give me your bike' we chatted away to what were basically friendly if somewhat over exuberant children. Bearing in mind that Thomas is a school teacher we were a little surprised that he couldn't cope, Austrian children are obviously a lot better behaved! The only problem with being surrounded by the kids with their occasionally grabby hands, was that we had been left with Kerry (an Australian guy) and his two friends luggage. We had no problem looking after it, we just didn't know he was going to be gone for so long. The boat was now expected at around 10:30pm and at about 10pm we were called to bring our bikes and luggage through the gates so that we could board first. There was no sign of Kerry, so not wanting to leave the luggage behind with the expectant looking kids, we took it with us. When they eventually returned, there was no thanks for moving their bags at all. Despite the fact that two rucksacks and another two bags on top of our bikes wasn't particularly easy to move. You really do wonder why you bother to help some people!

Loading our bikes on the ferry turned out to be tougher than promised. Instead of letting us on first as they had told us, they let everyone flood towards the ferry. They did call us to the front, but by now the gangplank was surrounded by people and we had to force our way through, only to find out that our loaded bikes were too wide to fit through the gap. Some shoving and pushing later and a certain amount of effort on Thomas' part ended with the bikes safely stowed on the forecastle. Getting our luggage up onto the top deck involved another scrum, but eventually we were safely on board. Six of us had the whole first class top deck to ourselves. We each hired a mattress, a large piece of foam, and settled down for the night. It has been a very long 30 hours since we arrived in Chilumba, but at least we were finally under way!

Day 278 Malawi 07/08/2011, Safari Lodge, Karonga – Chilumba ferry port. 50.92miles/82.32km, 5hrs47minutes, Av 8.8mph.

Ear plugs were definitely the way forward last night as 'Planet Club', the source of the loud music for the last few nights, banged on until 6am this morning. Just to make sure that we hadn't had a noise free night, the staff then started shouting at each other shortly afterwards. I for one though was shattered last night and managed sleep through the worst of it!

Just for a touch of variety we had egg and chips for breakfast, except this time they had run out of coffee. Just as well that we have our own supply, because I didn't fancy tea with watered down hot milk. Having dragged getting ready out as long as possible we finally hit the road at about 9:30am.

When we first entered Malawi we were straight into a headwind and we are pleased to say that nothing has changed since then! Our 80km trip was to be accompanied by that, favourite to cyclists, headwind for the duration of the journey. Sadly it was also accompanied by the cries of 'give me money', it isn't just the border region then! We have come to the conclusion that in school English lessons, before they even learn hello, they are taught the sentence 'give me money'. Other variations that we encountered are 'give me my money', 'give me your money' and one particularly hopeful 'give me all your money'! The adults clearly didn't want to be outdone by the children; one went for the 'hello' followed by a hand-out routine; another woman demanded quite aggressively 'give me 100 kwacha!' and one of a group of guys who had previously ignored our hellos ran down the road trying to get our attention, when we stopped, thinking maybe we had dropped something, he held out his hand and said 'give me money'. We both simultaneously called him an idiot and he trotted back to his friends. It looks like this going to be the soundtrack to our time on the road in Malawi. The obvious solution seems to be to plug our headphones in, turn up the music and not bother speaking to anyone. That of course would be to ignore the genuinely friendly part of the population, of which we have encountered quite a few. It does also appear that the kids don't always know what they are asking. If you counter their questions with a 'why', they grin and look puzzled. When Debs actually stopped when some kids were pursuing her and asking for money, they looked terrified and ran off. Malawi is taking some figuring out!

Having struggled our way against the wind for what seemed like ages we eventually arrived in Chilumba, or at least we would have if we hadn't missed the unsigned junction. Having to ride back up a hill we had just gone down wasn't in the day's plans! Quickly we were back on track and followed the road down to the ferry port. There was no boat at the jetty, but being early we didn't expect to see one just yet. What we didn't expect to be told was that it was running late and wouldn't be here until 4:30am. We were in for a long wait, which got longer when the ticket guy turned up and explained that the boat was actually a day late and wouldn't arrive until 7pm tomorrow! We declined his suggestion to sleep in the waiting room, instead asking after a guest-house. Which is how we have come to end up in a cheap and not particularly cheerful place on the edge of town. The toilets are especially less than cheerful, as is the fact that we have had to have two rooms, due to the fact that despite their insistence, we will not both fit in a single bed! In fairness, the ticket guy has been really helpful, he took us to the guest-house, found us some food and has generally made sure we are alright. While waiting for dinner, the ticket guy turned up with another cycle tourist, Thomas from Austria, who was even more disappointed with the accommodation as he had just left a nice lodge that was only 18km away. We ended up doing what any sane person would in the situation, which is to go to the local bar. A few beers later and the guest-house looked a lot better.

Instead of hanging around all day tomorrow, it looks like we will accompany Thomas back to the lodge that he had been staying at and spend the day on the beach. There seems to be very little to do in Chilumba, although I desperately need to have a haircut and the ticket guy recommended a barbers to me. I will have to see if I am sufficiently psyched up to chance my first African haircut!