Lost In Translation - MadHatters or MudHutters??

Hopefully we still have some sort of following after our last post - "Nick Q  when Nature Calls"...

But infused with the vigour of Livingtone and Kariba and the smell of the back seat of our Datsun, we slowly, very slowly made our way to Lake Malawi. Not before spending one last night in Zambia! On the banks of the Luanga River, our Joburg team mates Alex and Tracy kindly paid for our accommodation, Nice One! It also gave us some time with Malealea Tours (AKA the Bang Bus - for not many reasons...). An epic trade followed the next morning, our ipod with all the music in the world for a Creedance Clearwater Revival CD (EPIC!!!!). To cut it short the Bang Bus broke down that day in Chipata and we were left with one CD for 5 days...."DO DO DO LOOKING OUT MY BACKDOOR!!!"

What came out of the wood work from the Malealea Tours Combi breakdown was the imported Swede SVEN (not really his name but all Swedes are referred to as Sven!) This chap removed the Combis gearbox and fashioned a new bearing housing out of a piece of copper sheet found somewhere in the Luanga River (in less than 24 hours). An absolute legend! Nonetheless the Thunder Horse rolled in to Senga Bay (never on time) to the ominous beats of Bad Moon Rising!

"Are the SillyBuggers still alive?" was pretty much on every Put Footers lips just before our grand entrance. A nice civilized beach set meal for 100 people was interuptted by Malawi Drift 3000 and the roar of our newly acquired V22000 120Y engine (remember the broken exhaust?) Checkpoint reached, and what about dress code??

After translating checkpoint 5's theme of madhatters to muddhutters (AKA tribal female-ware), our run into petrol deprived Lillongwe gave us no time to prepare. So in true Silly Buggers style we made use of all the resources in the massive Datsun boot. What transpired were the "Kitcken Ninjas", with one part Fish wearing a wok, one part Nick wearing a kettle, and one part Jared wearing a pot and spachula! A night of crazy firedancing, naked stage diving, night lake swimming, kettle drinking off nick's head, and freestyling to "In Malawi, In In Malawi" followed till, well till we woke up on the beach the next morning with Fish's foot in the fire. Epic Times! (not for our aquatic friend).

We couldn't let a place like this go too soon, so an easy decision was made to chill out an extra day on the Lake, take out the surfboard - FAIL! Remove our tractor engine - exhaust rewelded back on following stringent Health and Safety Regulations (our welder decided it was good enought to shove open wires into 230V straight, CLASSIC!) And to take on the Malawian U400 Beers soccer side to a friendly beach game!

Malawi must be one of the most beautiful countries to visit with some of the friendliest chaps around.

Next...the big Thunder Horse haul to Mozambique and checkpoint 6 - I hear dere be Pirates and Prostitutes and Rum, lots of RUM!!!