Okay, Jarrod, so the last blog finished with an all too vivid description of chain-reaction vomiting on a ferry, and the title of this one is Frozen Cheese and Bush Pees. I promise they won’t all be chronicles of bodily functions, it’s just that when I read my journal from this section of the trip, those words leap out at me off the page.
As does the direct quote ‘another shitful long and dull driving day….’
Your chariot, m’lady.
Strap in. We have two monster drive days to get to Malawi. Day one: up and breakfasting at 7am. Weetbix with UHT milk and instant coffee. Oh, how a Melbourne girl’s standards drop in only a few weeks. It’s like I’ve had a blow to the head and forgotten I’m from the coffee capital of Australia. Nescafé=not ok.
Onto the truck by 8am and that’s where we stay All. Bloody. Day. Except for bush pee stops. Does that need explanation? You probably don’t want your sister to paint you a picture but I’m going to. No, you cry, please, no visuals. Too late! There is no toilet on the truck. You buzz the driver downstairs when enough of you need to pee and they pull over on the side of the road. You arm yourself with a handful of toilet paper and head out to find a tree/dense-ish scrub/stationary tumbleweed/ANYTHING to squat behind if you’re a girl; or stand wherever you goddamn like if you’re a guy (#maleprivilege). Then you come back to the truck, squirt disinfectant on your hands before climbing aboard to conduct a detailed postmortem of your experience. Because when you are travelling, you leave your boundaries at home. Degree of splashback, unexpected breeze leading to Haviana soilage, the foolish choice of a downhill slope (WHAT was I thinking?? This isn’t my first rodeo!), poisonous prickles you hadn’t seen behind you that stabbed you in the ass (can you look at my butt? does that look ok? seriously, does it look infected?). The hardness of the pitch becomes something I’m almost obsessed with pre pee– too firm and everything spatters on your inner heels. I stop just short of doing a Tony Greig cricket pitch test with a key.
What do you do all day on the truck? Read, chat, listen to music or podcasts, take in the scenery–
All the world is a toilet, and all the men and women on it are merely full bladders
Metropolis
Local Sports
Or, if you’re like me, sleeop. Sleep an inordinate amount. I have a positively Pavlovian response to being a passenger on a train or bus. I’m obliged to warn travel buddies in advance that a) I will most definitely fall asleep and b) I am a very unattractive sleeper– I WILL look like I’m having a stroke, please don’t wake me, I’m fine. And please don’t photograph me for shits and giggles. This last request is roundly ignored.
My African friends see me looking like this roughly 85% of our travel time. Remember that Right Said Fred song ‘I’m Too Sexy?’ He had a line about being ‘Too Sexy For This Car, Too Sexy By Far’
If only there was something that rhymed with ‘Too Sexy For This Truck… ‘ Hmmmmm.
New on-line dating profile pic.
We’ve had to buy supplies to prepare our lunch on the truck for the next two days. Crackers and imitation Laughing Cow cheese with floury tomato that I massacre incompetently with a plastic knife. The truck has a fridge which is actually a freezer, so anything that goes in there has to come out and be defrosted before you can eat it and then refrozen again. Including deli meats and cheeses. Because, food handling regulations lol.
Baobab Trees
Day 2 is worse if that is even possible. Up at 4am to take tents down and have breakfast at 4:30am, rolling out of camp at 5am for 14 hours on the truck, with the exception of about 2 hours at a border crossing.
More of the same.
Views worth opening your eyes for
Or just downright eye opening.
We have a near miss on the truck today when a semi being driven by a man actually brushing his teeth at the wheel overtakes us too ambitiously and almost clips the front of our truck, literally missing by centimetres. The poor people in our front seats have their lives flash before their eyes and unfortunately the montages feature way too many bush pees. Our driver overtakes their truck, there’s some yelling at one another through open windows and then both trucks pull over on the side of the highway and the drivers jump out to shout face to face. The driver at fault still has his toothbrush in his mouth (???) and he’s flanked by four mates who’ve piled out of his cabin. Heated loud voices, macho gesturing, for a moment it looks like it’s going to turn very ugly, but Toothbrush Guy just apologises, they all shake hands and go their separate ways.
Wow. That de-escalated quickly.
More driving, more villages, the option of buying avocados and bananas from vendors who come out to throw them up at you through the truck windows…
Better than a self service checkout at Woolies
Aaaaaaand we get there. We’re rewarded with a couple of days on Malawi beaches where we can do things that don’t involve developing pressure sores on our asses and fixed flexion contractures of our hips and knees. It’s bliss. BLISS I TELL YOU. There’s the option of swimming, kayaking, even riding horses on the beach in your bathers like you’re a character in a 1990s tampon commercial.
The view from the bar
‘Enjoys long walks on the beach to observe giant clogs’
I elect to do the Guided Village Walk where we visit a local community including the school and a clinic that also serves as a labour ward. Our guide shows us around his family’s home, including the set up they have to house their chickens at night to keep them safe from predators. Believe it or not the chickens climb this ladder every night to get inside. Adorable!
Apartment Lyf Chooks
Ladies carry more than 20 litres of water back to their homes. Me? I grapple with a single bowl of washing up water
We visit the local school, with class sizes averaging 140-150 students per teacher and drop off donations of pens and books that we’ve brought along with us
Heads, shoulders, knees and toes
And the health clinic slash labour ward for the community. Where, wait for it, one of the girls in our group (a qualified nurse) HELPS TO DELIVER A BABY. She just drops in to deliver some medications and dressings and mentions in passing that she’s a nurse, they say “come this way” and lead her to a room to scrub in because there’s a labour that’s going a bit pear shaped. “Wash your hands there, gloves are over there”
Not pictured, small gecko that ran out of sterile tray seconds earlier
Next time anyone you know is banging on about their birth plan and whether they’re putting together a play list, who and what they want in there, what essential oils they want and whether a blow up pool is going to be involved, put things into perspective by reminding them that at the very least they don’t have to arrive at the hospital with their own bed linen to sleep in OR bring their own plastic bag that they’ll use to catch the baby when it eventually pops out, because that’s actually what centres like this are dealing with. The nearest hospital is 85km away, they don’t have an ambulance, they don’t have so much as a kettle to boil water.
The baby is born safe and well despite things being a bit touch and go, and mum is fine. What an utterly unforgettable experience to have on a trip. Truly, I wasn’t even directly involved but I get vicariously teary just thinking about it.
Not all heroes wear capes, some wear cargo pants and hiking boots 😉
It’s been an arduous journey to get to Malawi but we have memories (and maybe scars on our butts) there that will last a lifetime. But I’ll throw it over to you as always. The road trip to Malawi: Jarrod, would you go there?
I don’t want to get back on the truck. You can’t make me….
Meg I’ll answer for Jarrod. No way in hell would I do those 2 days. Hell on earth. The truck, toilet stops, food, heat etc etc. and I know it was a blog on travel to your next destination but I don’t know how you did it. The beach scenes though were pretty amazing. Loved them.
The term ‘holy shit’ takes on a new meaning with this one meg. No interest at all in trecking so far in a non climate controlled or toilet equipped truck, especially in such heat. At least you didn’t have so much food that the other P.. stops became essential.
I’ll bet when the confrontation between drivers started, you were flexing your fists of steel to take control, had things gone belly up; and by that I mean, you were ready to drive off at speed, leaving them to fight it out.
Fascinated by the dexterity of the chickens climbing ladders like that – could teach me a thing or two.!!
Also happy to see you adopting my relaxed look, when grabbing a little ‘shut-eye’ as the opportunity permitted. I know the feeling well.
The school and hospital experiences were remarkable and an experience your travelling companion nor the mother concerned will ever forget – a bond that will always be there.
God knows what they will do when the ban on single use plastic bags takes effect.