Day 286 / 51

Date: 23 January 2023
Sleeping location: Half London Lodge, Salima, Malawi
Distance (km today/total/total Part 2): 115 / 17695 / 2858
Estimated climb (m today/total/total Part 2): 400 / 152100 / 34100
3 - 2 = 1
Day in three words: Solo for real

The hotel breakfast was just bread with a boiled egg, but the addition of masses of lemon curd, and managing to wangle an eggstra egg and some extra bread, helped. There were ants in the sugar, which I pointed out to the guy who returned the antless sugar surprisingly quickly. I think he just hid them under more sugar. Out on the road all was flat and featureless crop and marshland once more. Some nice birds livened things up a bit; bright orange and black ones, yellow and black ones, and fancy black and white ones with long tails which seem to be the males, and seem to flit around with a harem of up to 10 different plain brown female birds.

The people are starting to get really annoying. Malawians consider themselves friendly, but about 50% of the time this friendliness extends to 15 seconds of chat before they reveal how they want to get your money off you. Which makes me standoffish and wary towards the other 50%. The small children just shout "azungu azungu"* repeatedly and even when you wave and say hi they continue to shout. The older children, and depressingly some of the smaller children too, say hello or how are you but just a lead in for "give me money". Today one kid tried to grab my bike, so that's a new worry, but it seems so far like an isolated incident. Throughout the day dealing with this endless barrage got more and more difficult and in the end I just started ignoring pretty much everyone over 5 years old and extending a brief wave or thumbs up to the little ones. Weirdly, and thankfully, they are all quite shy and nice when you stop; of course they stare but they don't really ask for anything and you can have a laugh with them. 

For first lunch we stopped at strange place cooking mystery meat with a fresh goat's head nailed to a post**, where I ordered some of the mystery meat but was sort of glad when they misunderstood and just brought me some chips. Here I had a bit of fun messing with our kid audience, sneaking up on them etc. They always love it when I suddenly make a scary sound and rush towards them, which is a good ice breaker.

In the second half of the day it got even flatter, with limited ups or downs to rest or give an alternative riding position, and the accumulated 300km or so of the past two and a bit days began to tell.

At second lunch (under a tree next to a friendly family's house, mostly bread with peanut butter and honey) I said goodbye to Charles and Anne-Claire for a second time. This was much less emotional than the first time as I'd already done all the grieving then, but this represents a big tonal shift in my journey, for real this time. 

I rolled into Salima about 5.30 having cranked out 319km in a little over two and a half days, which is a good old pull. As I wanted to leave my stuff there for a day I chose a slightly fancier place than usual, didn’t flood the room, ate a pretty decent beef kebab nearby and went to bed. 

Malawian Signs Corner

JK Soccer Center - the home of Barclays 

DJ Askay Burning Centre

No Sweet Without Sweat [A really gross sweet shop??/

[On crisp packet] Best before 6 moths [sic] from manufactured date

*This is the plural form of mzungu, which in Chichewa is used for the singular to denote respect, which is deeply ironic unless the respect in this case is being offered towards my money 

**They're missing a trick as goat's head soup on the Ethiopia/Kenya border was one of the most memorable foods of this trip