We don't do packing

Ally and I have managed to pick up some really nice African art & Americans along the way. Mostly we have been bartering things we really don't need, or think we don't need. Among the list of things we have traded are a cordless drill, electric razor, guide books, swiss army knife, flasks, compass... the list goes on. These are things we find are taking up space and we are unlikely to use. Its been part of our plan to get the Kaspuur lighter.

So, now we have just traded weight for weight we decide to ship our African art back to Cape Town to save space. Dar es Salaam seems like the logical city to ship this stuff from. As it turns out Dar is not logical at all.

Firstly, as it turns out Dar is our most manic city yet. We set out to find the post office. We take one look and decide that no mail has ever been sent or received from this place(this is a little unfair, I'm sure it works well but it didn't leave us feeling confident our package would arrive safely).

So onto the courier companies. UPS seems to have the best rate so we used them. By the time we arrive we had been driving around Dar for two hours. Its 38 Degrees. The roads are lawless and parking is 300 Shillings an hour (about the cost of a coke).

UPS don't do packing material. In fact nobody does packing material. In all our searching we found one guy who made a box out of sheets of cardboard and used very expensive bubble wrap (imported from South Africa). This small operator drives to the courier companies and sets up shop on the sidewalk. Its an hour wait for him to arrive and an hour process for him to make the box and wrap everything. Ally is supervising. I'm circling the block, refusing to pay parking on principle (you park anywhere, like on a sewage drain, and then some guy arrives from nowhere and asks for money). I lost 3kg's in body sweat.

Ally is almost done supervising, when the box price suddenly doubles. Our courier cost also goes up because the make shift box adds 5kg's onto our weight. All this time the temperature is still rising. A compromise was agreed whereby UPS gave us a discount to cover the additional packing costs. This avoided certain bloodshed. It only took a full day, tears, sweat and a little bit of your soul but our goods are now safely en route to SA.