Little bit of Tanzanian corruption messes with our plans!

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Today we had to get up at 4.00am as the plan was to drive for around 14 hours which would mean we would be able to skip out a day which had just been set aside for travelling, giving us an extra day in Zanzibar. Everyone got into the truck and fell asleep pretty quickly. The drive wasn’t too bumpy but it definitely wasn’t comfortable. We stopped along the way a couple of times for bush toilet breaks, basically heading out into the bushes and squatting!

Everything was going accordingly until we were stopped by the Tanzanian authorities, pretty much they seen tourists and decided to try to blackmail us. They claimed that our driver and cook should have special permits to be able to work as they drove through Tanzania, our guide stated this had never been required before but they wanted $200. We seen other tourists being stopped and if they didn’t have their passport on them and they were having to pay fines (bribes). Our guide refused to pay so we had to wait for two hours on the side of the road whilst she made calls to some officials. Our cook took the initiative to set up camp and we all started preparing lunch and sat on our stools eating whilst our guide sorted everything out. She came back to say that she managed to get in touch with a government official who told the officers to let us go, they obviously had to. We took some joy out of waving to the officials as we drove past.

Unfortunately it meant we were now running very late, we got to a town 100km from Dar es Salaam for a toilet break and our guide decided we would just stay there that night, getting up early in the morning to head to Dar Es Salaam for the boat that day meaning we would still be a day ahead of the itinerary. We stayed in a “hotel” that night, basic but nice to be in a bed and have an ensuite, even if it meant a squat toilet and a cold shower. Everyone went to bed quite early as we were all shattered from the time on the truck plus we had to get up early the next morning to try to make the boat.

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