I am certain that nobody was the slightest bit peckish, but breakfast was arranged for 0600, departure for 0700. The French-Canadian cyclists were already gone, probably by 0430, Philippe had predicted, and the travellers from the other two overland trucks were also scurrying around their respective vehicles.
Today's bank-holiday roads were practically empty, and we made good time to the Nkhotakota game reserve, where the road lost its tarmacadam surface, Malaika lost speed, and roof hatches were thrown open. Only the die-hards stuck it out much more than a quarter of an hour, as it was already baking hot, long before 1000.
The main feature of the day, I guess, was the border crossing between Malawi and Zambia, another 50 bucks gone, for the privilege of having the supercilious girl, on her cellphone possibly arranging the night's love life, utterly ignore our expensively assembled documentation. I am told that I must accept and ignore such charades because 'this is Africa'. I have no doubt that the phrase will still be in use 30 years from now; countries merely paying lip service to the standards which will drag them out of the third world will find it extremely difficult ever to be anything other than third world. Rant over.
A swift stop at Chipata's retail park variously got us a few (Zambian, different from Malawian, but still printed by Waddington's) Kwachas from the ATM, fries and a vanilla milk shake from Steers, a Golden Arches lookalike, or potions for warding off Bilharzia from the apothecary.
It began to rain buckets as we loaded back into Malaika, and thoughts began to turn to putting tents up in the rain, on sodden ground and in the dark....
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