Sunset on Zanzibar
Erin
We rocked up in the relatively dumpy Dar Es Salaam airport in February of 2014 not knowing what to expect. We’d done some research into the area, and I will admit that it was more Pete’s choice than mine. I’d been to Canada over Christmas and so within the span of a month or so I was going from -40 to something obscene like +40 celsius. I joked while in Canada that I’d need Tanzania to thaw out. And thaw out I did indeed.
We planned to do two main things in Tanzania: Safari and Beaches. I’d suggested Zanzibar for their awesome white beaches and stretches of incredible coastline and turquoise waters. We had planned to head straight there after getting through immigration, but first, we had to do just that.
We were handed forms on our arrival for the procurement of our visas, something which was mostly standard everywhere you go. It cost $50 USD for an on arrival Tanzanian visa, steep, but on par for the course with most other African countries. Hell, even in Laos it’s $45 for Canadians, and if you wanna see a country, you’re going to pony up the cash.
We finished our forms and went to the queue-that-wasn’t-actually-a-queue. I waited for someone to stop me and demand to see my yellow fever vaccine certificate, something I don’t actually possess. Here’s where I’ll let you in on a little secret, friends. You don’t need yellow fever unless it’s actually a yellow fever country or you’re coming from a yellow fever country. Tanzania is neither, so you don’t need it. We had heard tell of them demanding at the border that you need it or you would have to pay to be vaccinated right there on the border, and definitely no thanks to that.
As it turned out, no one stopped us and asked and we proceeded to the “queue” easily. Well, until we were stopped by a giant black guy who was about 7 feet tall in a military outfit of types asking us why we were in Tanzania.
“Why you come Tanzania?”
“Uh… for our honeymoon?”
He laughed then, this deep, belly laugh and replied “You make baby Tanzania!”
We laughed too and agreed. Hell, we would have agreed to anything at this point to get past the scary seven foot tall African dude. Except he told us then “Give me passport and money.”
We handed over the cash and our passports without thinking, and then watched as he literally walked away. We started to panic. Had we just been robbed by some dude posing as immigration? There were enough people around that it surely couldn’t be the case, but you never know. He just disappeared, so we stayed where we were until someone pointed us to a little corral type thing and told us to go there.
We eventually saw giant guy again, wandering around, doing the same to other people. Turns out he’s kind of an immigration visa runner, he takes the cash and your passports and forms up to the ladies who do the visas in these little window boxes. The whole setup was bizarre and the building and walls left much to be desired to our sensitive western brains. We had truly come to somewhere that was wild and wonderful, and we stood in the line that wasn’t exactly a line until our names were called.
The woman called me first, and I went up for my fingerprinting. I had done this time and again for British immigration, so I knew how to do it and do it well as well as quickly. The woman seemed pleased with my fingerprinting performance and was quite polite to me. Everyone else though she seemed to yell at about their fingers. Even Pete got kind of yelled at about his fingers. Luckily though his passport and visa was ready fairly quickly after mine and off we went through the proper immigration channel and onward to catch our flight to the gorgeous island of Zanzibar!
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