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Early start for me although Mt Tom was a little worse for wear today for some reason.... Late last night we went to a local chaps house. We had
Met Innocents at Doogles own bar and we went to nightclub last night which was an experience. Last night in Malawi and all. I didn't drink as was watching my money, and due to Tom state this morning he's wishing he had done the same.. Innocents house consisted if a two rooms, both about 3x3m and rammed full of stuff. One room was his bedroom, the other was sitting room, kitchen, brothers bedroom, and it was quite messy, although not too bad in terms if smell, I had expected worse. Innocents is a police prosecutor, so I wonder what poor local lives in.!
Anyway, to day we caught a bus from right outside Doogles. After a 45 minute wait until the bus driver deemed there to be enough people on we finally headed out. Journey was ok, quite roomy, and arrived in Liwonde by 11 ish.
From Liwonde we caught a smaller bus too the Northern boarder. After a bit of a discussion with the driver about destination. (I think he was trying to tell me an easier way of getting to Cuamba than heading up North to then come back south.) we headed up to the boarder. Cuamba is 55km from Liwonde but only connected by rail which runs once a week!!
The journey was long and we were watching the time, it asking for it more like, since we knew when we arrived at boarder we still had to travel a good 140km and needed to buy train ticket for tomorrow before it closed. The driver averaged about 30mph, and kept coating in neutral every time there was a slight downward gradient!
Eventually arrived at nearest town to boarder, filled in some forms, then caught a bike taxi to boarder if Mozambique. More forms and changed our remaining kwacha to meticals. Back on the bikes for 7km to next town. Ended up getting on back of pickup truck, joined by 7 other locals in about 2m square if space, Cosy! We only took this option because we were in a rush ti get to ticket office and they said it would take an hour. The road was made of dirt and horribly dusty, bumpy and uncomfortable, mainly due to the fact I was sat on a taught piece of thin rope due to space issue, only for an hour though, I can manage. So an hour went by, it got dark, then 7 hours went by!!!! 7 hours!! I just wanted to get off and go to sleep by roadside. Anything would be better than this I thought..
Just before he dropped us all off he stopped and collected money. We had agreed 350 originally but Tom only gave him 100 due to his sour, sout mood! Driver was going a but mental so i made Tom give him the 350 which he declared still wasn't enough. We just sat there and shook out heads constantly, the locals on the bus were getting really ticked off...
Arrived finally at Cuamba close to 12, needless to say the office was shut and won't open until early hours, train leaves at 5.
As we disembarked from the truck it turns out Tom had been sitting all journey on this basket of tomatoes... One chap was livid, Tom didn't apologise, which regardless if his mood I was shocked about really... So I did.
As we were getting our bags a drunk staggered over all loud and a bit odd, he was asking for money, I said no, he didn't like and was making a cut throat movement with his thumb. I chose to ignore him but was expecting him to lash out. He was only small and posses no threat really, but we decided we were to stay at the saying like the hundred or so locals sleeping all over the place, fighting may result in worse so walked away. He then picked a fight with guy that was on our truck, web smaller, nothing came if it and eventually he staggered off. Sleeping in the concrete was a luxury compared to that truck...
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