After being dropped off at the Mozambican border, Stefan took some pictures of the road leading to the border. This turned out to be a punishable offense and a power-tripping border-officer promptly locked him in a confined room despite Meret's pleas in Portuguese. Fortunately, his plain-clothes wearing superior didn't think that it was such a big deal; he merely asked him to delete the photos and all order was restored.
We then took another pick-up truck ride to the Ruvuma river, which also serves as the geographical and political division between Mozambique and Tanzania. This may be one of the few border-crossings in the world that you can only traverse by boat.
Like all other modes of transport, they crammed way too many people onto this tiny boat and it easily could have sunk at any moment. At the same time we had been royally swindled into paying 4 times what the locals paid. By this point we were all at our wits-end after the difficult journey and were fed up of being taken advantage of, so we all started yelling and swearing at the guys running the boat. I even pleaded with a woman on the boat to tell us how much she had paid, but she couldn't look me in the eyes.
Not only did we pay over 20 dollars for a five-minute boat ride, but midway through, we approached another boat and for some reason that still evades me; everyone and their luggage was changed from one boat to the other. After some more bitching and arguments regarding their Mzungu pricing, we finally got out of Mozambique. Freedom at last!
Not so fast.
We then piled into the back of yet another pick-up truck, known in Tanzania as a daladala, probably Swahili for purgatory-on-wheels because it is not particularly great, but not as terrible as the infamous Mozambican chapas.
After a short distance we arrived in Mtwara: the first semi-major city in Tanzania. It was incredibly laid-back, had electricity, running water and nothing touristy to do whatsoever. Perfect, finally some well-deserved rest.
We stayed at a terrific guest-house that had a shower, A/C and all the Al Jazeera you could watch.
Our days were primarily spent eating chipsi mayai (french fry omelets) and drinking Kilimanjaro beer and Konyagi: a gin-like drink that is known as "the spirit of the nation". Chris' 25th birthday celebration involved plenty of it, which obviously led to dance battles, club hopping, playing bongos with a band that didn't want me around, driving Toc Tocs (like motorized Rickshaws) and drinking boxed-wine in cars with locals.
Who said Mtwara wasn't fun?
After a day of recuperation following Chris' birthday bash, we took a bus to Dar es Salaam. We stayed in the Arab quarter and enjoyed some delicious food which consequently gave us the runs. Stephan had decided he was going to stay in Dar a few more days then make his way back to Arusha. As for Meret, she was going to meet her friend in central Tanzania.
We therefore had to part ways with our Germanic travel buddies who had helped us so much and had endured all the same punishment that we had. Chris and I knew the only way to get over their parting would be to venture to the infamous island of Zanzibar and party away our sorrows.
No comments:
Post a Comment