The long train wait

I had breakfast with everyone looking on in astonishment at me, I was still concerned that I shouldn't really be catching the train out today - out to the middle of nowhere. My eye was massively swollen as was that side of my forehead. However, they all agreed it was an allergic reaction to the bite, so I found some paramol in my bag that I had left over from when I took my godson, Kurt, to Morocco previously. He's allergic to wasps and these anti-histimines might do the trick. Still unsure, I did something I've never done before, I rarely travel with my phone, but I got it out and dialled New Zealand and spoke to Kurt's mum who's a nurse in Invercargill Hospital. After a short 40second phone call, I popped a paramol and continued to do so every 3hrs during the day, by the next morning I was back to normal.

Alex left with Gianni carrying her pack for her to go and meet Massimo whilst I got organised. Going out to the market with Gianni to get provisions for the train, I wore my sunglasses everywhere to cover the bite!! Julian went off to write his website and unbeknown to us hadn't done any shopping for the train, just as well we had more than enough to see us through, or so we thought!

We eventually found a taxi to take us out to the station for 50UM. The previous day we'd paid 80UM to go out to Kosando a few kilometres past the station, all the taxi drivers suddenly saw a window of opportunity and wanted between 200-300UM to take us to the station, it took a while to find an honest one!

On getting out there at 1pm to meet the 2pm train, we found ourselves strangely alone, apart from two guys loading up a donkey cart with empty barrels. Just before 2pm the 'station' started filling up with other passengers and a few soldiers, four women came along to set up their stalls with food & water. Julian went up to the ladies and asked them in English for some bread, as had been previously pointed out, no one understands English so Gianni and I acted as interpreters. The ticket seller was nowhere to be seen, things were looking a bit grim ...

It looked as if we were in for a long wait!