Not Quite the QE2
It was 2 am when the knock we had been expecting finally came. Lotte and I had been waiting, since early morning, for a boat that had supposedly been due at 11 am. After travelling half way down Malawi by car, we decided to avoid any more potholed roads, and catch the ferry from Nkhota kota down to Monkey Bay .
So far, it hadn't been any more reliable than hitching. We had walked several miles from town to the jetty in the early morning to find nothing there except a single bar. We spent the day on the porch, listening to repeated assertions that the boat was coming soon. We sipped endless bizarrely flavoured soft-drinks, and played checkers with cocopina and cherryplum bottle tops. And, as we ate through our supply of ferry food, the boat still adamantly refused to come.
As dusk fell, the bar closed, leaving a single light on the porch by which we could read our books. We waited, fighting mosquitoes and frogs for the light. Lizards crawled over us, and flying beetles rammed against us like Kamikaze pilots, and clung like Velcro to our clothes. The night-watchman approached us several times, warning us that it wasn't safe, and that we should get a room.
"But, we are waiting for the ferry," we would say.
"It is too dangerous out here. You must wait inside."
Eventually, when the insects got too much, and his voice became more anxious than a Malawian ever gets, we took him up on the offer, and booked ourselves a single room for the night. Almost immediately, the place came to life again. What had been a subdued, isolated bar in the day, was a lively brothel at night. We found it hard to get to sleep with people constantly banging on our door and walls, and music blaring down the corridor. But, eventually, the party quietened and we drifted off, only to be woken shortly after by our night-watchmen coming to tell us the boat was here.
At last. We leapt out of bed, grabbed our rucksacks and dashed after him. From the shore, the lights on the ferry looked welcoming, like a cruise ship passing in the night, but everything else seemed threatening. In a state of half sleep, fireflies on the water looked like crocodile eyes, and every noise was a wild animal. We could barely see anything. Our miniature flashlight was just bright enough for us to see several steps ahead.
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