day 2

Walked back to the main road as our bicycle taxis weren’t waiting to collect us and jumped on a matola. Pretty sure we paid way too much and then got transferred into another who claimed to have been paid but then said not enough by the last driver. That puts you in a kind of bad mood for a trip but what are you going to do? The people in the truck were quite nice though and explained all sorts of things—the fields we were passing, what different things were, trying to test our Chichewa…then we got to a police stop. The conductor went to do something (pay someone off?) and we waited, and waited, and waited. The police came to talk to the driver…and then it was told to us that the police didn’t like our driver (something happened the day before) and that we had to wait for another driver to continue on. So we waited. Then the guy sitting next to James asked him if he had a drivers license. He answered yes and the guy said “you can drive”. Whoa! There was then a big discussion in the truck as to whether that would help and we’d go on or if the police would then just add more problems. Luckily the other driver arrived before they came to a decision. And on we continued. One more transfer of matola (fully paid this time) and we arrived at Ngala Beach. I got a round of applause for my descent off the truck (jumped off the side) from the bar across the street. Walked to the lodge where I don’t think they normally have camping but they agreed to let us camp but would show us later where to set up camp. Went for a swim—lovely water, clear and cool. Then couldn’t find the guy to know about the camping. When we did find him and set up we were told (about 3 hours later) that that spot would be too wet and we were moved to camping on the beach—much nicer to sleep on when you don’t have camping pads. Other than the watchman talking right outside at around 4 in the morning it was a good night…a little rain but we were waterproof.