Day
23. Fri 1st September.
Lake of
Stars
After a hearty breakfast we head off to Chinteche, which takes less
than an hour in Tony's 4x4.
It turns out
that the festival doesn't really get going until late afternoon, and I
am in plenty of time to find a good place for my tent (as far as
possible from the sound stage, but not too close to the loos), and erect
it "in the field" for the first time. It ends up a bit wonky, and I'm
glad I took the time to practise in the back garden before I came out.
Then I chill out for the afternoon, watch the security guards drilling
and chat to various people, including some of the DJs. One of them, who
goes by the name of "Phat Phil" Cooper, turns out to come from two streets away
from where I was brought up in the little village of Mochdre in North
Wales. Small world!
Daniel, the young lad who was making the promo film for Wilderness Safaris that I met at Liwonde National Park is also here,
still toting around his camera equipment, although it turns out that
the interview we did at Mvuu Lodge was unusable due to a problem with
the sound - ah well, fame will have to wait.
There has been some sort of a cock up with the cables for the sound
system that were shipped over from England, so the music doesn't start
until around 6, and then it is all "DJ" music - a lone guy in the dark making
squeaky noises with a turntable, very boring.
But there are plenty of
people to chat to, including a mad polish guy with a trumpet and the
unlikely name of Melody (which I am assured is a perfectly normal boy's
name in Poland), and
someone with a camera who is making some sort of a film of the
goings-on outside Harry's Bar (it eventually dawns on me that this is
the same Harry who runs Harry's Bar in Lilongwe, and who is one of the
organisers of the festival). The camera man, obviously recognising my
acting talents,
gets me to do a piece to camera for his epic. Film interviews seem to the order of the day on this trip - maybe I'll pop up on
Channel 4 one day.
I also run into Sam, James and the two Hannahs that
I met in Cape Maclear. They have managed to find one small tent that
will just about sleep all four of them - three girls and James . . . no
wonder he's looking cheerful!
I stick it out until about 10:30, and then crawl into my crooked tent
and try to get some sleep. The music isn't too loud at the camp site,
and I must have got some sleep, because I am woken by the occupants of
the tent next door talking and laughing, and I notice that it is
getting light.