Last night I woke up a few times in a ball of sweat. This is not for the first time and it probably won't be the last but the first thing I wanted to do in the morning was have a shower. I can understand places not having water in the evening as its been used throughout the day but no water in the morning? Really?
I had to make do with pretending my sweaty damp clothes from yesterday were freshly damp from clean water today, although the smell did make that quite hard to imagine. Next on my list of things to do before setting sail was to find a bank and get some money out.
In every African country I've been to so far I've had issues with Natwest not giving me money so you could imagine my lack of surprise when I went to Malawi's national bank and the ATM denied my card. Not again! I thought. The time to me was 8:45 and the bank was open at 8 but for some reason it was shut. I then found out the time is different in Malawi compared to Tanzania, I can't really see why, but it is. I had to wait outside for 15 minutes and as I did, I tried to work out why my card wasn't working. My only lifeline was that the ATM did not say my card was blocked, it said it was denied so I still might be ok.
As I stood alone near the front door of the bank, racking my brains, going over possible solutions and praying I didn't have to ring Natwest for the 5th time in as many countries, a big man came up to me and said "money!" I replied with, "sorry mate I haven't got any, my card isn't working." "No" he said "MONEY!" I then repeated, "I can't give you money, I don't have any," as I said this I thought to myself, hang on a minute, am I getting mugged here? because if I was it wasn't going to end well for either of us I imagined. He would end up with no cash and maybe my phone and I would end up feeling probably quite distraught and phoneless. I had a bit of a sick feeling growing quickly in my stomach until he said again, slowly and more clearly, "Morning!" Oooooooh "morning!" I replied "and thanks for scaring the crap out of me at search an early hour"
He then walked back down the steps to where he was originally waiting for the bank to open. Now is it me or is that just weird?! I know he's probably only trying to be friendly and it completely backfired but maybe it would've been a more successful greeting to start the day if he had said it whilst casually walking past me, or said it when we were all walking into the bank together. Instead of what he actually did, which was to walk 15m out of his way and approach me with it and then walk back to where he was standing previously. I don't know, maybe I'm the weird one!!!
Anyway the bank opened and we all queued for a ticket just like at the cheese and meat counter at a supermarket. I was number 11 which took 15 minutes to get through. The man at the counter said it was the bank's problem and the only other bank I could use visa in was Standard Bank which was very handily, just around the corner. I didn't go in, I just went straight to the ATM and hallelujah money came out! I could only get so much so I will have to get some more in a few days but for now I was happy and clear to move on to the next stage of my day which was breakfast.
I spotted a nice open restaurant behind a petrol station. They had menus so I knew I wasn't at the cheapest joint but the prices were ridiculously low so I knew I couldn't of been far away from the cheapest. The menu wrote: "breakfast: chips, egg, sausage and cereal" that'll do me I thought, makes a change from the usual rice/beef or rice/beans, lovely jubbly. The waitress said that unfortunately they had no chips or cereal but they had oats. "Ok, can i substitute rice with chips and have oats instead?" "Yeah, but we charge more for oats" "Ok, is two slices of bread a fair swap for cereal?" "Yeah, ok" "Great, so that's rice, egg, sausage and some bread then please for 950 kwacha" I'm now very thorough with my ordering and prices due to countless situations of misunderstanding and incompetence (all on their part obviously...) "yeah" she said "but if we haven't got sausage do you mind having beef instead?" I laughed, "no I don't mind" so I was having rice and beef like I normally do with the added extra of egg and bread which is a hotel breakfast "buffet" special. The breakfast came 25 minutes later (I actually didn't mind, I spent the whole time watching a man struggle to undo a nut on the wheel of a Toyota Yaris) When the breakfast arrived they had forgotten the egg! I started my breakfast anyway and then saw the lady walk into the petrol station shop, buy 1 egg and then walk back into kitchen. THEY HAD NOTHING ON THE MENU TO BEGIN WITH!!! I had finished my breakfast by the time my oily fried egg arrived, but I really didn't care, I was enjoying the atmosphere Malawi was giving off.
I had refreshed a little since last night's painful tiredness and I enjoyed the "island lifestyle" of Malawi. In the road there was hardly a car to be seen, everybody was walking or cycling. By being so close to the lake and having lots of tropical plants and sand around, you felt like you were on an island and obviously the weather helped with that too. I pushed Nigel up onto the road and blended in with the slow pace of the local cyclists. I say blended in, I was like the white line down the middle of the road but at least I was travelling at the same pace as everyone else.
The road was ok but my rump needed more than a sweaty nights sleep to recover and the wind off the lake was strong and full in the face. I sort of made a plan in my head to find a decent place to stay and maybe take a day of rest tomorrow considering I had a few in the bag. The kids were out in force today, I checked the date, it was a school day but like I said yesterday, I think Malawi must be just as bad as Ethiopia for schooling. Alot of begging ensued and i battled against Mr Grumpy for much of the day. Saddle sores are not nice, you may find a decent position for 3 minutes tops before you have to reposition yourself. I didn't have many highlights in the first half of my day other than a lady almost dropping something off her head. She found the funny side also but it then led me to wonder what would happen if they did drop something. Obviously initially she would end up with bruised bananas or broken tomatoes but did they have to put money in jar or pay a "fine" etc. I made up whole circumstances in my head which helped pass 5 minutes of buttock battering.
Other than that, there really wasn't much to declare. Alot of flat farmland and alot of cows made for pretty boring cycling. I found the same things going through my head as they have done for the last 7 months now. It's harder now as I get closer to home to think of anything but home but I must try. I needed a lift like yesterday but this lift needed to last 30 more miles!
Sure enough I found my lift in the form of a young man named Mweeza. He was cycling as well and was transporting water in a cool box that was strapped to the back of his bike. He didn't know it but I hadn't had a race against an unsuspecting stranger in ages! I cycled alongside him for a bit and then pushed a bit harder to get in front of him, that's normally all it takes to beat the locals at a made up cycle race that only you know about. Somehow though, Mweeza knew my imaginary race and he pushed a bit harder to get back alongside me! He stared at me for a while, I could see him out the corner of my eye but I didn't look at him, I just got my head down against the wind.
After a while of being neck and neck, I turned to talk to him. We had a quick chat but the headwind was too strong to hear much so we both just concentrated on the cycling. Then Mweeza starts to egg me on, "come on!" he says, and gives off a grunt as he pushes hard to get a few metres in front. Oi Oi, I think we have ourselves a challenger here! I could feel that this wasn't your average "easy win," Mweeza certainly wasn't M-wheezing if you know what I mean, this guy meant business!
Right, I thought, my legs maybe tired, my arse maybe on fire but I am not letting some whippersnapper make the three of us look like pushovers. It was England vs Malawi, Age vs Youth, Experience vs some white guy that decided to start cycle touring thanks to a bet made two years ago! If you're going to be technical about it then yeah, I probably had the better bike but I was carrying more weight and was much less aerodynamic (Beirdre for a start acts like a wind anchor). We cycled side by side for a good 10 miles, over an hour! There was nothing between us, I knew eventually I would win because I was stopping in Lesotho but I didn't want to win like that, there's no pride in winning a race when you set the finish line over a month away. In my head the admission of defeat would be when either one of us sits back on our saddle or clears from sight. (Again, Mweeza didn't know this but for the last hour he had been head down all the way so I knew if he sits back on his saddle and lifts his head up, he's thrown in the towel)
The wind got stronger but I sensed Mweeza was struggling, my legs decided to wake up and I chose my time perfectly. Boom! Stick it up a notch and get those quads pumping. If I had Chris Hoys for thighs I may've burnt out by now as the past 6 days have been more long distance/endurance but Wiggo and Froomy came up trumps today. Mweeza was left for dust as I powered through the headwind and got myself to an area where I would be happy to find a campsite.
Two minutes later another local eyed me up. Come on then I thought, I've crushed one boy's dream of beating a mazungo, I've got another 10 miles in me. Instead, this guy took one glimpse at Beirdre, started laughing and turned around back to his friends. I don't care how I win them, I'm taking that one aswell.
After that, the road improved and I enjoyed a few downhills with no headwind. I got to 50 miles which I was happy with, it was a well earned 50 in the end. Next challenge was to find a place that was on the lake, cheap and away from the locals. I passed a few possible contenders in the hope I would get grabbed by one shining light, which has normally been the case. The next thing I know, the road started to veer away from the lake and I wasn't keen on a big trek down a long sandy road to find a place on the lake so the next sign would have to be the one.
You can tell alot from a name I've found. The further down Africa I've travelled, the more hotels have turned into "lodges" with cabins etc. A lodge is where a tourist stays so I'm already looking at a fee in dollars. This could be ok as I am treating myself I thought. If I stumble across a "Retreat" then I can add a bit more to the food and drinks bill but if I find a "Sanctuary" well, I may aswell apply for a loan and make future honeymoon reservations at the same time!
What did I find? "Sanctuary lodge" just 1km off the main road. If it said 2km I wouldn't of bothered but it was only 1 so I thought screw it, I've deserved it! I pushed Nigel down a sandy road through a tiny village and looked down a steep rocky road to Sanctuary Lodge that was nestled away in the forest with its own private beach. Stink, I've picked a right bandit here! I thought. I've only stumbled across paradise, how much is this going to set me back! I'm probably the only person that has looked at this absolutely stunning location and been annoyed! I carefully wheeled Nigel down the steep road to the gates.
I was greeted with great smiles and shown to the camping area. "How much is it a night?" I asked tentatively. "$5" he said. "Ay?! 5 bucks?" Happy? You bet I was happy. Much to my delight they tend to charge the cabin rates highly and camping rates reasonably low. The food and drink were all 300% the street price but I could handle that for where I was. I fear I may have used paradise already for Diani Beach, well Diani Beach does not have anything on this place!
It's owned by an Englishman named Mark who wasn't in at the time which made me the only white person there. In fact, I was the only resident there and so i had the whole workforce as my personal staff. It was amazing! I was going to definately stay another night, not just because of how beautiful the place was but because there was no way I was going to push Nigel back up the hill as soon as tomorrow morning!
I didn't even bother with the tent initially, first things first, swim. That's another reason why this beach beat Diani, someone spilt salt in the water at Diani! I was well happy with myself, the decision to keep going in Tanzania had paid off massively. I set up camp and then walked back down to the beachside restaurant for lunch. They call it a "Bistro" which I take as fancy for "overpriced tiny plated restaurant" It wasn't overpriced at all, it just wasn't street food. All the food is freshly cooked and made by hand and I have to say, it was pretty darn good. Handmade samosa's for lunch, they were small but boy were they decent. I would have to train mentally now into thinking I was eating alot. I felt like the bald guy from Masterchef and even used a knife and fork to cut up and savour my samosa's.
After lunch I chose to relax on a hammock. I felt very sophisticated with my fancy paradise and my tiny plated lunch so clearly the natural progression was to relax on a hammock and evaluate things through the medium of blogging. First thing I had to evaluate was, are hammocks actually relaxing? It's all down to how you start it, its not like a chair that you can just collapse in and work a nook for yourself. If you collapse in a hammock you're going to end up doing some damage. What's more, if you manage to successfully complete the first step by mounting a hammock but you're not quite comfy enough, theres no telling what might happen if you start to wriggle, so you're better off not taking the risk!
I ended up mastering the hammock which prompts me to say yes, hammocks are relaxing but that's the same as saying swans are elegant. Just because something is relaxing or elegant, doesn't mean that it can't break your arm! After my exceptional dinner of Ratatouille to start and Spaghetti Bolognese for main, I relaxed a bit more before heading early to bed.
If today's ending has set the standard for tomorrow, then I'm not sure I will want to carry on with my ride! Pure relaxation in a pure location. Bliss!
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