Three Beautiful Things

1. As we were leaving Lake Kariba, Lucky the dog walked on to the truck and looked as if he were considering coming with us. 2. Baobabs because they look like trees the way I draw them. 3. At first we thought it must be smoke from a fire a long way off, but it wasn’t. ‘That’s the spray from Victoria Falls, explained Bob, who had been this way before. 4. Frogs that sound like bells. Livingstone, Zambia

1. Other Claire, Rosey and I have our own little cabin with cupboards to put things in and our own shower in which we can leave our washing kit. 2. I have seen the Pleiades -- all seven of them. They are the blurry group that you can only see if you don’t look straight at them. Then I remembered my binoculars -- so I lay on the sundeck, and there they were, clear as anything, even Electra who is supposed to have hidden her face at the fall of Troy. At this point I realised that my binoculars make a lot of things appear in the spaces between the stars. Wow. If you’ve never had a good look at the night sky through binoculars, do it now -- don’t wait until you’re 28. 3. We moored on an island that afternoon. When the sun was less fierce, Rosey and I went for a stroll -- we found bare footprints on the beach and followed them to the edge of the bush, where we found a pair of flip-flops. We took the path towards the interior, and discovered a spider the size of a soup plate and a shack with...

1. Swallows landing on the boat as it goes along. These little fellows have brownish caps. (Picture by Rosey Grant) 2. The delicious shuddering induced by the horrible sights at Lake Kariba Crocodile farm. They are farmed for Malaysian handbags and meat. Some of the carcasses are fed to the breeding crocs. We rode in a mini-bus behind the feeding truck and ohh’d and eugh’d as the farmers chucked lumps of meat at 20ft reptiles that reared up out of the stinking water, snapping and thrashing. (Picture by Rosey Grant) 3. Stars reflected in the lake. For the past few days I’ve had some lines from Byron’s The Destruction of Sennacherib in my head: And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. I always thought that simile was a bit odd -- when do you ever see starshine reflected in a lake? But tonight, there they were. And the way the reflection gets smudged into a line -- it does look a bit like a spear. The other stars reflected...

1. The crowd that gathered to watch us having our windscreen replaced -- a seller of tools, a lady collecting for a charity and various windscreen mending groupies. 2. Finding a bookshop that sold cheap Penguin classics -- I got Andersen’s Fairy Tales and Moonfleet . I’ve also seen Wind in the Willows knocking about and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim . By the end of the trip many of us had read Wind in the Willows , encouraged by Rob’s enthusiastic quotings of Mr Toad’s boastful song and perhaps also by Arusha Alex ; Rob and I were groaning ‘The horror, the horror’ to signal our fellowship in Heart of Darkness ; and Iris and I were disagreeing about the merits of Moonfleet . Wayne had also read some of Andersen while he was having malaria. It’s probably not the most reassuring fever reading, as a recurring theme is talking kitchen utensils. 3. The windscreen mending meant we really had to cane it down the dirt road to the houseboat on Lake Kariba . Stine spotted a s...

1. Selfless sacrifice. We ran out of bread during the morning lunchmaking session. This wasn't due to bad planning on the cook's part -- it was lovely fresh bread with a crust from the bakers, which means it gets cut very thick. Julie says: 'Wayne giving up his sandwiches to the three of us who had none was a beautiful thing.' and Wayne says: 'Rosey giving me her sandwich was beautiful too.' 2. African jobs. We met a witch doctor selling 'SEX POWDER -- Doctor physician approved' with a metal sign. The sign showed a lady who had been pregnant too long -- the powder had helped her give birth to a big baby wearing trousers and a jumper. Wayne said he would have tried it 'but then I saw the spoon.' We asked how long it would take to work: 'Depends on how good your blood is,' was the mysterious reply. Later we were stopped by the tetse fly man. His job is to make sure vehicles don't bring tetse flies on to his patch. Tetse flies are little...

1. Francis’ French toast. French toast is what you get when there aren’t enough eggs for scrambled -- and scrambled comes when there aren’t enough for fried. Anyway, it’s brilliant French toast, and goes very well with some two per cent maple syrup. 2. Drinking instead of having a shower. First of all it was too rainy to get from the bar to the shower and then when I managed to get to the truck to pick up my stuff, I got involved in a conversation about life with Rob and Wayne and then it was supper time and after that it hardly seemed worth it. 3. Darren: Danish for Hubba Bubba is ‘Hoobaboobagum’ said really fast. 4. Iris: Finding easy-peel oranges. South Luanga National Park, to Mama Rula Camp, Chipata, Zambia

1. The stripes and spots on the flanks of bush bucks. 2. So far we’ve only seen Thornycroft’s giraffe from a distance. But our driver spots some and takes us down a side road so we can get a closer look at them. They are different to Rothchild’s giraffes because their markings are smoother and they have long pale socks. 3. The ground is soft so it holds tracks well. A hippo has walked along the road, leaving a dinosaur-like trail and the occasional rosette of Nile cabbage. Wildlife Camp, South Luanga National Park, Zambia

1. Craig says: ‘Red bishops’. They are little birds, about starling size, and you see them sitting on tall stalks in maize fields. They are a startling shade of red that is so bright it makes you blink. In the park we saw them in flocks of 20 or so. 2. Seeing a hammerkopf fishing in a weir. These dowdy birds are pretty non-descript apart from their hammer-shaped head, the fact that they are supposed to be unlucky for game drivers and their vast untidy nests. But I liked stopping to see him stabbing at the water and quickly gulping something down. 3. Watching elephants eating. They pull up grass with their trunks and dust it on their legs -- elephants die when their teeth wear out, and eating clean grass slows this down. But the baby hasn’t quite got the hang of it yet and keeps swinging wide. 4. We had an evening game drive and sat on the bank of an ox-bow lake with our beers watching the sunset on our right hand side and the black clouds massing on our left hand side. We were being di...

1. It’s raining and the sides of the truck have been rolled down, so it’s a bit stuffy inside. One by one we fall asleep. But Wayne and Anne wake us up to look out at a lively market full of women selling tiny heaps of tomatoes and garlic and pineapples and melons and roasting corn and bicycles. A short time later we are all asleep again. 2. Sitting in the bar at the campsite watching the Luanaga river slip by under the setting sun and hearing hippos grunting and moaning. The make a huh-huh-huh noise, a bit like fat cartoon villains. 3. When asked for a Beautiful Thing, Wayne says: ‘We’re here.’ We’ve made a border crossing today and travelled 310kms, jolting down miles of dirt road, followed a mud track covered in vast puddles through the bush. For the last few days rumour has come back that the park has been inaccessible; and this last bit of road might have been impassable. Salima, Malawi to Wildlife Camp, South Luanga National Park, Zambia

1. 6am conversation in the Grant Tent: Clare: What are you writing? Rosey: Nothing. Clare: Is it a note to that cyclist from last night? Rosey: It's just my e-mail address. I told him I'd leave it for him. Scribble scribble scribble pause Rosey: How do you spell ganglion? 2. Discovering that telling pestiferous traders to go away really does work. 3. I am a godmother to Eleanor Beatrice Lyra Walker (otherwise known as Ellie B, Ellie Bright, Ellie Brave and Ellie Beautiful). Cat and Alan, what an honour for me -- but she'd better not turn out as naughty as her Northern Lights namesake. Blantyre to Selima, Malawi

1. Lake Malawi -- love you loads, what with the freshwater swimming, the many coloured fish, your thrilling rocky islands and falling asleep to the sound of your blue waves washing on clean shores, but I have to say: I'm thrilled to be leaving the sand behind -- it gets into our tents, our clothes and our food. 2. The enormous satisfaction I get from finding a cashpoint that will take my card and give me money. 3. Catching Rosey chatting to a BOY in the campsite garden -- apparently he has cycled from Holland. Blantyre, Malawi

1. Rosey finally finding some climbable rocks jutting out of the lake shore. 2. It’s never nice to feel cross with someone for reasons that you can’t put your finger on, but when someone else tells you that they are cross too, it makes me feel better about it all. This is exactly what is written in my diary -- and now I come to write it up, I have no idea who I was cross with, or who my collaborator was. I suppose this counts as beautiful, too! 3. A sign on the beach warns about undertow and hippos. Salima, Malawi

1. Pancakes with cinnamon, sugar and lime. 2. There was also a dish of golden syrup. It made a ring on the table and ants came to drink from it, lining up round the edge like little cattle. 3. Lake Malawi is described as being like a giant aquarium -- we saw little blue fish and some spotted ones. 4. Andi from Kande gave me a drumming lesson in his shop. He and his friends gather on the full moon for a few beers and bonfire on the beach. I tell him that I do the same with my friends sometimes -- we go to the woods though. 5. One of the souvenir sellers tells me that they roll joints out of maize leaves. ‘Do you get the munchies?’ I ask. He laughs. ‘It’s best right before dinner and then you can go home and eat two platefuls.’ Kande Beach, Malawi

1. Rosey, Eva, Anne and I went riding. It must be 15 years since I was last on a horse, and my rising trot was never very comfortable for me, the horse or my instructor. But on our ride through the bush I managed to get the rhythm right a couple of times, so I didn’t feel quite so much like a sack of potatoes. 2. ‘Haven’t you finished that yet?’ I had seen Claire very near the end of The Da Vinci Code the day before. ‘I’m just re-reading the good bits.’ 3. In the truck’s domestic locker is a cast iron little cauldron rather bigger than your head. It makes getting at bin bags, new Detol soap, sandwich bags and dustpans very difficult, and Wayne is determined it’s going back to Australia with him, but isn’t sure how he’s going to get it there. We discover that despite all this inconvenience, the potje is worth having along. Francis fills it with meat and potatoes and vegetables and buries it in the charcoal embers. A few hours later, dinner for 19 is ready. 4. The moon on the lake. It w...

1. It has been raining at night, but I wanted to see some rain falling by day. And I got it -- much to Anne’s disgust. I was forced to spend most of the morning sitting in Soft Sands Cafe eating chocolate cake. 2. There is an island about 500m from the shore. From the moment we saw it, Rosey and I knew we would have to swim to it. After a lot of umming and ahhing -- can probably make it there, but don’t know about back -- we set out, accompanied by Other Claire. It was a good slog, but we made it and felt very pleased with ourselves -- not one of the men thought they could do it. We clambered all over the rocks, gossiping with the local boys who had paddled out on their canoes and having our swimming prowess admired by a lady tourist. Once we were rested, we swam back without any trouble at all. 3. Andy from Kande telling me about the crazy old hermit who lived on the island. He came from Andy’s village, maybe 70 years ago and decided he wanted to live on the island. There was plenty o...

1. Getting our tent battened down in the night. You can’t imagine African rain -- it comes from nowhere and falls in great sheets of crazy water, accompanied by thunder and lightning and blasts of wind. Trouble is, it was so hot that we left the flysheet off our tent, until we were woken by patter patter patter patter. If you’ve ever tried to get a fly sheet on in wind and rain, you’ll know that it’s a mad scramble. Rosey had no bottoms on and I was only wearing a babydoll nightdress (got to keep some clothes dry). Meanwhile Gill and Darren struggled with the next tent. Gill had a pair of trousers wrapped around her -- Darren says: ‘It was like flash! Gill clothed! Flash! Gill naked.’ What I like is crawling back into the tent, zipping down the flysheet, velcroing the canvas door and zipping closed the bug door, drying off on Rosey’s towel before she notices and snuggling back into my still-warm sleeping bag. 2. Sensitive plants -- these were suggested by Anne. We were told earlier in ...

1. Wind music. Eva and I were sitting outside the bar when we noticed the sound of the wind blowing across our pop bottles. 2. White horses on the waves in Lake Malawi. White horses is a cliche, but I've looked and looked at the water and I can't find a better way of describing the movement. 3. Elaine's penguin shed. It's built from sticks and woven grass and she is planning to photograph her mascot Jean-Jacques in it. She says that she enjoyed the making of it so much that she will make more little houses along the way on her year-long trip. Chitimba, Malawi

This is our first night on Lake Malawi. We arrived to find another truck parked. The group was having a dressing-up-in-women’s-clothes night and we were welcome to join in. ‘Um, yeah. Thanks.’ 1. I like putting ‘writer’ on my immigration forms. It’s best not to put ‘editor’ or ‘journalist’ because sometimes border officers are funny about people who might associate with newspapers and a border officer with a funny feeling means hours of delay. The chap who processed my form was feeling chatty, and he asked me what I wrote about. I told him ‘beautiful things’ and we agreed that I would have lots to say about Malawi. 2. The 40 kids who joined us for our first meal in Malawi. You can stop anywhere in Africa for lunch, and within moments children will appear to watch. As soon as we put our stools out, they all sat down. I chatted to Baxter (said he was 15, looked nine) and Steve (said he was nine, looked about six) and another boy with a difficult name who said he was 130. Three tried my g...

1. Going into the mountains and feeling the temperature drop after a week of general stickiness. 2. The bar at Farmhouse Camp. It’s in a hut with a thatched roof with eaves that touch the ground. We squatted on three-legged stools, warming our hands on pots of glowing coals. The only bad thing was that it closed at half past nine. 3. The magic curry that Francis whipped up from leather-like beef. Dar es Salaam to Farmhouse Camp

1. Being rescued from a rabid Sikh man. We were waiting for George to have his starter motor fixed. A beardy man driving a 4x4 saw us and told Wayne that if we cared to come into his temple we could learn a little about Sikhism and have some lunch. Too late -- having removed our shoes washed our hands, covered our heads and walked on our filthy feet across a pristine white prayer mat -- we realised we would be working for our lunch by listening to a 20-minute rant from a toothless and fervent man. He took in Revelations, Christianity, Reincarnation, Ancient Greece and the respect which Sikhs have for All Other Religions (apart from Hinduism). At the end, he asked if any of us had any questions. ‘Um,’ said Gill, who could see Anne, having bravely penetrated the organisation was waving at us from the back of the temple, ‘Our leader says we have to go now.’ ‘Yes, but does anyone have any questions?’ ‘We really do have to go -- there are people waiting for us,’ added Elaine. We scrambled t...

1. When a ferry crossing expected to be thoroughly vomitous is not. 2. Wayne saying that he and Francis had missed us, and the joy with which we greeted George the truck. I think it was partly keeness to get back on the road and partly the vague feeling of insecurity I get from carrying my passport and money around with me. 3. Discovering that Francis has not only survived a motorbike crash but has also put up our tents and cooked dinner. He has, however lost his hat and sunglasses. Nungwi Beach, Zanzibar to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

1. The water at Nungwi Beach is clear and blue and warm. Rosey and I were so entranced by it that we got sunburn from playing too long in the sea. 2. Rob found a huge and knobbly red and black starfish for us. 3. Having clean feet and fingernails. When you are camping, and when the nearest sink is over there somewhere behind those palm trees and there is no soap anyway, my nails get grimy, even with regular mealtime Detol scrubbing. But we are staying in a hotel room with a shower, and soap; and we have been swimming a lot, so my hands are purfickly clean. Nungwi Beach, Zanzibar

1. Ali T’s funny English. T stands for ‘tour guide’. He collects cockney rhyming slang from his groups and from the BBC World Service. He shared a few choice Zanzibar phrases including ‘cahmfortahble tahmes’, which is what the sultan of Zanzibar was hoping for when he visited his wives. 2. Anatto pods. Anatto is a red colouring. The seeds are juicy so you can squash them in your fingers producing a red goo that Ali T claims ‘Mijulie’ uses on her lips. I tried it and was swiftly told by Rose that the colour was unsuitable. This didn’t stop her from smearing it on her face and hands. 3. When mace -- the seaweedy membrane that surrounds a nutmeg -- is fresh it is a deep crimson. We saw two tiny little girls picking up windfalls in a nutmeg grove. 4. We lunched at the house of Ali T’s boss: his wife served us pilau beef and custard apple and lemon juice. Craig said of this last: ‘I wanted to put my face in it.’ Later in the bar he said chivalrously: ‘I’ve never seen so many beautiful women...

We left George, Wayne and Francis in Dar es Salaam -- with only saltwater showers, mosquitoes and vodka slushies to keep them company -- so that we could desport ourselves on the beaches of Zanzibar. 1. Being stuck in a traffic jam in the middle of a market because there is so much to look at. 2. We have got into the habit of meeting at about 6.30pm in the nearest bar for sundowners. We discuss the day and write our diaries and try to catch the colours with our cameras. Africa House in Stone Town is a good place to do this. It has a satisfyingly clumpy floor and a grand balcony that overlooks the sea, small boys doing acrobatics and bigger boys swimming, dhows and, of course the sunset. There was also a fine collection of scrawny yet elegant expats; and two men in banana leaf hats playing popular songs of the day -- most notably Jambo Jambo Bwana. 3. Wearing a kanga as a skirt. A kanga is piece of printed cloth with a lot of uses -- you see them worn as skirts, aprons, head scarves, ba...

1. Claire offers a successful bush toilet stop ‘Because no-one saw my arse.’ In the country there are no public loos so we must go where we can, and the avoiding crops rule means that you are quite desperate by the time you get there. If you are lucky, there’s a bush to hide behind: if not, it’s boys on one side of the truck, girls on the other. We squat together, giggling at the strangeness and wobbliness of it. 2. We sit by the pool taking a our first proper look at the Indian Ocean. Rob, who is an East Coast of the US boy, says he has never seen the sun set over the sea before. 3. Vodka slushies in metal cups covered in cool condensation. They are a lot stronger than they taste and quite soon I am feeling pleasingly lightheaded and reckless. Marangu to Dar, Tanzania

A night spent in the shadow of Kilimanjaro 1. The tree under which people pray. In times of difficulty, the Chugga tribe don’t abandon their Christian faith, but they do move it out of church. Among the banana orchards there are a few giant and ancient trees that are used as outdoor churches when important prayers need to made. Our guide Roderick explained that it happened after 9/11 when tourists stopped climbing Kilimanjaro, leaving him and his colleagues with no work. 2. We came to the village church and heard children chanting inside. ‘Kindergarten,’ explained Roderick. As we passed the chanting broke down into: ‘Jambo jambo jambo!’ -- they had the advantage because we couldn’t see them through the narrow fretwork windows. 3. The headmaster of a school we visited. Rosey liked him because he remembered her name -- he has a daughter called Rose. Rosey continues: “He sat us down in front of him and asked for money for his school in a non-threatening way. He seemed very on-the-ball and...

Meserani Snake Park and Campsite has one of the livliest bars in all Africa. The owners, Ma and BJ, also run a health centre and they helped the locals build a superb Masai museum. 1. Masai children wanting to be picked up. I carried a toddler wearing a blanket, and he tried on my glasses 2. Alex, a British student running an adult education scheme for the village. He explained sheepishly, hampered by his out-of-control fringe, that he had been trying to read Wind In The Willows with his class. “I don’t think they get it so I’ve had to draw a map showing that Mole left his house, met the Water Rat, went on a picnic and then went to live at Ratty’s house.’’ I wondered if homesickness for the lush English countryside inspired his choice; and what the people in this land of browns and duns and dust made of it. 3. At the Snake Park some of the Masai women have little shops selling souvenirs. I had gone into Anna’s shop the evening before with no money and promised to return early in the m...

1. Rosey is ill and everyone has asked very tenderly after her. 2. Rosey has her camera trained on a German couple in the Ngorongoro crater picnic site. She is hoping that, since they have been foolish enough to sit outside with their lunch, they will have their sandwiches stolen by a kite. Sadly when it happens she misses the shot. 3. Bright yellow weaver birds building nests in the reeds over the crocodile pool at the Snake Park. Ngorongoro to Arusha, Tanzania