-Rudyard Kipling-
Today was D-day for my Guinea visa. The hope was to get it issued in one day,
getting into Abidjan first thing in the morning and then coming back in the
afternoon for collection. Visas have a
life and rules of their own and most times, 94% of the time they are not as
scary as their web sites make out, but then you have Consulates like China,
Brazil and Russia where you have to have everything to the letter and they are
not the most easiest to deal with and not knowing how the Guinea Consulate
works we were really heading in there blindly and hoping for the best. Abidjan is the economic and former official
capital of Ivory Coast, while the current capital is Yamoussoukro.
As of 2011 it was the largest city in the nation and the
third-largest French-speaking city in the world, after
Paris and Kinshasa,
but before Montreal.
It has, according to the authorities of the country in 2006, 5,068,858
residents in the metropolitan area. Only Lagos, the former capital
of Nigeria,
has a larger number of inhabitants in this region. Considered a cultural hub
of West Africa,
Abidjan is characterized by a high level of industrialization and urbanization.
The city stands in Ébrié Lagoon,
on several converging peninsulas and islands, connected by bridges. The city grew after the construction of a
new wharf in
1931 and its designation as the capital of the then French colony in 1933. The
completion of the Vridi Canal in 1951
enabled it to become an important sea port.
In 1983, Yamoussoukro was designated as the nation's capital, but most
government offices and foreign embassies are
still in Abidjan.
The worst case scenario was that I would have to wait
until Monday to collect my passport, the group would head out as planned on the
Saturday and I would have to catch them up myself, which totally wasn’t a plan
I was enthused with, especially now that we were now back into a French
speaking country where I know like 3 words of French and certainly not enough
to navigate my way on a public bus for 2 days.
AND if that was an eventuation then Dragoman would feel the wrath of
Bernie, as the trip notes and itinerary all said we could obtain this visa
enroute and if it was going to cost me a crap load more money and separation
from the group I was not going to be a happy camper. In truth if I had of known I was going to be
the only one, or that it was going to be this close of getting the Guinea visa
I could and would have done it in London in May when I was there. It does look bad out of the 5 people that I
am the only one, but they got it out of precaution rather than reading the
notes differently from me, just in my defence of course.
The power was still off from the previous night, which
was fine as I was wearing my head torch in my room, and as there was no cold
water, there was plenty of scolding hot water (go figure) so I had a wonderfully
scorching shower and was downstairs for breakfast at 7am. Zoe was already there and after we ate, I had
mentioned to Zoe that I had my laptop in my bag, so if we had time to kill I
could get some more blogging done-there wasn’t too much that I wanted to see in
Abidjan itself, like any major city it was a mass of buildings and traffic and
besides a Cathedral there wasn’t a lot to see anyway. So Zoe and I decided to make it a ‘nerdy’ day
and once we had dropped off my passport (all going well) then we would find a
bar or a café and chillax until we had to be back at the consulate. Well it was all good in theory. We were picked up at 7.40am by Ben’s driver
he uses for errands into Abidjan and his brother too, so in total there were
the 4 of us and of course we were sitting in an older model Mercedes!!! We were just missing the champagne for the
complete experience but though better of it rocking up to the consulate with
alcohol on our breath at 9am in the morning.
I did have a mad thought on the way that what about if they were closed
on Fridays? The Benin Consulate in
Nairobi is only open 3 days a week and both Zoe and I hadn’t thought of that
and we were just praying that was not going to be the case.
We never actually go the names of the brothers so Zoe and
I started calling them Cheech and Chong as they fought like brothers and then a
few seconds later would be laughing again as brothers. It was all in French of course as neither of
them spoke English, so I got all the bits and pieces from Zoe’s
translations. Sometimes you can get a
jist of what is being said and other times you just laugh if everyone else is
even though you don’t know what the joke is and I think the saying is true that
laughing is contagious. So we drove like
crazy cats leaving Grand Bassam, overtaking and hitting 100km at times as
Cheech seemed to be a little bit of a lead foot and an aggressive driver, which
I don’t mind and understand after being in Nairobi traffic for 9 months, but
Cheech was hilarious, beeping and hooting people with some hand waves out the
window as required, to anyone and said a few choice words to some of the van
drivers. No one was exempt from Cheech’s
driving, even though he too would push in and do some dodgy moves. Zoe and I just held on for the ride and
watched people’s faces when they saw us sitting in the back with 2 locals in
the front. 45 minutes in we hit the city
limits of Abidjan and the traffic. We
headed to a part of the city called Plateau 1, which is a part of the city
where the shopping district is, hotel and offices. Le Plateau is the business center of
Abidjan with its gleaming skyscrapers, chic boutiques and outdoor cafes, le
Plateau is a favorite place of business travelers. There are many different
banks also located in the le Plateau district. After driving around the city for the next 20
minutes asking all the parking attendants that seem to man the street parking
if they knew where the Guinea Consulate was, all we got were shakes of the
head. We didn’t think it would have been
this hard to find and time was now starting to tick. We figured we had at least till 10am, as most
consulates won’t open till then most times, so we weren’t panicking just
yet. We decided to park the car and head
around on foot to find the allusive consulate, when we stopped to ask more
attendants and a business man passing heard us asking and stopped and pulled
out his phone and made a call. I asked
Zoe who he was phoning and she didn’t know and then he came off the phone and
said that the consulate was in the Plateau 2 section and not Plateau 1. While we were driving and now seeing the
layout of the city, I said to Zoe to ask Cheech how much would it cost to keep
them for the full day rather than trying to root around for taxis and they said
25,000CFA (50AUD) and I think that is worth every penny, so we now had our
drivers for as long as we needed them.
Thank goodness, at least we could head in the right
direction now. So we all huddled back
into the car and a further 45 minutes in city traffic we were driving in the
Plateau 2 section of the city. It wasn’t
as ‘city’ paced here and the buildings and shops looked more suburban. We pulled into a gas station to ask them if
they knew where the consulate was and after a bit of discussion between the 3
workers, we were given directions for just down the block. The second that we turned into the street, it
looked very consulatey and a few hundred meters on we found the Guinea Embassy.
WOO HOO. Never did Zoe and I think we
wouldn’t even find the consulate today but after driving around the city for
the last hour, it was on our minds a little.
But we were here now and the GRAND news was it looked open, so 2 ticks
and surely the day could only get better!!!
There was a security guard on the door and Zoe was about to speak to him
when someone inside called out to us and Zoe asked about obtaining a visa and
he waved us straight into his office at the end of the hall and we knew that
this was the guy that was going to say yes or no to us today.
We were told to take a seat and then Zoe launched into
our predicament and I just heard general words in the conversation and just sat
still and quite praying that the guy was nice.
The first bit of news blew our confidence when he told us that the
consulate was only open half days on Fridays.
Crap, it was now just after 10am-we have gone to hoping it could be done
in a day to hoping he could process it in the next 3 hours. Crap. My stomach sunk, but trust me you have not
seen someone charm people like Zoe can and I was just a spectator today as she
weaved her magic on the poor Guinea Ambassador who really didn’t stand a chance
against her. There was some too-ing and
fro-ing in French and then I was given the application form. This had to be good news. As Zoe helped me fill it in as it was all in
French she was asking if there was a chance for the visa to be ready today and
that we would be happy to pay and extra ‘fee’ to get it done and he said no. He just told me to fill in the form and he
would see how it goes. Crap. We asked about obtaining it on the border and
it was a flat out no, so this was really the only chance. There was more conversation as the Ambassador
checked my form and I paid the fee of 32,000CFA (64AUD) plus 2 photos. There was more talk and the only word I hear
was proposition, so I knew now that we were possibly going to be okay as the
chat moved from my form and onto Zoe being a hot blooded Canadian and would she
consider coming back to the Ivory Coast after her travels. It also helped that she was wearing a very
nice, if not a little revealing of the girls, not too much, but the ‘perk’ was
there and hence their names of Pinky and Perky.
My mum always said that if you got you flaunt it and Pinky and Perky
certainly have got their fair share of attention on the trip so far, and could
be the reason for getting out of some of our traffic stops. Well whatever works and today was no
different.
So with a handshake each and the promise we would come
back at 12.30pm we headed back to the car and Cheech and Chong. When we got into the car they asked us how it
went and did we pay any extra money. Zoe and I were quite proud that we said we
offered and he said no to which the car stopped abruptly and they said that is
what he is supposed to say and that we should have offered/given him something
anyway. Crap. So we decided to turn around and agreed on
the amount of 5000CFA (10AUD) and hope that it was enough, hope that we didn’t offend
him and hope that it would actually help.
So I waited in the car while Zoe ran in and when she came back she said
he already had more people in his office, so she knocked, walked in and said
that we had a gift for him and shook his hand and then said thanks and
left. God that woman has balls, that’s
all I can say. So we have done
everything we could from our end and we would find out in 2 hours if we were
successful. We did have a good feeling
about it and it is another hot blooded male that cannot refuse the temptation
of the girls, a woman and a little flirting.
So we now had 2 hours to kill, so we took off down the
road and found a coffee shop that had a Wi-Fi sign out the front and when we
parked and walked in, it seemed the place where the foreigners hung out. We ordered some drinks and I got cokes for
Cheech and Chong, and Zoe apologized to the guys as we both fired up our
notebooks paid 500CFA (1AUD) for an hours connection and eating an apple pie
Danish. Time flew by and at 12.25pm, we
paid our bill (which I paid for Zoe’s as a thank-you for her time and help and
the boys for them waiting) we headed back to the consulate. When we arrived we were again waved through
and ushered back into the Ambassadors office where there were 2 local ladies
also waiting in his office. Zoe and I
stood behind them and when the Ambassador came back in he had my passport in
his hands and that it all had been processed no worries. Zoe checked it over to make sure it was a
double entry and was valid past the 7th November and with effusive
thanks and more handshakes we left the office with my Guinea visa. The second the Ambassador’s door closed Zoe
and I high fived each other with quiet woops of joy and hell, a hug as
well. Anyone watching would have thought
that we had won the lottery and you know what we kind of had. Who has ever had a visa issued by a consulate
in 2 hours!? Really, and an African one
at that. We had hit the jackpot and it
was such a relief to have that baby now in my passport. There is only one visa left now to get and we
all need that one of Guinea Bissau-so at least I will not be on my own with
that one and can apparently be done with no hassles in Freetown, where we have
3 nights at the end of the trip.
When we got back to the car, Chong was coming back and
Zoe and I had smiles plastered from ear to ear and had just taken a photo of us
with the visa and when he asked how it went we said terrible and that I had to
come back in a week, but he said he has eyes and saw us high fiving and
laughing, so he guessed it went in our favor.
His brother, Cheech then came out and we told him the same story and he
believed us until we all started to smile and told him that we were
joking!!! There was a mosque next door
to the consulate and there were a lot of men all flocking for the midday call
to prayer. Cheech and Chong asked if it
would be okay if they did their prayers at the mosque before we set off for
home, and after they had waited for us for most of the morning, we were more
than happy to wait for them. So we sat
in the car chatting when Mr. Ambassador came out for a smoke and saw us in the
car. So Zoe got back out and schmoozed
the guy a little more, met 2 of his sons and with another thank-you he headed
back inside.
We were back on the road at 1.15pm to Grand Bassam and
again with traffic it took us 1.5 hours to get home and I still stand by the
cost paid for Cheech and Chong’s services for the day. After tricking all the guys that I didn’t get
my visa when we got back, Zoe and I spent the rest of the afternoon chatting
and celebrating with a few beers, as they were well deserved and there is no
way I could have done all that without Zoe.
Everyone looked relieved that I now had the visa and so was I!!!
Dinner was at a restaurant at one of the resorts just
down the road from us, just to change it up a little. The mozzies seemed to be out in force here
and they were even biting me through my clothes just as my previous sections
bites were starting to heal up. I am now
lathering myself up in bug spray, and luckily Bean left 2 bottles of the stuff
and I am now continually applying the stuff before dinner and also before
breakfast as we have been getting up early most mornings, especially my feet. The power was off again at our place, so the
joys of internet, lights and charging facilities was lost again for the second
night. But the water was now on, so I
had a wonderfully, tepid shower, washed my hair and then sat down to punch out
a blog as I was starting to get a little further behind and I was starting to
feel a little anxious when I get too many days behind. All in all it was a very successful day. I got my visa, Sam was feeling better and
everyone was happy and on an overlanding trip this is always good news and we
are all getting along just dandy.
.
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