Birthday!

Trip Start Jul 25, 2006

Trip End Sep 30, 2006

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Flag of Malawi Livingstone, Malawi
Monday, August 7, 2006

Hello everyone, thank you for all the birthday emails and texts and face book messages! Just an update to let you all know what an unusual birthday i had! I woke up in Zambia but actually i had had the worst nights sleep ever- I am on weird malaria tablets which give you weird dreams. I woke up my tent mate, also called Bex when i was crouched on all fours and waving at some imaginary children!?? She also talks in her sleep so the two of us where fairly mental chatting and waving at each other all night! Very bizarre!
After this i got the luxury of a full english breakfast at a restaurant-instead of porridge and packnig up the truck. breakfast was lovely and then we set off in the truck to cross the border to Malawi- yep crossing borders on my birthday! Amazing. Border entry involved bribing the officials to ensure we all got through- they didn;t like us at all and fined a guy on our truck for relieving himself behind a bush, " Even the locals use a toilet!' Yep we are disgusting!
Although whilst talking about toilets i also paid to use the WORST toilet ever- call it a longdrop, it was full and there had been some bad aiming going on. EUGh. enough said, i'll stick to the great outdoors from now on.The down with the disgusting toilet was a fairly typical experience of the last few days of travelling. As soon as the truck stops we are nearly mobbed by the locals, selling stuff and begging. Even when u say no i have no money they want to trade. The keep wanting my watch, i tried telling them it was worth more than there whole shop but they are sure it is a fake! I am also planningn on trading my shampoo for hair braids later today! The poverty it unbelievable, all we have seen across malawi and Zambia are shanty towns pretty much. Although i can report that Subway has 3branches in the capital of zambia!
Anyway, birthday was mostly spent on the truck and bartering with locals for a special birthday price for whatever it was they were trying to flog.Nearly bought a drum, will hold off until later. later in the afternoon we arrived at a beach-malawi has a massive lake which is so big ti seems more like the sea and has beaches. We pitched our tents right on the beach, has the whole thing to ourselves and watched the stunning sunset, accompanied by a few sundowners! (Parents pls stop reading!) The few sundowners and welcome to malawi and lets get bex drunk drinks got me exceedingly drunk! My ability to drink here seems to be non-existent which is a shame when a bottle of vodka is only 4pounds but still am pushing on as best as possible!