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Published: January 23rd 2020
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We are finally on our way, but only by the skin of our teeth, let me run you through the full joy of African bureaucracy...
We met with Rogers (our man at the port) at 0900 and quickly headed down to the customs clearing house, happy in the knowledge our container had been moved out of the port (behind a barbed wire fence we could not get in) and to a bonded warehouse with a company that holds and unloads our container and then when all (and i do mean all) paperwork has been completed they release the car.
So we headed to the office with Roger confident in the car getting out before lunch. However, there was a problem...
...to open the container you need to request permission from customs to open the container (known as stripping). They then need to read this and stamp it and transport it by hand from the opposite side of Mombasa to the office where we were. So that meant we had to wait 2 hours for a man to come with the printed letter that had been stamped. However, there was a problem...
...while we waited we learned we needed a permit to have a car in Kenya. We had read and checked on government websites you only needed one if you were in the country for more than 14 days, but apparently even if you don't need one you still have to have one and we visited several offices to confirm this. In reality i don't think anybody knowed or cared so they said we had to have it. So then Alain applied for this permit online. However, there was a problem...
...back at the office we now had the letter to approve the stripping (i.e. the opening!) of the container. So they then went out to the yard and spent half an hour doing a version of musical chairs to move about 6 containers to reach ours and put it in our reach. However, there was a problem...
...no container can be opened without a customs official present so we had to wait for him to come and stand pompous and important while the security seal was broken with a massive pair of bolt cutters. There was our car all safe and well
and finally we felt like we were getting somewhere. However, there was a problem...
...the customs man wanted to know what was in the car so we opened it and showed him. We said we had already shared a full inventory of the car but he said they didn't have it. He simply said "why don't we say it is all food" and so we said "sure" and he left happy. However, there was a problem....
...in order to get the car out we had to pay all the handling fees and to do that we needed an invoice. So we went back to the office but it being 1230 they had closed for lunch until 1400. So we waited and had some lunch and Alain learned that the form he had applied for online was in review and despite many calls to various agencies it didn't seem possible to get it approved. We resided to the fact we would just have to pay a "faciliation charge" to sooth the issue and headed back to the office to pay the invoice and get the car. However, there was a problem...
...it may seem beyond madness but the invoice can ONLY be paid by a cashiers cheque. You cannot use cash and you cannot do an online transfer, so Rogers sent a man to go to the bank to get that for us but it took him 2 hours and i think it would be fair to say Rogers released that Nick and Alain had just about enough of all this. Eventually the cheque came and we processed the invoice and got what is know as a gate pass to give to the people at the exit to take our car. However, there was a problem...
...the gate pass must be approved by some random Customs lady., She had locked up her office as it was 1700 and headed home, thankfully we managed to intercept her in a car. However she was clearly not going to let this permit which was "under review" pass. She insisted we staple no less than $41 to a piece of paper for her to "keep" in lieu of the form. This we duly did and breathed a sign. However, there was a problem.
...we are not allowed to drive within the yard. So a man called Ahmed who i swear has never driven a car before grinded, scraped and juddered the car approximately 50m to the gate which he then nearly hit before i pulled on the hand brake to stop him.
Now clear we got in the car at 1745 local time, with the sun due to set in 1 hour. Alain and Nick made it clear that no matter what we were getting out of the less than admirable place called Mombasa and hit the road. Only to join a massive traffic jam as the president was in town for the day.
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