22 June 2009

22 June, Day 9: Malaria and Minaret's

Woke up to the sound of activity in the camp. Slept a bit cold last night, we didn’t think we needed our sleeping bags. Bad idea, clearly. Opened the tent to a glorious vista. The sun wasn’t up just yet, or rather, it was obscured by a heavy bank of cloud. I started to pack up the gear, roll up the sleep bags while Annelie grabbed the rocket fuel and porridge. Stopped packing to grab my camera and try my darndest to capture it. Lots of other folks with the same idea, kept running into my shot. Morons... Oh well, it’s way too beautiful a morning to get upset about that! :)

Took over from Annelie to brew the daily Java. Finished packing up and loaded the Bullet. Seems like we have less space somehow! Need to repack this bad boy at the next stop, I can hardly get to the fridge in the back. We finish up and head out at around 07:25 toward the border of Tanzania. We’re only 40km’s out so we reach it quite quickly. We did stop once or twice for pictures, when we were close to the lake. Also did a quick group shot near some farm land (very green!). The area is still lush and peppered with Raffia Palms, banana trees and a bouquet of other trees I’d be hard pressed to identify.

At the border (08:55) we stop to fill in the usual paperwork: exit / entry cards for each individual, then for each vehicle (using the Carne de Passage’s organised in Cape Town. Without these, you can expect to be around for 5 hours filling in forms... and paying a small ransom for “importing goods”). Tanzania is a bit different in that we need visas. Good thing we brought passport photos (which we’ve lost and found umpteen times). Go through one set of gates, stop at the little forex office to exchange some dollars and left over Malawian Kwachas for Tanzanian Schillings. Exchange rate is 1200Tsh for 1 Dollar. Finish up, go through another gate (all smiles, good morning, how are you, you have a good day now!) and park next to customs and immigration building.

The border post is actually a very organised and clean building, everyone in uniform. It’s definitely the finest African border post I’ve seen on this trip. Zim / Zambia was a joke and Malawi wasn’t quite better. The exchange After filling in another form we hand in our passports before going into the offices to sort out the vehicle entries. Here we need to pay road tax and a vehicle tax. A smiling customs agent is more than happy to take our dollars, wringing his hands (I shit you not) in the process. He even says “it is not robbery”. Right. We manage to build up rapport with him and before long he makes sure we know that the speed limit in Tanzania is 80km/h, but there are spots where even he doesn’t drive that slow. Also where it says 50, drive 50, because THATS where they’ll catch you. And where it says 30, well, trust him you want to go 25. Carne’s come in handy again, we get our official discs and paperwork. Before we go, Mattie asks if he’s ever been to South Africa, he says no. Mattie says: “Well, any time you want to come, you can enter for FREE!”. Heh heh heh, he enjoyed that. We ask about 3rd party insurance and how much he pays, he says 25 dollars a year for his car. “But when they see white, they smiling”. We head out to the 3rd party insurance office (making sure that we can or can’t take the vehicle across the line. You step across without insurance, well, this is Africa.)

We’re escorted by an all smiling gentlemen into his new office (so new in fact that the front is just one big wooden frame, with space for a door and 2 windows). Oh, I forgot to mention that we have to bat and negotiate with the usual “foreign exchange specialists”. I politely refuse, not before making some chat and so forth. You can get into deep shit if you trade with these guys in the open, so the strategy is to invite the bidder with the highest rate into the insurance office and have HIM pay for your insurance, before handing him dollars. That way, technically, YOU didn’t exchange anything. But in this case we already exchanged at the border and all the prices are in dollars, so.

Anyways, into the office, where the smiling gentle proceeds to clean us out. “You see, insurance is determined by engine capacity, so your vehicles are 2.99 (never say it’s a 3 liter, since that’s WAY more expensive) and we determine it according to 25 Dollars per cc....” and so it goes. “But, you can sign up with Comesa, which will cover you for all 22African countries.”

Now I didn’t take pictures of any of this, but we’re in a little office, with the “exchange specialists crowding outside and about 4 other employees (I guess. They all seemed to have a stake in the discussion), 3 of us and the smiling salesman behind his desk. In the end, we had the option of taking 3rd party insurance for Tanzania only (and no, you can’t take 1 week. Only 5 weeks) for 60 dollars per vehicle, or we can “sign up with Comesa, which is valid in all African countries”. Which is $160. The problem is, how exactly do we know it’s legal AT ALL? He keeps gesturing to the “certificate” above the cupboard and the calendar on the wall behind him (The Tanzanian Insurance Company ltd) as proof. We examine the discs, the yellow paper and seals. It all looks legit, but then, not. We’re screwed basically, since there aren’t other options here and we set foot into the country we won’t go 1 km before we get pulled over, conveniently. So we opt for the Comesa option, swearing that we will hunt this bastard down if at the next border post it turns out to be useless. To put it into some perspective, the most we’ve paid per country so far was $20, and of course we know what Mr Customs pays per year for his car.

On the bright side, three very pissed off Souf Afrekan males have a slight advantage at this stage of the negotiations, and the ultimatum of “ok, we take Comesa, but we WANT DISCOUNT! We pay $110 per vehicle...” which almost.. ALMOST became $100. Smiling gentlemen concedes and his fellow employees take the Carnes and write out the paperwork. We demand to see the carbon copies in the books they’re using (not sure what that would help) and walk back to the vehicles. Annelie proved to be a hit with the locals, as every other exchange representative tries to chat her up and when I arrive they’re in mid photo shoot, posing with them. I laugh.

I write in my journal: $50 x 2 for visas, $20 vehicle tax (valid 1 month), $5 road tax (charged per entry) and $110 3rd Party insurance. Total : £235. That BEFORE you even stepped foot or tyre into the country.

By 11:35 we’re through and on our way.

We’re treated to even more fantastic asphalt winding through hills of green, great big valleys and ravines and mountain ranges. On the two-way radios we all kind of agree that so far, the £235 was worth it :) We climb up mountain passes, passing villages and farms along the way. I comment that if you transported me to this spot blindfolded and I woke up in the middle of this, I could swear I was on my way back from Hermanus, or I’m somewhere in the Durbanville hills. Very familiar features and developed houses and farms. At some stage, we reach 2350m above sea level. Annelie’s cleanex gel literal spills itself when you open it because of the pressure. We finally descend to about 1100m into Mbeya for a pit stop. There is a Barclays Sales office here, so I try and score some dollars out of my account, but no luck. I have to carry on 7 km’s to another town and go into a branch. We go to the bathroom. We skip the bathroom. Way way too nasty, which belies the petrol stations advanced looking building. They don’t have toilets here, more like porcelain long drops.

Get back to the vehicle and we are informed that we need to find a hospital, since Mattie isn’t feeling well. I get an address form the Barclays sales team and we head out. We find the Mbeya Referral hospital a a few clicks into town. Mattie and Dirk go in and chat to the doctor, while we have a look at the GPS units for a place to camp tonight. It’s already 13:50. We find a few spots and I check on my electronic Loneley Planet guides if they’re any good (pHs: DAMN I’m good). We settle on two options and head out, 2 vehicles stay at hospital. We arrive at the first, the Karibiyui Centre. Seems nice, but the other one is also close. We go check out the Greenway Hotel and campsite and settle on this one, since they have a REAL toilet (just one, mind). Costs us $3 per person and $2 per vehicle. We radio the coordinates to the rest of the group and start setting up camp. The kitchen is in the middle of the driveway, practically.

Mattie and co returns, and he has Malaria. So he’s feeling pretty kak, flu symptoms, joint and muscle ache etc. Blood tests we’re positive so the doctors gave him and Johan some pills (pretty good ones, form from the looks of it.) We make him comfortable and get cooking, hang out our washing and chow. Hot water for the shower was a big dream, the tanks didn’t produce any to speak of, and what we got in the end wads red and brown. So your gonna be even dirtier once your done. So, no shower today.

Ants EVERYWHERE! The sugarcane I bought was ok, but not succulent at all. I break it into 8 pieces and chuck it a few meters from each tent, in a bid to lure ants to it and not out tents. We’ll see how that works out.

Greenway is next to a Mosque, unfortunately, so prayer calls started at 17:00, then again at 17:30 and 18:15. And again, at 19:30. When I say next to Mosque, I mean he Minaret and speaker is literally pointing into the area we’re camping in. So it’s LOUD. Manager promised it would only be at 19:00 and 05:00 in the morning, for 3 minutes each. So far, she’s been proven incorrect. Tucking in, 20:35. Looking forward to my 05:00 wake up call.

[G & A], out

“Does this look infected to you?”

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