Day 64 – Mr Credit has gone on safari you will have to deal with Mr Cash

Nungwi to Dar Es Salaam - Econolodge

We headed off for the hour or so taxi drive back to the ferry at Stone Town. A strange thing happens in Africa that whoever you make an arrangement with (such as taxi drivers), they are not the people you end up going with. One theory we have read is that everyone hands the job to someone else and takes a cut, so if you can manage it in Africa you always get someone else to do your job. This taxi was on its last legs, any speed would mean the wheels wobbled violently, the suspension felt you were on a rocking boat and interestingly the A/C had “broken on the way to picking us up”.

We arrived at the ferry line with an hour to spare to find we had been misled about our “open” return ticket. We were not eligible to get on the 12:30 ferry as our ticket said 3:30pm – a 3 hour wait for the next one – unless all tickets hadn’t been sold! After standing in the blazing sun watching everyone else board for an hour, they let us on as the last passengers. Another lesson learnt – never, ever believe what you are told by someone trying to sell you something!

Arriving at Dar armed with lots of stories of robberies and illegal taxis we had done our homework enough to ignore everyone until we found a white taxi with green stripe and white number plates to take us to our hotel - though the crowd of touts around the ferry terminal was one of the worst we've seen. 

When we arrived at our hotel it had some interesting signs, including today's blog heading. Our favourite was “Anybody with immoral turpitude are not allowed in the hotel premises” – but why did they still let us in? As it turns out we’re not the only ones intrigued by this sign – google for “immoral turpitude” and you’ll see what I mean!