leaving Tanzania is hard
on Hanna Gehling (Malawi), 10/Jan/2011 17:21, 34 days ago
We didn´t want to spend to much time in Dar es Salam as time is already running up for me to be back in Blantyre on Saturday. So we decided to spend our Sunday seeing a bit more of Dar and trying to find an internet café to check emails, update blog and some information about where to get a visa for Mosambique, when two young guys appeared who offered us to show us the way. We were a bit skeptic but didn’t want to be so closed up so we walked a while with them. Turned out that they were tour guides, it seems like every second person in Dar is a tour guide, and after checking the internet (thanksto everyone for the lovely birthday, christmas and new years wishes!) we went for some food. The two guys were still sitting outside and seem to wait for us. We said again thank you for showing us the way and took off, they followed us. After another walk of maybe 10min we said that we really don’t need them to follow us anymore. This all ended up in a big discussion. They seriously wanted $40 from us for the 4 hour tour! Ridicolous! We all got really angry, trying to explain that if they would´ve told us from the beginning that they want to earn a bit money it wouldn´t have been a problem, but because they tried to trick us they ended up with nearly nothing. They were also really angry and said they wanted more money. Unbelievable! We gave them 2000 Shilling and took off, that left a really bad taste in our mouths, you just start to think everyone is just trying to trick you and take advantage of you. But especially in the city live seems to be even harder for most of the people, so they try everything to earn a bit of money and a muzungu is the quickest way to earn money it seems. The city is busy, a lot of little and bigger markets, a lot of travelers coming from or leavingto the islands.We tasted some sugar cane around the harbour, it´s tasting like a peace of sweet wood, you chew on it and squeeze out the sweet juice between the wooden fibres, when that’s gone you spit the rest out. Jummy! Then we did a little shopping tour to one of Dar´s biggest markets and had a little strawl around but we couldn’t really find anythinguseful. There were a few massai selling hand made jewelry but most of all you could find fake brands and plastic stuff, not really what we were looking for. It was just really busy and everyone tried to pull us into his stall, not being able to talk suaheli didn’t really help either. Well, afterspending the last week in nature it is a bit of a shocker to be in the middle of an ants nest all in a sudden. We discussed our next move. The research in the internet and travel guides told us that we could also get a visa directly at the border to mosambique although some of the tour guides told us that it is only possible to get a visa in the embassy in Dar. But thinking of time and the stress to find another expensive hostel, YMCA was fully booked, we decided not to spend any more money and time in Dar and hit the road in the afternoon, direction: Mosambique.So on the road again! We were in a good mood although it took us a while to leave Dar es Salam, so much traffic! We wanted to drive as far as possible towards the border until we get tired. But at 9 p.m. we were suddenly stopped by a guy on a road blockage in a little village in the middle of nowhere. The guy didn’t look anything but trustful! No uniform, no batch, we got really scared but had to stop, the road was blocked. He said we´re not allowed to go any further because it is to dangerous as the road is still in construction and there´re some gangs taking advantage of the slow moving cars and try torob the passengers using guns and bush knifes. Ok, that was even more scary! The guy realized we were frightened also because he didn’t look anything like an official police officer so he took us to the little police station to confirm that he is a real police officer. A little chat with his colleagues and again telling our little made up story that we´re all engaged and will soon be married and are not interested to give our numbers to any of them the police guy found a little hotel for us close by. The three of us shared the room with one bed and a toilet without door. I´m sure we all dreamed of something with toilets that night despite the smell in the room, it was discusting!We got up at 5am next morning to not loose any more time and kept on driving down south towards the border. The dirt track was really dirty! A lot of mud holes and stuck laurrys on the way, we had to use the 4WD again, and Harry (the name of the car) got really dirty! I loved it! 2½ hours later we couldn’t trust our eyes to see a tartan road again, no way we would´ve been able to go this road in the pitch dark so good the police guy had stopped us!Another 4 hours later we reached Mtwara, the last bigish town before the border. From here you take another dirt track for about 30min and when you think this definitely cant be the right way to Mosambique anymore the track just ends at a little river. There are a few houses and fishers and that’s it. The border to Mosambique. From here you are supposed to take a so calles ferry, initially three wooden boats tied together with rope, some planks on top of this and on top of you’re your car. But there was no ferry and also no border police, office or anything where you can get a visa. Sothe border post must have been the tiny house next to the track we passed about 5km ago, a hand written post which said “Polisi checkpoint” and a road barrier (just a wooden stick), which was open and no person anywhere. That’s why we didn’t stop there, it looked like any other police checkpoint just without police men. Another pick up full of young men arrived who told us we´ve already passed the office. So we turned around and just when we left the little village a police car came storming towards us. Oh oh! They were already chasing us! The car was full of police men, they indicated us to stop the car and we all nearly feel like in a bad movie. Poor Andrea was terrified, she was the driver. The boiling police guy who climbed out the truck first came shouting at us that this is against the law and a crime to cross the border without stopping at the office. All we could say was sorry and that we didn’t see the office. He checked our passports (he didn’t ask for any driving license, I think that’s hilarious!) and gave us a real angry look saying “where is your visa?!?!” OH NO!!!! So we all went back to his office and had a nearly 2 hour discussion about that wedidn’t get the visa in Dar es Salam because the embassy was closed and that we got serious information that it was possible to get a visa at the border. Unfortunately that was a totally wrong information! He said you can only get a visa at the embassy in Dar es Salam and started to write our namesin a big booklet full of hundreds of names of people who were refused to cross, only for the last 3 month!! F*** !!!!For some reason this guy turned out to be really friendly and helpful in the end, he called the other side of the border and tried his best to get a clear information but all he could tell us was that we have to go back to Dar to get a visa first. No no no!! Back the dirt track all the way back to Dar was not an option for us. So we had to think of what to do. We took a cheap hostel in Mtwara which was crab and made a plan.Plan A: Go to the airport in Mtwara in the morning to find out about the price of a flight to Dar and back, phone the embassy to find out if it is possible to only send one of us back for arranging the visa and then cross the border a day later. Time loss: 2 daysPlan B: Go and find the mystical“unity one bridge”, another border crosspoint somewhere further west, around which myths are spun that you can get a visa there! Mmh very unsure but even if we wouldn’t get a visa to keep on going the dirt road further west until reaching the lake and take a ferry to Malawi of which we didn’t know if it is taking cars. Time loss: varies between 1 and 3 days.Plan C: Go back to Dar by car, skip Mosambique and go back to Malawi the same way we came from. Time loss: 3 days and no Indian ocean.Mmh! What a difficult decision. We decided to go for plan A first, got up early next morning, went to the airport and nothing worked. Flight was 170€, no answer in the embassy and so the plane left without any one of us and we changed to plan B instead. We really wanted to go to Mosambique and hope dies last right so go Harry go!! Another day on the road and after humps and bumps of miles and miles of dirt tracks out of nowhere a brand new tartan road appeared and on the horizon the 3 month old Unity one bridge, shining, new as if it was fallen out of the sky. What a strange picture, we couldn’t believe our eyes. I think so couldn’t the poor officers working on either side of the bridge, they must be so unbelievable bored working ata so fancy border crosspoint you can only reach when its dry and you have a 4WD. It just doesn’t make any sence! We were so nervous! What if we wont get a visa, what if it is way to expensive, what if we have to go all the way back again. On the Tanzanian side the officer told us no chance, we have to go back but we were stubburn and said we want to talk to the mosambiquian side first. The officer said good luck, only one time before someone was allowed to cross without a visa. That gave us hope! So we left one passport, crossed the bridge and talked to the officer on the other side. Smiling, as friendly as possible and a cold bottle of water as a present was all we could give. We told him a bit of a story, that the embassy in Dar was closed when we tried to get a visa, that we got the wrong information of being able to get the visa at the border and that we lost so much time and thatI have to go back to Blantyre for my voluntary work as soon as possible as I. In these moments it is good to have some actresses around haha!The guy was so moved by the story that he made the exception writing an official letter to his colleagues in Pemba and allowed us to cross the border under the condition that we have to go to Pemba (the way we wanted to take anyway) first thing to get a visa there. Yes yes yes!!!! We are so lucky!! We didn’t even have to pay anything for the car! I still cant believe it! We were so happy that we bought a round of coke for everyone, that also made the bored officers so happy that we left waving good bye to all of them and finally arrived in Mosambique! Aaaaaahhhh I felt like a DDR citizen in 1989!!!!5 min down the road, still singing and screaming that we finally made it to the other side, the tartan road suddenly ended and became a even worse dirt track again. Only full 4 hours later we reached a little town called Mueda at 10 p.m. No lights, no signs, a few people and no idea where to go. We asked someone for directions in a mix of English, the Portuguese out the travel guide, some Spanish and Chichewa and he seemed to understand and gave us directions to the place we wanted tospend the night. We just couldn’t find it so we turned around and found him waving at us on the street. He said something like he could show us the way and because he was so tiny and about 16 years old we thought it is ok to take him in the car with us. After 20min driving we asked him how much longer we need to ride to find the hotel and he said only 2 hours. What?!?! That was a big misunderstanding what we still cant understand, for some reason he thought it was a good idea to use this opportunity to get a ride to the next city in the middle of the night. We turned around and found a tiny hotel in the end. Absolutely exhausted we fell in our beds. I still had to laugh about that guy who seriously wanted to show us a hotel in a city 2 hours away from where we were. But we are in Mosambique baby! FINALLY!!! I am excited what will happen in this new country, so far it already feels a bit more mediteranian, probably the touch of Portugal. And it is nice, although I cant speak any Portuguese or Spanish or anything like that, but nice to hear a European language again.Hope we will keep on having that much luck and so much excitement as so far on our trip. 4 more days left for me till I have to be back in Blantyre..