Serengeti Blues, or the story of a big Matatisu.

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It is ten at night in our golden prison, Serengeti National Park. And we are bored. Not sure which of us proposed it first, but let’s say it was Pablo. ”Night safari? Sure!”

The Safari Team didn’t get along in the beginning, for reasons that will become obvious soon. But adversity can get both the worst and the best out of people, and we came together nicely.

Tomas and Pablo started the trip in their native Cordoba, Argentina, and were crossing Africa from South to North, to later take on South East Asia and Australia. Ana Laura and Damien came from France for their Tanzanian holiday, while Christian is an Austrian professor that doesn’t like to be called Bwana (Mister), and certainly not Baba (grandpa)

Different paths in life, but a single common objective: get back at Clements.

The Argentineans, the French, yours truly, and our new friend, the crazy Dutch, left the camp on foot. I carried a headlamp. Pablo a big stick ‘to keep animals away’, looking more like Moses leading Israel out of Egypt. The Dutch guy always with his right hand ready to take out his 15 cm. Maasai knife, ironically, our best chance against Serengeti predators.

We had been walking for a while. Damien asks me: ‘Do you know the way back?’. ‘I’m not sure. At this point I prefer to follow the guys with the ‘weapons’, hehe…’

We come to an abrupt stop. Ahead of us, 80 to 100 meters away, we could clearly see six pairs of eyes looking directly at us, while slowly walking side to side…

My first reaction was to run back to the camp. The Dutch guy stops me. ‘No, they would chase us’. By then, we all had realized how bad the idea of the night safari was. Slowly, we returned over our own steps back to the camp. The hyenas slowly followed us for a while, then they just stopped and kept looking at us…

Stupid as it was, the night walk was one of the most exhilarating parts of our quite eventful safari.

After spending a lot of money to climb Kilimanjaro, I was seriously looking for a cheap safari alternative. Another blogger on travelblog suggested the agency inside Arusha Backpackers, so I went there first. The receptionist calls Juma, the guy from the agency dealing with safaris. We agree to meet that night. Juma gave me the details, and we signed a contract. ‘Excellent Safaris Ltd.’ Said on top. I thought it was a branch of Kindoroko, the agency inside Arusha Backpackers, or that the agency sub-contracted safaris.

Turns out that Juma, who works for Kindoroko, signed me up with another company, which offered him a higher commission. I had no idea of this by now.

It was very early in the morning that I met Clements, the ‘owner’ of the agency, and my first two safari buddies, Pablo and Tomas. Later, I would find out that Tomas and Pablo were victims of the typical scam in Arusha, with Clements ‘picking them up’ at the bus station. They trusted Clements because he said he was the owner of a guesthouse, Minja, and of the travel agency inside it (and of seven taxis, and of half of Arusha). Minja and its travel agency are even recommended on Lonely Planet.

Read our story, and be sure this does not happen to you.

Clements takes us, the three latinos, to the meeting point with the rest of the group, which started their safari two days before. As soon as we arrive, the French and the Austrian start to yell at Clements. The car broke down the day before, and half a day was lost. Plus, they paid thinking there would only be them, and now six people, plus driver and cook, must seat in the no-suspension/ fake 4x4 van.

We started with the left foot, they complaining, and us just wanting to start the safari. Not a lot of chatting on day one.

Serengeti awaited us. At the gate, the people of the park tell us that there is no money deposited on the money-card used to enter the park. The driver negotiates (in Swahili) and they let us in, but with a warning we were not told about until later: ‘They let us in, but tomorrow, by the time we leave, the money had to be deposited, or they won’t let us out’

Clements didn’t answer the phone. He would not answer ever again.

When we found out that the money was not deposited, we told Jonas, the driver, to stop the safari and look for Serengeti police…he took us to chase lions instead, and every time we found somebody, he always did the talk, in Swahili. I only understood one word of the whole thing. Matatisu, matatisu all the time. Big problem, that’s what it means.

Later, we found out that Jonas was telling ‘his version’ of the story. Clements rented the car from Jonas’ brother. The car did not have proper registration. He did not have a driver’s license. He knew he’d be in bi matatisu if we went to the police.

We stop at the tourist center, for drinks, or that’s what we told Jonas. Came down and we went to see the park manager, who explained the matatisu we were into. We asked to be taken to Arusha to deal with this. They demanded the park fees, including an extra day. No way. ‘Our money is in Arusha’ we said.

Things started to get ugly. We demanded to be able to leave the park. They prohibited Jonas to drive anywhere. We were stuck. I reached the Park Commissioner over the phone. He hung up on me. ‘I’ll call you later. I’m on a plane’.

I tell one of the park employees, Paulo, smiling: ‘Tell me, what do I need to do to get the police here? Should I break this window? Should I break your teeth?’

Paulo was nervous also, he was only following orders. And no one wanted to make a decision.

By now we have no more food. Dinner was tea and a couple of slices of bread. Breakfast was tea, and a few pineapple slices, courtesy of a lovely family from Bologna we met at the camp.

We try to reason again, after threatening to with calling our embassy. We got an agreement. The park will take us back to Arusha for… $300!!! We cannot pay. We agree to charge everything on Clements and not denouncing the park for keeping us hostage. Fair enough.

Back to Arusha, after two flat tires in the middle of nowhere, we went straight to the police station. Juma, the middleman who got me into this ordeal, reached me through the cook’s mobile, and swore he would give me my money back, ‘but please don’t tell the police about me’.

I told the story to the Arusha police, without mentioning Juma’s name, and blaming everything on Clements.

9pm. Juma and I meet at Arusha backpackers. He puts $150 on the table. I had paid $600 total. I explode. He starts crying and puts another $100. ‘My wife lend me this money, it’s all I have’. I’m about to give up, but decided to push a little further. ‘If you don’t give me at least $200 more by 9am tomorrow, you go to jail and lose your job. The Serengeti police that came to us from the Park enters the room and asks me about his room, which we are paying. He leaves the room. Juma ‘finds’ $200 in his pants’ pocket.

‘So, you didn’t have more, eh?’ After midnight, when I returned from the police station with Damien, Juma was still at Arusha Backpackers, getting drunk as hell.

Christian, the Austrian, got part of his money back the same way. For the French and the Argentineans, who made business directly with Clements, things were more complicated. On top of that, they left their luggage at Minja’s Gusthouse. Not sure if they ever recovered it.

Epilogue. I’m in Zanzibar now, and Christian sent me an email from Arusha. Clements, who had been arrested two months ago for doing the same and was out of jail on a bail, had escaped to Kenya. The police arrested Juma, and also Christian’s middleman anyway. The Argentineans lost $800 bucks, they decided to continue travel to Kenya and Ethiopia, since they had to take a flight in Addis in a few days. The French couple, who lost $1,500, were still trying to find Clements.

Tanzania is a wonderful place, with great people. But beware of these guys. They are getting more sophisticated as time passes. If you are headed to Arusha, be willing to pay a little more for a guaranteed agency, so you can really say, Hakuna Matata.

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Photos

Todos estos ninos querian pipi!!
Pipi significa chicle en Swahili...