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 the trip by
Ali T not to be shy like mimosa. Today we found this sort of mimosa at the lunch stop and discovered just how shy it is. The leaves look like vetch -- tiny and arranged in a double row down a stem. When you touch them, they each fold in half and the plant flops down on to the ground.
3. Sundowners. I like sitting in a bar by a lake with all the people not on cook duty watching the sun set. The photographers arrange their cameras, and the rest of us just watch and wonder and try to decide if this isn’t the best one yet.
4. We have been watching a storm come in across the lake and just before it arrives, the wind comes rushing in and the air seems to be electric.
Chitimba to Kande Beach, Malawi
