After an extremely hot and sweaty night's sleep (remember mosquito nets and no fan), I woke to find little flying bugs in my face and hair and covering the bed inside the net. I was relieved to see that they weren't mosquitoes but appeared to be something more like fruit flies. Looking at the net, I could see they covered the outside of the net and could actually crawl through the mesh. More effective than any alarm, I was wide awake. A few minutes later, Re woke up and noted that not only were she and her bed in a similar state of bug coverage, but the entire wall next to her bed was covered with the same. Yay.

Determined to find a new place for tonight, I went out in search of petrol. Both our bikes were nearly empty, and we only had about 3 liters remaining in one jerrycan. I poured 1 liter into my bike and headed back into the sand and town. On my way to the BP station, I spied an ATM but had neglected to bring my card. I made my way to the BP station, only to find that they had not had fuel of any kind in the past 3 days, and the earliest they might get any would be Tuesday, but they weren't very hopeful about that. They suggested I try the petrol station back towards Cape Maclear, so I headed south. After about 5 miles I came upon the other station and was told a similar story. They expected to get a small quantity of diesel that day, but no petrol any time soon. Crap. I fought the sand back to the guesthouse and gave Re the good news.

One of the guesthouse employees, who assured us that his real name in fact was, Cheeseandtoast, said he may have a solution to our problem. He had a neighbor who was a fisherman who had some black market petrol that he might be willing to sell for 425 kwacha per liter. At this point, we could carry about 20 liters, so while Cheeseandtoast went in search of his neighbor, Re volunteered to walk into town to hit the ATM for some much needed cash. Twenty minutes later, Cheeseandtoast returned with the news: apparently his neighbor had already sold his fuel, but Cheesandtoast just happened to meet another guy who had 20 liters but wanted 520 kwacha per liter. I quickly did the math and realized that at 170 kwacha per USD, this is 12 dollars a gallon (the official rate for petrol in Malawi is 290 kwacha per liter, which means that 1 gallon is already 7 USD per gallon). Highway robbery, but what other choice did we have? I didn't have enough kwacha to pay him at that point, but Re soon returned with a fistful of notes. We did the deal, filled the bikes and jerrycans, and headed back into the sand, hoping for greener pastures once again.

My earlier ride in and out was much easier due to the lack of luggage, but now we were fully loaded. While the daylight allowed us to pick some better lines through the sand, it was still an arduous 1 km back to solid ground. I again found myself walking next to the bike for a particularly deep stretch of sand, but Re simply powered her way through. When we made it back to the paved road, both panting heavily, we stopped for a water break and brief rest. This was one of the few times on this trip that we both wished for bigger (or at least more powerful) bikes. Or maybe just sand ladders.

We rode the few miles of paved road to the turnoff for Cape Maclear, where the road turned to dirt again. We had spoken with a couple at the place in Monkey Bay who said that at least on four wheels, the road “wasn't bad at all” (this couple was also in a bind, but not due to fuel. They had rented a truck in Lusaka, Zambia and driven to Malawi, where the transmission broke. Their flight left Lusaka in two days, and they were waiting for a ride that was coming from Lusaka, almost 600 miles away, in order to make their flight). The first 50 feet or so “wasn't too bad,” but the rest of it was horrible. Heavy, heavy corrugation in the center of the road and loose, fluffy dust at the edges. At least it was only 12.5 miles to Cape Maclear. We alternated riding very slowly in the center of the road, where the corrugation was the least, and the edges of the road when the center was too rough. In Africa, we've resorted to following the tracks left by the local bicyclists, as they seem to know the smoothest way. In one particularly rough section while we were riding near the edge, I glanced in my rear view mirror in time to see Re get bounced out of the corrugation and into the fluff on the side of the road. In this section of the road, the edge fell away quickly and I was yelling in my helmet for her to stay on the gas. Unfortunately, she couldn't hear me and instead, closed the throttle. She was nearly stopped but the inevitable came to pass. As I ran back to help her pick up her bike, I couldn't help but laugh at her singsong chant of, “**** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** ****.” Unlike her oopsie in Namibia, she didn't appear to be the slightest bit phased by this one and was just angry. As she was nearly stopped, there was no damage to her or the bike, and we didn't even spill a drop of our precious fuel. While we were talking about what happened, we both wondered aloud how anyone could have described this road as not bad. I said at the time that if any driver of a 4-wheel vehicle ever tells us that an unpaved road is good or not bad , I am going to immediately, without warning, punch him or her in the teeth out of general principle. We got the bike dusted off and continued towards Cape Maclear. Fortunately about 1.5 miles of the road was paved through the hilliest section. We were glad that it was because of the steepness of the hills. At one point, I had to shift into first gear to make it up one of the hills.

We eventually made it into “town,” where the road turned to sand. We found a place to stay that while basic, appeared to be much cleaner, friendlier and less buggy than the previous. To go 16 miles, it took us more than an hour and a half, and we were exhausted, both physically and mentally, by the time we got there. We parked the bikes, dropped our stuff in our room, and grabbed the bread that Re picked up on her walk to the ATM and headed for the beach chairs. The bar was fresh out of Diet Cokes but did have plenty of Carlsbergs. We normally don't drink in the middle of the day but decided to make an exception. We sat with our toes in the sand, munching on our bread, and drinking our s, looking over beautiful Lake Malawi. We decided to take the rest of the day off and do exactly nothing.



Lake Malawi really is beautiful, with white sand, clear blue water, and many islands dotting the horizon. But for the lack of salt in the air, you'd swear it was the ocean. We spent the rest of the afternoon lounging and reading and chasing off the various “guides” and trinket sellers who smelled fresh meat.

Later that evening, we wandered down to a local restaurant and enjoyed fish from the lake while we watched the sunset from their second story deck. Shortly before dinner arrived, the power in the area went out, and we ate by kerosene lantern before walking back to our guesthouse in the very dark night as we had forgotten to bring our flashlights. Back at the guesthouse, it was a lively scene at the beach bar and many westerners who were volunteering in Malawi had come to the beach for the long, holiday weekend. Before we joined the festivities, we wanted to refill our water bags from the local safe drinking water tap. The water in the bathrooms comes directly from the lake and is therefore unsafe to drink, so some western NGO has installed water taps at half km intervals along the road. I grabbed my flashlight and the water bags and headed out the gate to the nearest one. Since the power was out, it was pitch black on the main road, and I noted one of the very few cars in the area had started its engine maybe a hundred feet down the road from me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the reverse lights come on, which handily illuminated my path. Suddenly, the driver seemed to floor the accelerator and flew in reverse towards the building behind him. He turned the wheel at the last second and clipped the side of the building. Now he was coming straight at me at full speed in reverse. I ran back towards our guesthouse and missed getting hit by about 10 feet as he careened in reverse through 3 fences before eventually coming to a stop, half inside an unoccupied curio shop. Thinking the driver may be in distress, I pointed my flashlight inside the vehicle and saw a rather startled looking local. When he saw the light, he threw the vehicle into gear and tried to drive off, striking another fence. At this point, several locals came up, shouting for him to stop, and he made two more attempts at driving away. I quickly read his license plate number aloud for anyone to hear, and he came to a stop. By this time, there was a crowd of 30 or more local people, including the owner of the building he'd backed through. A couple of the local men yanked him from his vehicle and brought him in front of the woman whose building he'd damaged. At this point in time, I stepped in to give my account of what happened and left them to sort out the details. I filled up the water bags and headed back inside the compound.

Happy to have not been run over by a car in Malawi, I decided to celebrate my good fortune at the beach bar. There were 15 to 20 people already there, a mix of westerners and local guides and “beach boys.” (beach boys are local men who hope to “entertain” wealthy, western women. Their main skills seem to be dressing well, excellent grooming, and playing the drums.) There was already a large fire burning in the fire pit, which seemed kind of redundant as it was around 85 degrees, but we grabbed some s and found a doublewide chaise near the activity. We had our backs to the fire and the drummers but enjoyed the scene nonetheless. The stress of the past couple of days, coupled with the heat and cold s, made us kind of punchy, and we laughed and had a good time. At one point, the wind picked up, fanning the fire, and the drumming seemed to grow especially loud. As the light of the flames danced on the blowing leaves overhead, I had the strange feeling that the next thing I would see was an ax coming down to lop off the buffalo's head. A strange night indeed.

18 miles in an hour and a half. Re's bike survived yet another nap unscathed.