Travelling hungover...

We’re going to do our best to try avoid this but one has to prepare for every eventuality. So, using this fantastic article on surviving travelling on a hangover that Lyn found on the Matador Network as a guide here's how we'll cope...

The hangover cometh.

Fun fact Friday: Checkpoint 5 - Malawi

Malawi will be the penultimate country that we’ll be travelling through on the Put Foot rally. No doubt there are many great (and better) reasons to visit Malawi but mostly we’re super-excited because:

1.  Who wouldn’t want to visit the place known as the ‘Warm heart of Africa’?

2.  It looks like the kind of place where one might suntan on the beach whilst being served cocktails

Not bad Malawi.

and  3. The Checkpoint party is full-moon themed and is going to be epic

Full moon and full set of toes.

The country was established in 1891 as the British protectorate of Nyasaland and in 1964 became the independent nation of Malawi. The capital is Lilongwe which has an estimated population of 821000.

Much of the country is plateau - the Great Rift Valley runs from north to south and in the mountainous sections surrounding the valley, plateaus rise from 900 to 1 300m above sea level.

Now for fun facts!

• Lake Malawi is sometimes known as the Calendar Lake as it is around 365 miles (587 km) long and 52 miles (84 km) wide. It is the third largest lake in Africa and the eighth largest lake in the world.
• The only Carlsberg factory found outside Denmark is found in Blantyre, and they do free tours on a Wednesday afternoon. Alas we will miss this, but now you know - should you ever find yourself in Blantyre on a Wednesday afternoon.
• Who does the lake belong too? Tanzania claims that the border runs through the middle of the lake, based on the border set out between the German and British territories prior to 1914. Meanwhile Malawi claims the whole of the surface of the lake (excluding the Mozambican part). The dispute stems from when the British captured Tanganyika (now Tanzania) and placed all of the water under the jurisdiction of Nyasaland (now Malawi).
• The lake is of big interest to scientists as it is the site of some 'exciting' evolutionary happenings amongst some fish. These fish (Cichlids) evolved rapidly into a large number of closely related but diverse species. Lake Malawi is home to several hundred endemic species of Cichlids - and they are fairly good-looking as fish go.

Not for eating

As ever thanks to wiki and CIA factbook (here).

Fun fact friday: Check point 4 - Zimbabwe

Our fourth fantastic check point will be Kariba in Zim. Zim has had a lot of bad press in recent years but is definitely on the up and up!

• Zimbabwe became an independent state on 18 April 1980.
• Prior to independence the country was known as Rhodesia or Southern Rhodesia.
• The name Zimbabwe is derived from "Dzimba dza mabwe", which means "great houses of stone" in the Shona language. It is based on the stone structures of Great Zimbabwe or Dzimbahwe, which were included in the World Heritage List in 1986.
• The capital city of Zimbabwe is Harare.

We like Zim a lot not only because it is Laura's homeland but also because of it's rasta coloured flag. The green represents agriculture, yellow mineral wealth, red the blood that was shed in the fight for independence, and black stands for the native people. The yellow Zimbabwe bird represents the long history of the country and is superimposed on a red five-pointed star, which symbolizes peace.

And now for a fun fact about our Check point location!

• Lake Kariba was formed by the damming of the Zambezi river and is one of the largest man-made lakes in the world. 
• The formation of the dam led to the flooding of the Zambezi Valley which left many animals stranded on small islands.  From 1958 to 1964 a large-scale wildlife rescue operation - Operation Noah - was led by Rupert Fothergill during which over 6000 animals (elephant, rhino, lion, leopard, zebra, small birds and even snakes) were rescued and relocated to the mainland.

Again thanks CIA World factbook

Fun Fact Not-quite Friday: Check point 3 - Zambia

This is a little late but, as they say, better late than never. Besides I'd say we're probably going to have to get used to late arrivals having looked at the route and the number of hours we'll spend in the car...not including border crossings...

The third checkpoint is in lovely Zambia, formerly Northern Rodhesia, which has been independent since 1964. Although it was only 1991 which saw the end of one-party rule and 1996 and 2001 elections were riddled with all sorts of problems. 2006 saw Levy Mwanawasa re-elected (after challenges back in 2001) in elections that were deemed free and fair. Mwanawasa died in 2008 and was replaced by his vice-president. The current president is Michael Sata who was elected in 2011.

Big thing in Zambia is copper mining which was privatised in the 90s which saved the government from losses incurred from running the mines as well as improving their output which has meant real GDP growth in 2005-11 of more than 6% per year. Copper prices remain high keeping Zambia fairly safe but as they rely almost entirely on copper a slump in prices would be bad news. Unfortunately even with impressive GDP growth, the high birth rate, relatively high HIV/AIDS burden, and market distorting agricultural policies haven't decreased the high poverty rates.

Total Area: 752,618 sq km (that's slightly larger than Texas) - 39th in the world - made of 743,398 sq km land and water: 9,220 sq km.

Population: 14,309,466 (July 2012 est.) - 69th in the world
Birth rate: 43.51 births/1,000 population - 4th in the world 
Life expectancy at birth: 52.57 years 207th in the world

Favourite line from the CIA world factbook about Zambia - contained in transnational issues, the illicit drugs section - "major consumer of cannabis"

And now, Five Fun Facts:
1) Zambia’s name comes from the Zambezi River.  Zambezi is from a local word yambezhi “heart of all”
2) Livingstone, which is the 3rd checkpoint used to be the capital. No it's Lusaka.
3) Zambia and Zimbabwe share Victoria Falls which is one of the seven wonders of the world.
4) Not so fun - has been known to suffer from acid rain due to the extensive mining.
5) Transition to independence was peaceful - it was the 60s after all!

Friday Fun: Happy Animals

My productivity at work has gone done several-fold since my discovery of the awesomeness that is buzzfeed. It's better than youtube for killing time at work because you don't need sound but it will still make you laugh and you can still spend hours just following the links they tell you to. It's like some sort of epic mind control.

So today, because it's Friday I give you my favourite buzzfeed of the week (it's a close run race):

The 26 happiest animals in the world - don't just look at the pictures, the captions are gold!

Picture from buzzfeed via sanitaryum.com