So, what happened...... we left Inhosorro yesterday morning after a weedy swim in the sea and headed towards the Malawi border expecting a night stopover somewhere. We had a long day driving, on pretty good roads, however when we stopped around the kids bedtime we decided to put them to sleep in their bunks and carry on driving to gather some distance towards to border. So we headed off on a road which the map showed us to be a secondary road, but after 60km of lots of jiggles, we saw that the road crossed the Zambezi, by now it was well after dark. We reached the part of the road that should turn into a bridge to cross the river, and what the map didn't show us was that the road is no longer in use! Very very disappointing! So, we had to turn around, and drive the 60 bumpy kilometres back to the town where we had put the kids to sleep in the back. I must add, that with all the bumps and pothole juggling, Xan slid out of his bed. I did see it happen because I hardly took my eyes off the camera showing them asleep in the back. We pulled over and settled him down again. He had slid right through his safety railing! How does that happen?
Anyway, back at the little town called Caia, we slept at the petrol garage where we had ironically filled up with Diesel 120km earlier! The armed security guard guaranteed us that we would be safe so after a big debate about wether or not to turn back home, or go the long way round into Malawi, we decided to sleep on it. But our sleep was short because the trusty security guard woke us up with a knock on our door at 1:30am to ask us to move our truck to the back, and then again at 4am for his tip because his shift was finished!
Alex woke with a bit more travel enthusiasm, and we headed off towards Malawi. Around 10:30 though we reached another map misconception. We arrived at a ferry crossing, with no one around that could speak English very well, and a ferry that looked rather rickety. We were told (in bad English) that the ferry will be going across the river today, maybe around 2 or 4 'o clock. Now all we could do was wait. With the temp outside nearing 40 degrees, we decided to stay in the truck and do a little spring cleaning. We still had coffee beans all over the place from our little coffee machine accident, so I felt great after all was swept. At about 12:00 we noticed that some guys looked like they were sorting something out with the ferry. They had to row across the river, attach a wire rope onto that side, bring it back onto this side etc. This took a while and just as we were about to board the ferry a huge thunder storm arrived and we were told to wait until the rain passed. This took another 45mins. The kids enjoyed Alex's version of Cat in a Hat while we waited. We then crossed the river with much excitement, and we were greeted with some lovely muddy roads on the other side which Alex loved ofcourse!
The border into Malawi was a breeze, and we found a Lodge where we can park & camp. The kids even got a chance to run around catching fireflies before bed. Kaylin managed to put 2 into her "bugbox" and fell asleep with them next to her pillow. Sweet dreams my little Adventure Kids!
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