Juliet does Africa

On Wednesday (13th), we were meant to be up by 4:30, but Tim came around and woke us up at 5 - Louise's alarm didn't go off because her clock was half an hour slow...randomly. Also worth pointing out that John didn't wake us up - even though we had done it for him numerous times, despite our differences. I don't actually know how we slept in, seeing as the call to prayer plays (very loudly) from 4-6 each morning in Dar es Salaam, but we did.
Got dressed as quickly as we could, and brushed our teeth in the delightful sea water that comes out of the taps, and managed to leave only 25 minutes late, for a loooong journey of doom.
Stopped for breakfast and had chicken soup, chapati and samosa, then bought some chapati and samosas for lunch. They were really tasty.
Didn't arrive at camp until about 7 - our longest journey yet, but luckily dinner was made for us - pork, sausage AND chicken, creamy cheesy potatoes, tasty veg, coleslaw and greek salad. So good. Went to bed really early after having a quick look around at the snakes and crocodiles, and trying to wind up the Black Mamba.

The next day we got up at around half 6 and had a shower, ready for breakfast at 7. We had planned to go to the tribunals for the Rwandan Genocide but then we found out that it was a public holiday which ruined all our plans. So we did a bit of ill-equipped hand washing in the showers, and then relaxed by the snakes.

Got to hold a snake and a baby crocodile later that day which was really cool, and then made a 'friend' whose first question to us after saying hello was 'do you have any white male friends I could marry?' I sat there trying to conceal my laughter while she took photos of us and took down Louise's (fake) number. Creepy. We told her about John and said he would be back from the Serengeti in a couple of days, and she finally left and we forgot all about it.
Had the crew dinner of mince and rice and cauliflower, then pretty much went straight to bed.

On Friday (15th), we got up quite early, showered and moisturised. Had breakfast with all the other volunteers, and Ma and BJ, and then headed to the incredible Meserani Education Centre. Louise and I stayed with the children in the kindergarten, while Madeleine went into the bush to help teach on the Outreach programme, which teaches Maasai people of any age.
The kindergarten was great fun, the teachers, Nema and Sophia, were amazing. When we first got there, we played 'snap' with the children, although they were all cheating terribly and didn't actually seem to know the rules... Then we sang some songs, like 'Yellow Submarine', the Tanzania National Parks song, 'In the Jungle', 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star', 'If you're happy and you know it', and some other African songs. It was all very energetic.

Then it was breaktime, and all the children lined up to go outside, then sat outside the classroom drinking their porridge. We got some porridge too, which was yum. The kids had to drink all of their porridge (mainly because few of them would get food when they were sent home at lunchtime) before they could go and play, and one boy, Petro, couldn't drink as fast as the others, so was sitting by himself watching Nema blow bubbles and the other children going absolutely crazy. Eventually he finished and was allowed to join in.
We then went to the playground and played football, piggy in the middle, catch, skipping, hula-hooping, and climbing with the children, which was fun but so hot. We then went back inside and Nema played the bongos and the children danced. Even the little boys were shaking their booties. After that we played 'Tembo, Tembo, Simba', where someone walks around the circle tapping people's heads and saying 'Tembo', and then they are chased by the person they tag as 'Simba'. If they get back to the person's spot without being caught, it is then the Simba's turn to go around the circle. I had to run around loads because all the kids thought it would be hilarious to tag me as Simba every time.
Kindergarten then ended for the day, and we were invited back for after school club.
As we were walking back for lunch, Petro appeared and latched on to us, and we had no idea where he needed to go! He kept talking at us in Swahili and unfortunately we didn't understand a word of it. We took him to the orphanage where we were told he lived, but the doors were all locked, so we went back to the school and they told us to take him to the clinic at the Snake Park. When we arrived with Petro, everyone seemed a bit confused.
After that, we had some lunch - I had an egg and cheese beef burger, then we went and had a wander around...mistake. We wanted a couple of samosas as a snack, but ended up being bustled into some random room and fed loads of rice and beef and beans. It was really nice but quite strange! The women who gave us the food just laughed with their friends about the stupid Mzungus. It only cost TSh1500 each though, which works out at about 60p, so we paid and went on our way.
Got back to the Snake Park and Madeleine arrived back with the other volunteers, and Alex, the Maasai guy who has been on billboards all around London. He seemed intrigued by my eyeliner and kept staring at me.
By that point it was nearly time to go back for after school club, so we sat around for a bit and then headed back.
After school club was great. We played netball and football with the children, and then they sang and danced and did some acrobatics. Time flew by and before we knew it, it was half 6. We headed back and were met by Tim, who we managed to convince to get really drunk with us that evening - on the condition that we all had a 'Ma's revenge' shot. Ma's revenge consists of 80% Stroh Rum, Tequila, and Tabasco, and it is a killer. Madeleine was doomed from this point onwards.

We had the crew dinner again, which was chicken stew, and we chatted to some Australians and a Canadian, and then got back to the bar. A few drinks later and Madeleine was absolutely hammered, and did all sorts of crazy stuff such as throwing darts indiscriminately, falling over in the toilets and taking the shower curtain with her, and inevitably being sick. Most of the night she was hanging off Tim's neck, it was hilarious.
Tim eventually convinced us to take her to bed, and I was lumbered with the task. After a while of trying to carry her, one of the Australians from dinner appeared, and I asked if he could give Madeleine a piggy back to the tent. He accepted my kind offer, and on the way back to the bar he got all creepy on me and said 'you're really pretty', and tried to cling on to me for the rest of the night, much to Tim's amusement.
Had a couple more drinks and then decided to go and bundle Madeleine. Got to the tent and all 3 of us jumped on her, which somehow resulted in her being face-down in the sand outside the tent! Lots of people got very angry about how loud we were being, and when me and Louise went off to get ready for bed, apparently someone said to Madeleine 'Are you alright in there?' in a genuinely concerned voice, and upon her reply of 'yes', shouted 'WELL GO TO F***ING SLEEP THEN!' Mean. Can't remember much after that, so presumably passed out!

On Saturday we got up at 7 and took our time getting ready due to terrible hangovers. Went to breakfast and had egg, tomato, sausage and 2 slices of toast. Yum. Ma and BJ found our behaviour from the previous night hilarious and were telling everyone all about it. We then noticed Tim's absence and decided to go and wake him up. We stamped and banged and shouted outside his banda until he came out!
We then went on a Maasai walk which was really good, as we went through the cultural museum, which had a lot of information about circumcision/genital mutilation, and then we visited the gift shop where I bought a bag made by the Maasai women. Then we descended on the shops outside, owned by the Maasai women, which had so much beautiful stuff in. I got 2 necklaces and 2 pairs of earrings for about £4. Then our Maasai guide walked us to a village, and took us into a house where there was a 3 month old baby and a really cute little girl. While he was talking to us, another little girl kept on touching me - my hair, my back, my arms, my ears, my watch...strange.

The guide then walked us back and took us into the clinic, where we saw a little boy that had just been bitten by a snake. Another man had just survived a Black Mamba bite (98% of bites are fatal). We then went back to the Snake Park and had our toasties and some crisps.
Later that day, the creepy woman from a few days before appeared again! She wouldn't leave us alone, and when we eventually managed to get away from her and started walking around and looking at the snakes again, we turned around to see her about 10 metres behind us! Stalker!! We then witnessed her asking about 10 different white men to marry her, and she also found John when he arrived back - big lol!
Anyway, later on Tim made a great dinner for us, consisting of steak, cauliflower cheese, potatoes, among other delicious stuff. I pointed out to John that I had gotten a seat out for him to sit on, but as usual he ignored me and stood there eating like a knob. Then, after dinner when we were doing our final load of washing up, John says (after doing a half arsed job of drying a few cups, and putting them away wet) 'I'm going to do 3 more things and then I'm going'. We were outraged! There was loads of stuff for him to do, so another argument ensued, resulting in him saying he was only going to do 'his share', and me retorting 'what about your share for the rest of the 30 days worth of washing and drying up?!' and then him pointing at his face and saying 'Bothered? Bothered? Am I bothered? Bothered?' GROW UP! The fury was building at this point, and he claimed he had a 'party to go to', and once again ran away from a dispute. Anyway, after this we resolved to dev him out on the truck the next day by taking the piss out of everything he had ever said! We then filled up 3 out of the 4 jerry cans for Tim (can't possibly do more than our share) to make John look bad, and went to bed.

Up bright and early on Sunday, and Tim was making us a nice breakfast of bacon and eggs and chunky toast. Sadly, when he was doing the eggs, he cracked a black one into the pot and they all had to be discarded =( John was nowhere to be found and made us very late. He finally emerged from his tent with the horrifically annoying nasal Australian, which made everyone's day! Hilarious! We boarded the truck and proceeded with our 'Johnisms' plan, which was a complete success!
Arrived at Karen Camp in Nairobi in the early afternoon, and met the new people who would be on Tim's truck. That evening we bought Tim dinner and gave him his tip in a nicely decorated envelope, and the next morning we said our goodbyes =( (although not to John).
Karen Camp was rubbish and we spent as little time there as possible, and went into Karen each day to go on the internet. The washing we handed in for them to do was completely ruined with bleach, and so we got our entire stay, including bar tab, breakfast, lunch and dinner for 4 days completely free! Wonderful!
Made our way to the airport on the 21st, and had some more emotional goodbyes. My flight was at 23:10, whereas Louise and Madeleine's was at 18:45, so I had to wait at a coffee shop outside for hours after they left. The coffee shop served me some weird tea with skin on it, which was not the most enjoyable thing in the world. I managed to check in at 18:00, which seems quite early to check in for a late flight like mine, but I was glad to get inside the nice safe airport. Wandered around for about 5 hours and eventually boarded, had my dinner and went to sleep, and 9 hours later I was back in England =(

On Thursday (7th October), we crossed the border to Tanzania. The guy at immigration when we were leaving Malawi was really difficult, and made us write out our cards all over again with full addresses of where we're from, where we were staying and where we would be staying...long. Also, on the Tanzanian side, we didn't have to get off the truck, but apparently we almost didn't get to cross the border as the immigration officer was trying to pair us all off with his brothers - devastating!
Arrived at our campsite - Kizolanza Farmhouse, and had some of their lovely homemade chocolate brownies, then set up our tents and had macaroni cheese with bacon for dinner.
John mentioned the Serengeti and Tim was like 'yeah, no one has got back to me yet, but as it stands it'd cost you more than $1000 to go in alone'. So John gets all shitty and goes 'cheers guys', and storms off to do the washing up.
We eventually found him after ages of shouting his name with no response (the campsite had no electricity and we didn't take a torch), and then we were like 'why did you wander off?' and he said 'well I figured if I did this, I could not do any clearing up tomorrow', and we were all just like 'WHAAAT?! No way!' And a big argument ensued, which culminated in him saying we had 'no crack', and 'aren't nice people'. Then he stormed off again, and we decided we would try and make amends in the bar, as we didn't want to ruin his trip, so we went to the bar and Madeleine tried to talk to him, but he basically threw it back in her face. We pointed out the problem we had with him not doing anything, and he said that Louise was rude to him the other day when he asked where something went, and at this point I was like 'yeah, too right! It's very telling that we've been on this trip for MORE THAN 4 WEEKS and you still don't know where stuff goes!' And I had to repeat it about 9 times because of his general pigheaded ignorance and interruption.
Anyway, he then stormed off AGAIN, and we gave up on him. On the plus side, we did have hot chocolate amarulas and lovely fires to warm us up at high altitude. Went to bed around 8 for a very early start.

On the 8th, we got up at 3:50, as we had to leave by 5, and then we tried to sleep on the truck after breakfast. I didn't sleep at all as I was on the forward facing seats, and we were going through a lot of roadworks and bumpy dirt roads, so I stayed awake for sunrise and watched out the window as we drove through the beautiful Baobab tree valley.

It was a long, long drive, but was made interesting for a little while as we drove through Mikumi NP, and saw giraffes by the side of the road.

Finally we arrived at Mikadi Beach camp in Dar es Salaam, which is guarded by genuine Maasai, and is extremely safe (until you step on to the part of the beach past the camp borders at which point you are likely to get mugged), and had gin slushies and beer and took a dip in the warm Indian Ocean.
The camp staff made us dinner which consisted of LOADS of chicken, rice, potato salad, vegetables etc, and then we went to bed as we were all pretty knackered.

On Saturday we got up early and got ready for Zanzibar, and hired some Tuk-tuks to the ferry port. John had decided to befriend us again as he didn't want to be alone on Zanzibar, which was fair enough except for the fact that he was his usual irritating, immature, ignorant self. The annoyance started when he forced us to get on the ferry with him (because he couldn't possibly get on alone) before we could enjoy our nice free breakfast (he made us miss out on bacon and eggs), even though the woman at the desk said we had about 45 minutes before the ferry left. So I got pretty stressed out trying to juggle my cup of coffee, bottle of water, cup cake and bread roll, and then the strap fell off my bag which stressed me out some more.

The ferry took a couple of hours, and we arrived at Zanzibar at about 11. Although Zanzibar is not a country in it's own right, it wants to be, so we had to go through immigration and get our passports stamped etc. John was really rude to me (no change there), and asked for the pen I used to fill in my forms by shouting 'Pen, Juliet...PEN' in my face (apparently manners escape him), and after that we wandered around trying to find the Guesthouse we had booked.
John once again decided to pick on Madeleine, and had a go at her for not getting directions to Jambo Guesthouse, even though I had organised it. We ended up getting a cab, which cost about 1 pound 40, and checked in. Sadly, John also managed to get a room.
Freshened up a bit and made our way to Amore Mio for Pizza. Stone Town is beautiful but very confusing, and we got a lot of people tagging on to us, trying to give us directions, but we had to check first that they didn't want money for their help. John then had a go at us for having a map, so I just said to him 'ok, let's just walk around and not find anything instead, go on, lead the way!'
After many wrong turns, we arrived at the restaurant and had pizza for lunch with sorbet for dessert. I had a pizza with an egg cracked onto it, and I had lemon, mandarin and pineapple sorbet for pudding.
Left there to get ready for our night out, and made ourselves look pretty and headed out to Africa House for cocktails and sunset. I had a passionfruit margarita, coconut martini, mojito and a pina colada served in a coconut, while John rambled on about his shower mirror, buying houses, getting off the grid, and how he hates 'Indians and Muslims' for being benefit cheats (something he later revealed that he was, since he was working cash in hand and getting unemployment benefit for quite a long time..)

We then met Mick, Adrian and Ally while John was in the toilet, and invited them over to our table for some relief from John of doom. They told us to go to a club called 'Livingstones' after the night market, and we left to get our dinner. John kindly lent me TSh 20000 (about 8 pounds 50) because he didn't want to go back to the hostel so I could get more money, and then we arrived at Forodhani at around 8. We were immediately snared by a guy from a stall, and the food looked so good (as did the chef), that we couldn't refuse.

So we had shrimp and snapper skewers, and sugar cane & lime juice. John was an absolute mug and bought a whole crab as well as loads of other stuff from the first stall we visited, and then he started pressing us for an answer about whether we wanted to share a room with him in the north beaches. We couldn't be arsed to discuss it as it was ruining our night, and Madeleine said she would walk away if he carried on (which he did), he eventually stormed off, but not before asking for the 20000 shillings he had lent me back.
After that, we tried to get away from the guy from the stall who was saying that people from France were horrible, and people from 'our country' were really nice, although he didn't actually seem to know what our country was.

We then found another stall selling pizza, and Madeleine and I shared a dessert one, which was folded up with banana and chocolate inside.
We then found our new friends, and sat on the wall with them, while some locals went on about how they'd really like our mixed race children, and that we should meet up again and 'enjoy each other'.
After that we headed to Livingstones with the guys, had a drink and a dance, and went back to the guesthouse to sleep.

The 10th of October was equally busy. We got up at around half 7 to get ready for our spice tour which began at 9. We had our included breakfast of fruit, bread, eggs, spice tea, coffee and juice, and went on our way. The spice tour was fantastic. Tried fresh peppercorns, nutmeg, starfruit, some sour thing that was related to star fruit, cacao, a weird fruit called a gongo or something, coconut, and then had our lunch, which consisted of spiced rice, some potatoey soup stuff, spinach and chapati, and then we headed back to Stonetown.

We went back to Amore Mio for some lifesaving sorbet and a dose of hot waiter, and some of the waitresses said we were beautiful which was nice!
We then explored Stonetown for a bit, and got extremely lost for about an hour, before we stumbled upon a massive taxi area, where we managed to get a taxi up to Kendwa Rocks for 35000 shillings, as opposed to 50000 which we were originally quoted.

The cab kept getting stopped by corrupt police, asking our driver for money because he was driving white people, and white people are rich.
Arrived at Kendwa Rocks at about 5 and watched the sun go down. Then some (probably fake) Maasai guys came up to us and they were incredibly drunk and kept swearing. One of them looked like he had been eating sand.

We walked back to our room and met a couple of guys called Adam and Tiger, and then spotted John, and ran for it. We then realised that we needed a bottle opener for our wine, so we had to go back to the beach to ask someone at the bar to open it for us.
We all had showers, but while we were waiting for the shower to become free, this girl walked out of one of them and said 'there's still someone in there', so I innocently said 'oh, is the shower communal then?!', and she said 'it is now!' Ew.
Got ready while drinking our wine, and then headed to the White Sands Hotel restaurant for dinner, and finished our wine very slyly after hiding it under the table. Apparently this pushed me over the edge, and we ended up dancing with all the staff at the restaurant!
After that we left for the Kendwa Rocks bar, and I don't remember much apart from going to the toilet to be sick. Great. Came back and got dev'd out because Madeleine and Louise had met some Brazilians and everyone was talking about travelling as usual, so I walked down to the beach for a bit and saw the coolest little crabs!

There were 2 lights on the beach, one white and one with a hint of green in it. The crabs were living in these areas because these areas attracted their prey - moths and the like. Even more cool - the crabs living in the vicinity of the green light were slightly green, whereas those living by the white light were much whiter.

So I went to get the girls and we all went and watched the crabs together. For whatever reason I started running around like a maniac yelling 'CRAB RUN! CRAB RUN!', and then some guys came over with a couple of dogs that they were trying to get to mate. It was very random and Madeleine ended up massaging the female dog, while me and Louise were talking to it and telling it that it was too good for the male dog and so on. I don't know. We thought it best to go to bed after that.

On the 11th, we got up at 9 and had our breakfast, and then went straight to the beach. I put on loads of suncream, I repeat, LOADS of suncream, which was clearly ineffective as by the end of the day I was more sunburnt than I had ever been in my life. Met lots of ....interesting... men on the beach, one of whom declared his love for me..awkward.

Me and Madeleine then turned around to see Louise and Gabriel (Brazilian guy) snogging in the sea! Interesting!
I then decided to go in and it's a good thing I did! By the time we left for dinner I actually couldn't walk which was a bit unfortunate! We went to the same place and all the staff greeted us very warmly as we had been such fun the night before. This time I actually remembered what I had for dinner though which was good because it was lovely! Lobster coconut curry!
After that we went back to the Kendwa Rocks bar and had a couple of cocktails and free shots - apparently it was 'happy hour', although we were the only ones experiencing such happiness.

Then Tiger turned up and started being a massive poser with a shisha - every move he made he carefully considered to make sure his muscles were flexed in the most flattering fashion. It was proper lol.
After a while of the bar man trying to get with Louise, I went to take photos of the crabs, and came back to find Madeleine feeling ill - a perfect excuse to get away from the bar man and dj, who came up to us and said 'hey beautiful ladies' in a really creepy whisper voice.

The next day we got up at half 7. We had our breakfast and organised our cab back to the ferry port, and sat around for a bit chatting and showing John how much 'crack' we have. John's 'girlfriend' kept calling him Johnny - apparently his new persona. Then he came over and asked if she could come in the cab with us, and we gave her the details (she didn't turn up). Then Johnny started telling us how he was going to get a motorbike to the port, and we were like...umm...clearly don't care.
After a crazy cab ride back to the port, in which we narrowly escaped death a few times, we sat around for a while waiting for our ferry. I went to the toilet in one of the long drops, and the door wouldn't lock, so some muslim woman walked in and got a great view of my bum.
Finally got on the ferry and had to endure 2 hours of this ridiculous program called 'Just for laughs - gags'. A devastating blow. Found Tim when we got back but John was nowhere to be seen, so we waited a bit and got a subway, and then headed back to camp. Interesting events ensued!
When we arrived at the ferry crossing to Dar es Salaam, a policeman came up (after Tim had taken a photo of us in our tuk-tuk), and accused us of taking photos of the Prime Minister's house! Devastating! Apparently that is illegal.
He said to me 'get your camera out!', but it was Louise's so she had to get it out and he accused her of deleting the picture. He then made her go through every photo as far back as Lilongwe, just looking for something to find fault with. He eventually said to Tim that we were under arrest, and Tim was making a massive scene (he'd had a few beers), and everyone was looking. Tim then said, 'right, I need your name and officer number and we're going back to central police station to call the British Embassy'. At this point the policeman backed off. Basically he wanted money from us, even though we'd done nothing wrong. We hadn't been anywhere near the Prime Minister's house, and neither had he since he had no vehicle with him at the ferry port. What a corrupt system.
So we apologised to our tuk-tuk driver and went on our way, slightly scarred by our experience.
Arrived back at camp around 4 and John was already there. Had a drink and sat and relaxed for a while. Tim decided to get us crayfish for dinner, which was lovely but a lot of work. John then came over and tried to crack open a crayfish, and I offered to help as we had been doing all of them so far. He completely ignored me (rude), and tried to do it. He found the knife I had been using all along inadequate, and so he went to find another one. I cracked on with the crayfish, and guess what! I managed to open it up. John comes back and goes 'woah woah woah!' and I was like, 'what, I've done it?' So I continued to open it up and it wasn't cooked, so I said 'John? It's not cooked. John? John?' And he ignored me again, so I slammed down the crayfish and the knife and said 'fine, get food poisoning then', and left.

Then Tim called us back to do the washing up, but we did a John and wandered off every now and then, so for once he actually did some work.
We went back to the bar for a bit and then Gabriel revealed that he was coming over with friends, so we all freaked out a bit and spent a couple of hours with them and went to bed at 12ish.

Tanzania is long so I'll continue it in another post!

Crossed the border into Malawi on the 2nd of October, and stopped off in Lilongwe to do some shopping and get some lunch. Got to Mabuya camp and attempted to get on the internet. Madeleine was online for ages and got off at 5pm, and by that time everything had ground to a halt. Nevermind!
So we started drinking and had an interesting dinner made by a very drunk Tim, which consisted of sausages, half cooked lumpy mash, and onion gravy with raw onions...
Met some guys at the bar who were going to the beach party at 'The Shack' that we wanted to go to, so we got a lift down with them.

It was so much fun. Most of our drinks were bought for us, and we just danced on the sand all night. At one point I had some rasta guy called Sanjay, white shirt guy who drove us to the party, and a guy who looked like the ugly one from JLS all trying to dance with me which was really dev so I went to find Madeleine.
After that, white shirt took us to a club called Trigger where we got into the VIP area, and after a couple of hours there, we got a lift back to the campsite. Got back to camp at 3am and passed out. Didn't know what time we had to get up so no alarms were set.

On Sunday, Tim woke us up at 8, wanting to leave by 9. Never going to happen - we were all absolute states.
Louise (2) did the washing up of all of the previous nights stuff, while John disappeared off to the toilet about 20 times. We left him the grill the sausages had been cooked on to wash up and he got really annoyed and started complaining that he didn't even eat last night, and we were all just like, whatever, just get on with it.
Didn't leave camp until 9:50, which annoyed Tim, but he got over it pretty quickly.
Finally on the road and we stopped for a quick shopping opportunity, but Louise and Phil took about 20 minutes! Anyway, Louise bought an Malawian national paper called 'The Nation', which was actually too ridiculous for words. One article headline was 'What do you do if your husband's mistress torments you?', and another one was 'Can traditional medicine help you pass exams?' Dev.
Arrived at Kande Beach after dropping Louise and Phil off in another town. Kande Beach is so beautiful.
We met a guy called Roger who told us about the village tour, and gave us local names. I was 'Mpasa', which means 'gift'; Louise was 'Chimuemwe', which means 'happiness', and Madeleine was 'Tawonga', which means 'Thank You', in the local language, Tonga.
We then went down to the lake and had visitors who started to braid Louise's hair and put a bit of Madeleine's into dreads - devastating.

Madeleine was like..'yeah, it's...really nice...' Finally managed to escape and had a shower and got ready for the big night Tim was planning. He made us punch with 6 bottles of spirits, and loads of juice and pineapple, and our surprise dinner which was Tacos. It was amazing! 7 cups of punch later and me and Madeleine decided to hijack Louise's camera while she was in the toilet.
We then told Tim all about how devastating John was, and then went to the bar where some Australians randomly decided to beef us! Devastating!

On the 4th, we were up at 8 for the village walk at 9, and feeling a little bit worse for wear. It turned out that I was actually incredibly drunk the night before!
Roger came by and kindly waited for us to have toast before setting off.
As soon as we stepped out of the gate, guys crowded around us, and Ufulu (meaning Freedom), picked me as his target.
First Roger took us to the water pump, donated by the Canadian Government, then to a Cassava mill, and then to his home where he told us what we would be having for lunch. His house consisted of 4 rooms (more than most), and the floors were made from dirt. There was no glass in the windows, and the doors to the rooms were curtains. In the living room there was an armchair, a sofa, and another broken sofa. Roger shared his bedroom with his brothers and sisters, and in the house lived about 15 people in total (including grandparents).

Roger then took us to the village school where we were absolutely mobbed by children, as we arrived at break time. We had a bit of a talk from the headmaster, and I was absolutely dripping with sweat (I have literally never been so hot in my life). The headmaster told us that there were 1500 students and only 11 teachers, but I didn't hear much else as I was too busy trying to wipe my face. So devastating.

Went out to the playground where we had children shouting at us 'give me bottle!' 'take my photo!', which was quite overwhelming. We then went to the hospital which consisted of 1 consulting room and a maternity room, and a huge waiting area filled with mothers and their babies.
While we were in the hospital, Roger discovered that his niece was sick, so he was a bit upset.
We then walked through a market back to Roger's house, where lunch was nearly ready.

Played the Bao game with the guys until lunch was brought out to us, and it looked great but Roger served us way too much, and I felt a bit ill from my hangover anyway. This was also made worse by the fact that the food seemed to be infused with the scent of the cichlid fish that are left to dry out in the sun in the street. It was ok though, but I had to leave the spinach and beans.

The guys then cleared away the plates and started showing us their art work, which was actually pretty good but we literally couldn't get away. So in the end we all agreed to buy something small, and only ended up spending about K1000 each, which works out at about 4 pounds.
We eventually got away and were taken back to the campsite in time for horse riding. Horse riding was lovely, except my horse, Fergus, hated the other horses and randomly started galloping and nearly threw me off. He also made Louise's horse buck, and bit another horse.
On the horse ride we saw so many dogs that looked really gross and rabid, and they were all barking at our guides. Dogs in Africa are in fact racist, mainly because the people do things like gallop horses at them....
We walked through the bush on our horses and came across some children who got very excited, and Wilton asked Louise if we'd gone to their school today, because that's what they were telling him.

Arrived on the beach and got into our bikinis, and took the saddles off the horses, ready to ride them bareback into the sea. We were a bit apprehensive about this part as the day before we had seen a man be chucked off his horse when he tried to ride it into the water. It was nice though, and also pretty funny because Louise's horse kept making weird groaning noises which the guys said was 'pleasure'. Afterwards though, we all had excessive amounts of horse hair between our legs which made us look like we all needed a good wax LOL!
Swam in the lake for a bit to wash off the hair, and then went down to pay the guys for our paintings. I walked straight up to Ufulu and shoved the money in his hand, when all he wanted was a handshake. So devastating. Anyway, then we got showered and lay in the hammocks while Tim prepared dnner, which was steak with cauliflower cheese and herby potatoes. Yum. John actually helped with the clearing up so Tim must have said something.
We then relaxed in the couches by the bar, listening to crickets and lapping waves and bongo drums down the beach - amazing day.

The next day (5th October), we drove to Chitimba beach. We arrived early afternoon and put up our tents right on the beach. Went outside the gates and bargained with the wood carvers on some nice stuff for me and friends. I got 2 tokoloshes, a woman & baby, a lion for Kay, and a nametag keyring.
The guy who made the keyrings was really weird and kept touching my leg, and then told Madeleine he had some 'free' friends, and that we could have one each. Brilliant. Went down to the beach while we were waiting for our nametags, and had a dip in the beautiful warm lake. Came back and went down to the workshop to see our stuff being finished for us. Met some gorgeous little kids, one called Mike who was absolutely crazy and kept wanting me to lift him up by his arms. His dad had 3 wives and about 10 kids.
Went back for dinner (chicken supreme), and as usual John was late, which annoys Tim no end. Went to bed quite early as we planned to hike to Livingstonia the next day.

We got up at 5:15 on the 6th, and got ready for our hike. Left at 6 after some porridge, which we also made for John out of the kindness of our hearts...
Began walking and saw all sorts, such as tiny piglets crossing the road, and people hanging up skinless goats for sale throughout the day. After and a 2 and a half km walk to the 15km mark, we were already tired, but continued on our way. It was a really difficult hike, especially when our guide decided to take uson some shortcuts. However, it was all worth it when we finally reached the waterfall and had some lunch. Swam in part of the waterfall for a little while, and almost gave up on going all the way to the top, but decided to do it anyway.

It took us about an hour of constant up hill walking, but we finally made it. Popped to the Stone House for a drink, and then visited the museum which consisted of 2 rooms, and some extremely poorly spelt displays...rubbish. Went back out to pay for our drinks and the missionary tried to rip us off! He charged John K250 for a coffee and a fanta, and then tried to charge me K450 for just a fanta! Our guide was like...umm, just give him K100. Then the missionary tried to get $5 from John when he didn't have enough change, when K250 adds up to about 1 pound. How Christian.
Anyway, after a lot of John saying how 'easy peasy' the walk was, we began the walk down. John was being an idiot the whole way, walking ahead of our guide and getting annoyed with us for having a sit down. As usual his rudeness was directed at Madeleine, and when we sat down for a minute towards the end of the walk down, he said 'so Madeleine, are we going to do this last 30 minutes or what?' When he was the one who had stopped in the first place for a cigarette! Knob.
Anyway, we made it down and my feet were extremely sore, as Tim had told me that my grey lace up pumps would be fine to walk in. I later found out that he had never done the walk...
From there we got the rest of our wood carvings, had lasagne for dinner, went on the internet and had an early night.

Arrived at the border in the nick of time to be told that we couldn't get on the ferry because the engine had broken (there were 3 ferries...?) So we sat in the sweltering heat for about 2 hours watching a busload of annoying American missionaries be annoying and fat. Me and Madeleine noted the irony of their slogan: 'Any road, any load, any time', since they were all massive fatties. I made a few loudish comments about how they were just going to mess up Africa even more etc.
Finally we got on the ferry and John found it appropriate to grab my water out of my hands and throw some on the floor so that the metal wouldn't be so hot on his BARE FEET. I was annoyed. How about WEAR SHOES.
So we got off the ferry and beat the Americans through immigration (not surprising since they were all huffing and puffing their way off the ferry behind us), and we got on our way to Grubbies Grotto in Livingstone!
Arrived just in time for the sunset booze cruise (Upper Zambezi Sunset Dinner & Game Cruise), and made ourselves look pretty and went on our way. It was brilliant. Sunset, game, all you can eat and drink on the Zambezi. We saw elephants, hippos, fish eagles, and a crocodile right up close, as well as the beautiful sunset. Every time our drinks ran out, they were replaced immediately with another one, and each drink had 3 shots in it! After eating (sadly can't really remember the food) we joined Tim at the bar and had a sugar cane spirit shot, which was actually devastating. By this point we were all thoroughly drunk and rowdy, and the cab journey back was pretty interesting.

Back at Grubbies and we hit the bar with Louise's ipod, and me & Madeleine thought it would be a great idea to dance on the tables. Unfortunately we had spectators perverts watching us, particularly the one called Sven who kept going on about how he had moved to Africa for the booty, but no African booty was as good as ours. Clearly a lie. The security guard was also watching but actually turned out to be a really good guy.
In the mean time, Louise listened to John ramble on about how in love with her he is and how he was so proud of her for whipping off her trousers and crossing the Delta (err, we all did it...?), while she tried to let him down gently.
Everyone then left the bar, and we were left with creepy Sven for a while until we managed to get away to our tent and leave him all alone in the bar!

On Monday (27th), John went rafting while we went to town and then spent the afternoon sunbathing by the pool. Cooked a nice evening meal of chicken in a red wine sauce with sweet potato mash, carrots and beans.

On Tuesday we got up quite early to go to Victoria Falls. On the way we were disrupted by a group of elephants crossing the road and holding up the entire town.

Arrived at the falls only to be confronted with a big half dead baboon being dragged towards us by its leg. It had been shot in the face and appeared to be suffering quite a lot. We then got to the ticket office only to be told that it was $20/K100000 to get in. I didn't have enough money because of the 10 pounds I spent on baby wipes and dark and lovely cocoa butter, so I had to borrow off Madeleine. The falls were beautiful, but not as big as usual as it is dry season.

We wandered around for a bit, and then 6 baboons appeared in front of us! One had a baby so we got out of there pretty quickly. We then decided to find the bridge over to Zimbabwe and had to go through immigration to get border passes, then we went to the bridge and stepped ever so briefly on to Zimbabwean soil without a visa...woo!

We then watched a few bungee jumps and got picked up by our cab driver Melvin.
Arrived back at Grubbies with a plan of action. Got into the pool to cool off, had a shower, got dressed and made up, then headed to town again to change some money and go for an early dinner. Got to the Italian we had planned to go to, only to find that it is closed every Tuesday. Devastating. So we went to an African restaurant instead, which was...interesting.
We tried caterpillars for starter, which severely dev'd me out, and then for the main I had an aromatic fish dish, which was quite nice.
We then went to shoprite, which was playing the best song ever (Gyptian & Nicki Minaj - Hold Yuh) on repeat, and got a cab back to camp. Had a cup of tea and made our sandwiches for the next couple of days, and then the Australians from another truck offered us some leftover birthday cake, which we gratefully accepted.
Chatted to the security guard about spiders and snakes, and kept freaking out about the slightest buzzing sound (freaking out includes behaviour such as jumping up and running away, flapping hands vigorously, and yelling 'BUZZZZZZZZZ', whilst doing all the above).
We then packed up, paid off our bar tabs, and went to bed, waving goodbye to the security man through our tent.

On the 29th, we got up at 7:15 and had porridge for breakfast. John tried to get in on the washing up again but we beat him to it! He tried to start washing up in the boiling water while I was getting a tub of cold water, but when I got back with the cold water, I added it to the dettol bowl first so he couldn't just get in there and start washing up. Then Louise knelt down, scourer in hand and I said 'here you go Louise', and added the cold water, and he STILL tried to get in there! Louise was like...err...no. Anyway after that John went to the toilet about 9 times to get out of the work.
We then got on our way to Lusaka, and the journey was long and hunger filled, but we eventually arrived at Eureka Camp and went for a short walk before dinner. We saw Buffalo, Tomson's Gazelle, and some Water Bucks, and John annoyed us some more going on about how much he knows about giraffe and buffalo poo. He claimed to be an expert.
Headed back to camp and some spag bol was waiting for us. After dinner I'm sure you know what happened (John did no work), and we eventually packed up and got ready for bed. Getting ready for bed was an ordeal in itself as someone in one of the 3 girls toilets in the entire massive camp, sounded like they were having a bit of a horrific time in the toilet, and the smell reflected that. We were all half laughing and half being sick, and had to keep running out of the toilet. The person was so ashamed that they didn't emerge from the toilet while we were around..devastating.

On Thursday we got up at 4:30 (dev) in the freezing cold because we were apparently about 2000ft above sea level. It was SO COLD, so we rushed to the toiled and got dressed into lots of layers. Breakfast was waiting when we returned, and we munched some toast & peanut butter and decided to wash up later so we could get on the road. By 5:00 we were on the road, all set for a long bumpy ride to Mfuwe - Croc Valley camp. The ride was ok until we reached the last 100km, where the road turned from tarmac to poorly maintained dirt, which was ridiculously bumpy, and took about 3 and a half hours. It was so bumpy in fact, that we lost the gas bottle and had to reverse back up the road with loads of children chasing us, but it was long gone. Someone had probably grabbed it the moment it fell as it's worth a good $60.
I had to hold in a wee for about 2 and a half hours because everywhere you looked there were people. Africa actually makes you feel famous, as everywhere you go people wave/stop and stare. There are also a few that aren't so welcoming.
We finally arrived at camp and there were vervet monkeys and baboons everywhere! We then had a cup of tea while some casual elephants strolled through camp. There are also hippos and crocodiles right by the camp in the river - it's a really beautiful place as it's basically right in the middle of South Luangwa NP.

Tried to have a shower before dinner but the power went out, so we had showers by the light of my head torch, and accompanied by LOADS of annoying loud flies which we later discovered were Tetse Flies. Great.
Dinner was a mild Thai curry, and we were accompanied by a cute little dog called Bandy. We made a few comments to John and he half got the picture and stuck around for a bit after the washing up was done.
After this we had a few cups of tea, and relaxed after a long day of driving. I also had Milo & Hot chocolate which was yum.
Went to the tent and had a quick read before bed, and we were terrorised by monkeys! We were right under the sausage tree which is in seed at the moment, and the seed pods pop open and drop with quite a force to the ground, but we thought the monkeys were throwing them! Even so, monkeys were weeing all over our tent so we thought it would be wise to move it as we didn't have the top sheet on. We moved the tent, and as soon as we were getting comfy, we heard John tell Tim we had moved it, so Tim came along and told us that we had to move it again or we would be trampled by elephants during the night - great!

On the 1st October, we got up at 5:30 to be ready for the morning game drive at 6. Didn't have time for breakfast so we got straight on the truck and we were off! Saw elephants, hippos, warthogs, kudu, impala, Tomson's gazelle, water bucks, zebra, sacred ibis, lilac breasted rollers, bee eaters and lots more, although some stupid Australian woman felt the need to complain at any opportunity about the fact that she had not yet seen a cat. I felt like saying to her 'if you want to guarantee it, go to a bloody zoo!' Urgh. She then said 'someone told me there's more hippos and crocodiles here than you'll ever see in your life - rubbish!' I wanted to smack her - she clearly wasn't looking as when she said that we were parked up by 4 groups of hippos, each group made up of about 20 of them! She also called a baby elephant a cub, and was generally irritating and ignorant the whole time.

We got back to camp and John made us a massive breakfast, and then we relaxed by the pool and waited for our evening game drive. Met a couple from Manchester Phil and Louise, and a guy called Ping who wanted to come on the truck to Malawi with us, as they had got to camp quite cheaply, but couldn't get back for less than $150!
The night game drive was amazing, saw hyenas, impalas, giraffes, elephants, hippos, genets, and so on. We were massively dev'd out by Tetse flies, which actually wouldn't leave us alone, and we all started freaking out about sleeping sickness.

Got back to camp and Tim had cooked another lovely dinner for us. We had chicken and pork skewers, gem squash and baked potatoes. A monkey tried to steal a potato before dinner, so Tim coated one in pepper sauce and left it out for the next monkey that decided to try it on.

On Saturday, we got up and got ready to go, and John had a go at me and Madeleine, saying 'can you guys, like, help, because monkeys are trying to steal the toast', and we were like OMG, coming from the least helpful person of all time. So Madeleine stood and watched the toast and John buggered off! He was clearly just annoyed that he was actually doing some work for once.
After that, monkeys kept trying to approach and I tried to scare one off by running at it and clapping, but it wasn't scared and started running straight at me! I backed off pretty quickly for fear of rabies, and decided to use a big stick instead.
So we got ready to go and took Louise, Phil and Ping with us back down the long bumpy road.

On the 20th we left Johannesburg at 5:30, aiming to be north of Pretoria before rush hour, and at the border with Botswana by 9:00. After a long drive, we finally arrived at the border, which was pretty unexciting - filling out forms and handing in our passports to a man who asked me how I was about 10 times. I don't think he understood my answer. More driving and we eventually arrived at our (beautiful) campsite in Palapye - Itumela Camp. We made our way straight to the pool with a beer and had our first encounter with Mad Mike the barman. Mad is not an overstatement.
The pool was nice but a bit cold, and we chilled (literally) in there for a bit before heading to the open air showers. This was the first location where we had to use mosquito repellent...long. We had to spray a bit and then run away to avoid asphyxiation.
Dinner was made for us by the campsite staff and we were served a massive feast of steak, butternut squash mashed up with nutmeg, maize meal (gross), spinach, salad, coleslaw, and garlic bread. Lush. Pudding was marshmallows toasted over the fire with various dips.
Went to the bar for a bit after, but then I went to bed. Good thing I did as apparently after I went to bed, Mad Mike turned psycho and John got annoyed with Louise because she wasn't interested in him. Proper lol.

On Tuesday (21st), we set off again to Maun. Miles and miles of Kalahari desert and no toilet breaks meant we all had to get off the truck and go in a bush. After miles and miles more of Kalahari and donkeys, cows and goats holding up our progress, we arrived in Maun, and went to the supermarket to buy supplies for the Delta. Some little boys were trying to nick stuff off the truck, but we foiled their plan by being there. After buying 5 litre bottles of water and instant noodles, we drove down the long, bumpy, sandy road to the Sitatunga campsite, and found that it was densely populated with termites.

Put up our tents (John put his up really far away from ours because he was dev'd out with us still), and then went to the bar to get a drink for the pool. 10 minutes later and we finally got our drinks...no hurry in Africa...I think the workers were doing stock take so every time we asked for a drink they had to recount (although why they couldn't just take one off the original figure I don't know)...
Got in the pool, which was too cold so we got straight back out again and had a shower. I caught a mosquito sucking blood out of my foot and got really freaked out.
Dinner was amazing...chicken barbecued and marinated in beer and other magical flavourings, gem squash with peas, roast potatoes, some beefy sausage of joy (Boerwurst or something?), and gravy. Nom. I nearly died from food related happiness. Plus we saw bushbabies, which was sooo coolll.

On the 22nd (Wednesday), we were up very early and packing up for the Delta. Tim made us scrambled eggs on toast...yummies. At 7 the trucks arrived and picked us up for the long drive (about an hour and a half) into the bush. It was absolutely freezing and I was wearing the thinnest top of all time, as well as my equally thin linen trousers. Great. After about half an hour of un-tarmacked road, we arrived at the poling station and unloaded all our stuff. Our polers Goaretole, Zeromuka, and Mas loaded up our mokoros with our stuff, and we were off. Our sleeping mats were there for us to lie on so it was extremely relaxing and lovely and warm. The ride took us past a Cormorant and Egret nesting spot and was fairly insect and spider free. After about 2 hours on the mokoros, we arrived at our camp where they helped us set up our tents and built a fire and a toilet. The toilet was behind the biggest termite hill ever, and was basically a deep hole in the ground, and after doing your business, you chuck some dirt down with a spade. The spade also acted as an indicator of whether the toilet was engaged - spade by tree, toilet free. Wonderful.

After a reluctant first use of the nature toilet, we sat down on our 'seat' (a branch), with a cup of tea and talked to our polers a bit. We were told that we would be doing a sunset walk at 5, and that we had the day to do what we wanted. We relaxed for a bit in the sun until it got way too hot, and then hopped into the Delta with our natural soap to cool off and have a wash.
Got out and deeted and within 5 minutes we were filthy again.
The walk took us in a mokoro to another island, and then through an interesting mixture of plants, trees and dung. We saw elephant, hippo, zebra, hyena, porcupine and warthog dung which was really pleasant, and also saw the burrows of lots of aardvarks and the footprints of much more. Every time Goaretole would ask us 'any question?' we would all shake our heads and it would be really awkward, and he would say 'no question..' and shake his head disapprovingly. Devastating. We then saw a herd of zebra which looked amazing in the orange light of the setting sun, and then we saw some elephants. A large bull elephant to the right, and a female and 3 young elephants to the left.
As we were making our way back, the zebras started charging and kicking up a lot of dust which was really cool.
When we arrived back at camp we suddenly realised that we still had to have dinner. Luckily, Tim had prepared some mince for us so we chucked in some chopped tomatoes, herbs, garlic (too much), and made the spaghetti and served up. There was a lot left over which we gave to our polers.
They then started giving us lots of riddles to solve which was quite fun, but we were rubbish at it, and then we headed to our tents to sleep.

Thursday morning we got up around 5:30, to start our LOOOOOOONG walk at 6. We were poled over to an island again and we started walking. There was lots of fresh elephant dung and footprints made overnight among other things, and then we happened upon a wildebeest skull and some zebra. We then turned around to see a group of 5 warthogs. Cute.
After a little while we soldiered on and saw springbok and tracks from various animals, including fresh kudu tracks and dung. We never saw the kudu =( We then came across an 'Amarula tree'(?), and found the stones of the fruit on the floor with holes in them. Apparently baboons know there is a rich creamy liquid inside, and use sticks to make holes in them.
We then found an elephant skeleton which was pretty cool, and then we came to part of the Delta which we had to cross to see more. Sadly, this also involved removing our trousers as the water was bum-deep.
As Goaretole looked around for hippo and crocodiles (we weren't aware of this at the time), we waded slowly along getting photos as we went, until he told us off and made us hurry up.
By this point I was completely out of water and quite dehydrated. I was ready to go back but everyone else wanted to carry on and kill me. On this island we discovered another elephant skeleton, this time including the skull...cool.
Walked some more and our guide thought he saw a leopard! At the time I was bringing up the rear of the group and was fairly scared that I was going to get flattened by a leopard at any moment and nobody would notice I was gone. We never did see the leopard but we did see its tracks & poo...woo!
We then came across the famous 'sausage tree', and Goaretole was like 'so, what do the flowers look like?' and we all stood there in silence smirking. It would seem there is a reason it is called a sausage tree. Dev.
Eventually he said we should have a rest and go back. It definitely wasn't our day for seeing any animals, and it was about 10:30 by this point and getting seriously hot. On the way back I put some Delta water into my filter bottle and after 15 minutes it was safe to drink. It was actually a lifesaving drink as we were clearly dying.
Got back to camp after about 30 minutes even though the guide said it would take 2 hours to walk back, and we sat in the sun for a while before falling asleep in the shade for a good few hours. We took a dip in the Delta later on to wash with the special soap, and all the irritating Australians kept judging us for it, and we were like '...errr....it's Delta friendly leave us alone.'
We then began making dinner because it was clearly a mistake to do it in the dark the night before, and we had to devise a plan to stop John from drinking all our wine... He had shared his with everyone but us and was expecting us to share the wealth..clearly not.
So we asked if we could all go in a mokoro together for the sunset mokoro ride but apparently that's not allowed so John just got really annoyed with us. We said we were celebrating the time we're known each other and he was like 'err...what about the time you've known me?' and then blanked us for the whole night. Honestly, the time we have known John is nothing to celebrate as you will soon learn...
He was also being really annoying about dinner saying 'don't add so much spice!' when I'd added like a single drop of tabasco to a massive pot of mince (and we were having a chilli)...and everyone was getting thoroughly annoyed by him.
So we went on the mokoros at about half 5 on a short trip which took us to a clear area of deeper water, at which point we saw a hippo emerging from the water! Amazing. We sat there for about half an hour watching the sun set, and every few minutes catching a glimpse of our hippo coming up for air.

We then returned to camp and had some wine, and of course shared some with John.
The riddles came out again, but then we were also shown some Botswanan children's games, such as Amatoho, Amaruha, Amanuafe. It was fun.
We then made hot chocolate and toasted some marshmallows on the fire, and fed a few to our polers. Zero revealed that he liked English girls and we were like...ahh...wonderful!
We then went to bed as we had another walk to go on in the morning.

On Friday (24th), we left camp on the mokoros at 6 before eating breakfast. Goaretole and Zero took us a really long way to an island about half an hour from our camp. We were clearly the first ones to do that particular route that morning as I broke every single cobweb that had been made overnight with my face. Great. We got off the mokoros and the first thing we saw was.............................more zebras. Which was actually quite nice. I then thought I saw something stalking the zebras, but no, it was another zebra. So we returned to camp again and had 3 slices of toast each for breakfast. We then took down our tents, (although Zero and Goaretole basically took over because we were doing it like retards), and then we packed up the mokoros and headed back. Our poler stopped our mokoros so we could see a hippo skull, then he stopped again where the cormorants and egrets were nesting, so we could get some photos of the chicks. He then made me a water lily necklace which was lovely.

We then happened upon a Hippo! So we stopped again to take more pictures. Then another hippo emerged and we got out of there...apparently they were mating and are very dangerous if anyone gets in the way of that!

It was very relaxing and very hot, and Louise fell asleep in her mokoro, so we felt it appropriate to splash her a bit.
When we arrived on the shore, we unpacked our mokoros and got some photos with our polers. We then tipped them and their boss asked us if he could pay them....we were like...err..obviously! Then we said goodbye and got on the truck. We were the last people to leave the Delta, and therefore were given the last of the drinks in the cool box...2 beers, a can of coke, and a couple of bottles of water. Fantastic.

We arrived back at camp extremely dirty but in good spirits, then had a shower and went to Maun.
In town we went to a shop so I could by some tops, and it actually took the shop assistants 15 minutes to serve me even though there was only one person in front of me...LONG. Then wehad lunch at 'Bimbos' which was actually devastating to our lives as it was so spic. I had asked for a non spicy option and they mixed it up with Louises so I ended up eating her peri-peri death chicken schwarma while I watched her happily enjoying my lemon and herb. FML.
Then we went to an internet cafe which was a pointless exercise as I've never experienced internet so slow in my life. So we walked out without paying and got back on the truck and went back to camp. At camp we had a drink at the bar and dipped our feet in the pool, whilst some annoying Australian kids and their dad kept bombing into the pool. So we left and did our copious quantities of washing with the Toss washing powder. It was actually the grossest thing ever; the water that was cleaning our clothes ended up a dirty dark brown, and we had to do each load twice for anything to even resemble something clean.
Tim then made our dinner, which was kudu stew...lush.
John did his usual trick and got in there first on the washing up so he could bugger off to the bar when it was done. So once again we were left to pack everything away and lock up the truck. After this we went to bed for another early start.

On Saturday morning we started early for a 600km drive to Kasane, just south of the border with Zambia, and we all had a dip in the pool which was lovely. We then did our usual routine and then Tim asked us to peel some potatoes and carrots so that we deserved te pudding he had planned!
Dinner was sausages and mash with honey roasted carrots, and pudding was barbecued bananas with Amarula and chocolate - amazing. Once again John was his lazy self and started washing up. Then he says 'I'm going to the bar, are you alright here girls?' which was clearly a rhetorical question as he would have disappeared anyway. By this point we were so annoyed with his useless slapdash washing up that we would have to do again, that we just told him to go.
We devised a plan of action for the next morning which involved him NOT getting in first to wash up, and then we went to sleep amongst sounds of hippos grunting and splashing into the water.

On Sunday we had a bit of a lie in because John did a morning game drive (which was (Newcastle accent) 'fuckiiiin' dynamiiiiiite'), then we had scrambled eggs on toast for breakfast. John then goes 'I'll wash up then I can take my tent down while you dry up.' NOOOOOO! So Louise said 'why don't you take it down now and then help us dry up?', but he said 'no, no it's ok'. ARGH. Once again we were really annoyed by him so we pointed out every single item that he hadn't cleaned properly (all of them), and then he walked off to take down his tent, and delayed us leaving by about 20 minutes.
Only a short drive to the border, with a quick stop off to buy some genuine coca-cola tap water.

And the rest is for the Zambia post...