We like to believe of ourselves as backpacking “vets”. We’re not rookies, we’ve been travelling a long time, we understand the methods of the world as well as we understand what to do as well as what not to do, right?
Wrong.
We had this humbling experience while trying to cross by land from Malawi to Tanzania.
It was meant to be about a 4-5 hour travel day, however of course, whatever took longer than expected!
We had been travelling all day, from 10:00am to 7:00pm, with lots of dirty towns, changing transportation a lot more times than we’d like to count. two of the automobiles we were in actually ran out of gas as well as we had to walk up until we discovered one more type of transportation – being in Malawi during the fuel shortage was not ideal.
The transportation in Malawi left something to be desired! regularly broke down as well as ran out of gas
We shown up at the border, exhausted, sweating, starving as well as absolutely fed up with the travel days we’d been having lately. We were going to modification our Malawi Kwacha for Tanzanian Shillings at the exchange booth however figured we might get a much better rate on the black market.
Back when I was happily having a beer at Cape Maclear in Malawi
As soon as we shown up in Tanzania, the money peddlers might odor us coming.
We were swarmed by about 10 people all stating “I’ll provide you a great offer man” “Change money, you have USD?”. We stated no. They dispersed. then one person came back as well as we figured…how poor might it be taking care of just one guy?
We counted out our money, Nick had his calculator out, we agreed on a rate (one that was truly good) as well as prepared to do the swap.
When we handed over the money, we were swarmed once again by all kind of people using motorbike rides, food, money exchange, locations to sleep, etc. generally they were just there to be a distraction as well as mess with our minds.
Distracting us by trying to offer us stuff was a excellent method to mess with our minds
The guy we had provided our money to stated we didn’t pay him sufficient as well as the offer was off.
We were both 100% sure that the person didn’t provide us the ideal amount of money we were expecting either. So, we both swapped our money back as well as just like that, everybody was gone.
What was left was me as well as Nick standing there as if we’d just been hit by a tornado.
What just happened?!
We counted the money as well as realized that we were short about the equivalent of $40.
The people had such an incredible sleight of hand that he was able to fold our money up as well as pocket a few of it ideal in front of us! They were best at distracting us as well as basically, we just got duped! We just stood there absolutely in awe of what had just happened.
We understand much better than that! What were we thinking?
This was most likely the most dreadful entrance into a country that we’ve ever made. In the end, we’re happy it was just $40…but when you’re backpacking, $40 is a great deal of money. It might have been worse though, they might have robbed or hurt us.
We had altered money on the black market before as well as it had worked out in our favour, however not this time! note to self as well as other readers, if something seems shady or as well great to be true, then it’s most likely finest to walk away.
Have you ever been scammed while traveling? show us below!
THE DAY WHEN…
TANZANIA travel BLOGS
MALAWI travel BLOGS
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