Viven : How we crossed from Ghana to the Ivory Coast

Dear Viven,

Our visa application stop in the desolate city of Conakry turned out to be serendipitous: it was there we felt (at the time) ripped off for only being able to apply for the more expensive 90-day multiple-entry Ivory Coast visas being issued.  In the end, because of a visa issue with the DR Congo, followed by a car accident, our original route changed.  This meant not only a longer stay in the Ivory Coast, but a need to enter a second time.  Because of this fortuitous rip-off, our crossing from Ghana to the Ivory Coast instead formed the last stage of a circular route we took from Abidjan, through Burkina Faso to Benin, and returning via Togo and Ghana.  By being able to return, we were able to make this two-week circuit with only a couple backpacks, while keeping our mass of belongings in a hotel storage room in Grand Bassam.

A long-haul bus to Abidjan that we caught in Lomé took us across from Togo to Ghana prior to crossing from Ghana to the Ivory Coast.  Our crossing previous to the bus was by taxi from Benin to Togo.

We are one British and one Canadian.  This letter is accurate as of the day we reentered the Ivory Coast, on Sunday 11 August 2013.

Visas

Our 90-day multiple-entry Ivory Coast visas, acquired in Conakry, Guinea, were still valid for this second crossing into the country.  For how we originally acquired them, see my previous letter, How we crossed from Liberia to the Ivory Coast.

Language

French is the official language of the Ivory Coast and it is widespread, moreso than most other countries in West Africa, where tribal languages are still commonly heard.

Money

The Ivory Coast uses the West African franc (CFA).

The Route

We took the STIF bus from the station by the beach in Lomé, Togo (where we were dropped off by a shared taxi from the Benin border), direct to Abidjan.  The bus called at Accra, Ghana, around 1am, was stopped at the Ivory Coast border between 8:15am and 12:30pm, and dropped us off on the highway in Grand Bassam at 3pm, which implies it would have arrived in Abidjan between 3:30 and 4.

Our Means of Travel

This section is repeated in my previous letter, How we crossed from Togo to Ghana, from 16 August.

Though we planned to spend a night in Lomé before rushing back to the Ivory Coast, we found out the schedule of the direct buses to Abidjan on the afternoon of our arrival and decided to get tickets for the 24-hour journey.

STIF buses from Lomé go to other cities on the Abidjan-Lagos corridor, and there was a list of prices behind the desk at the station.  They were as follows:

Lomé to Abidjan: CFA 24,000

Lomé to Noe (the border with the Ivory Coast): CFA 17,000

Lomé to Accra: CFA 6,000

Lomé to Cotonou: CFA 5,000

We arrived at the STIF bus station at 2pm (after a one-hour back time change from Benin) were told to be there at 3 for the bus, which was to leave at 4.  There was no bus in the courtyard until 6:15, at which time other passengers rushed on to claim their seats (we weren’t as quick).  The bus departed at 6:45. 

After only ten minutes of driving the bus arrived at the Ghanaian border, and was off again by 7:30.  The bus crossed Ghana through the night, passed through the arduous, heavily delayed Ivory Coast border in the morning, and arrived in Abidjan in the afternoon.  Total travel time (from arrival at Lomé station) was 25 hours; total time on the bus: 16 hours; total waiting around and border shuffling time: 9 hours.

The sheer inefficiency and timesink of the STIF bus should give some impression of the journey, but let me make it a little clearer.  The average-sized bus, raised to store baggage underneath, had five seats per row (two on the right side of the aisle, three on the left) and for our trip it was mostly packed.  The awful sounds of the wheels on all right turns would have been horrifying had it not been for the relatively straight roads all the way to Abidjan; but there was little further consolation in that none of the doors could close without a wire or rope holding it in.  Toilet breaks were limited to just two ten-minute stops along open stretches of road.  Meanwhile the seats were very small, both in width and length (I am of average height, which means below average in much of Africa, but could not create more than one and a half fingerlengths of distance between my knees and the seat in front of me by sitting back) and there was a screw which stuck out from the wall that I had to avoid being cut by.  How fruitless is it to mention, that it was hard to sleep?

The Border

This was the longest border crossing of our trip, but certainly not the hardest or most painful.  The duration was presumably the result of the border officials having not only to inspect the passport or identity card of each passenger on the 60-seat bus, but also (as usual in bureaucracy-loving francophone Africa) copy outinto a logbook the details of each passenger on the 60-seat bus.

At 7am on the day of crossing the bus conductor walked up and down the aisle to collect vaccination certificates for both Yellow Fever and Meningitis, plus CFA 500 each for processing.  Because we were to be processed separate from the other passengers, the rest of whom were all ECOWAS citizens, the conductor did not collect our certificates or the CFA 500.  He did, however, warn Al that she would have to explain herself to the border officials, as she did not carry proof of a Meningitis vaccine, and only held a photocopy of her Yellow Fever certificate.

We arrived at the border at 8:15am, and Al and I got off the bus in advance of the others.  The Ghanaian officials sat behind windows in an air-conditioned room, with computers and cameras.  As upon entry into Ghana, we filled out the same simple one-page form, had our headshot photos taken digitally and our visas checked over, and then received an exit-stamp.  To fill the forms we required a pen, and had forgotten ours on the bus.  It sounds ridiculous in this little nucleus of African bureaucracy, but nobody would lend us a pen.  It took a couple minutes before a friendly police officer gave us his – and he made sure to hound us for it back.  We were clear of Ghana by 8:30.

At 8:45 we were taken into the office complex of the Ivory Coast border officials and gendarmes.  We had our details entered by hand into a logbook at one end, then we returned to the front to get checked out and stamped in for entry, and then by 8:55 we returned to the bus, still between the Ghana and Ivory Coast sides.

All the passengers waited by the bus until 9:30, when Douane officials inspected the luggage both onboard and stowed beneath.  A crowd gathered to watch the procedure.

At 9:45 we were all escorted through the Ivory Coast border, with the first barrier to check for Yellow Fever and Meningitis vaccination certificates.  Al explained that her original certification for both was at the hotel in Grand Bassam (which was only half true: Al did not have a Meningitis vaccination at all), and the white-clothed health officer waved us on.  The other passengers waited in a queue while their names were called out, and one at a time their certificates were returned to them (they had been collected by the bus conductor).  Those who did not hold a certificate had to go into a building behind the barrier to get their injections for a CFA 2,500 fee.

Al and I walked through the Ivory Coast border offices, having already been cleared and stamped, while the other passengers handed over the identity cards after inspection.  We all waited on the side of the road until 12:30pm, when the bus came to pick us up.  Once on our way, the conductor called out the names of the other passengers and returned their identity cards or passports.

The whole process from arrival to departure took four hours and 15 minutes.  Again, as with every border crossing since Burkina Faso, there was no mention or hint of a bribe, gift or cadeau.

What We Needed

In Dakar

See information on acquiring our 90-day multiple-entry visas in my previous letter from 4 July.

For the bus

• CFA 48,000 (24,000 each)
• 24 hours from the supposed boarding time to arrival in Grand Bassam
• Some measure of mental toughness

At the border

• Passports with Ghana and Ivory Coast visas
• Yellow Fever and Meningitis vaccination certificates
• Four and a quarter hours

I’m not aware of any other border (and had not been aware of this one) which requires a certificate of vaccination for Meningitis.  Perhaps this requirement is on the rise, so if you’re traveling to Africa I would recommend you get your shot and bring the proof of it with you wherever you go.  Oh, and one more thing which should by now be clear: whenever you find yourself in or near the thrall of French or French-inspired bureaucracy, get ready to sit around and wait.

Happy trails,

QM

Welcome (back) to the Ivory Coast

Viven : How we crossed from the Ivory Coast to Burkina Faso

Dear Viven,

We're back on the road!  Though, not the on the route we originally intended, and not with Archer.

The information in this letter is accurate at the time we crossed the border on Sunday 28 July 2013.  We are one British and one Canadian, currently traveling in a circle from Abidjan through Burkina Faso, Benin, Togo and Ghana, returning to the Ivory Coast in time for a flight to our destination, Tanzania.

Visas

Visas were recommended, and cheaper, in advance.  I visited the Burkina Faso embassy in central Abidjan (in the Plateau area) and by myself applied for both visas.  I arrived at 10:30am, received the forms at the reception office near the front entrance, and after filling them waited until 11:15 for the officer to arrive.  She summoned each applicant in one at a time, and I entered her office at 11:30.  She corrected the forms, took the payment, and told me I was too late to get the visas on the same day, as is normal, and to return instead at 9am the next day.

All information was displayed in the visa and passport application building in the courtyard-organised embassy grounds.  Visa applications are to be submitted from 8am to noon, Monday to Friday, and picked up that afternoon between 3 and 3:30.  The fees schedule was as follows:

0-3 days (transit): CFA 12,000
1-90 days: CFA 24,000 (single-entry) or 31,000 (multiple-entry)
6 months: CFA 30,000 (single-entry) or 39,000 (multiple-entry)
12 months: CFA 43,000 (single-entry) or 49,000 (multiple-entry)
1+ year: CFA 59,000 (single-entry) or 66,000 (multiple-entry)

I returned the next day at 10:30am, waited a few minutes for the officer, handed her the receipt from the day before, and got the passports with 30-day single-entry visas.

Note I was able to both apply for and receive the visas without Al being present.

Language
Burkina Faso is part of French West Africa, and though there are 69 other languages spoken in the country, the official French is both widespread and commonly spoken.

Money

Like the Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso uses the West African Franc (CFA).

Our Route and Means of Travel
We traveled by train between Abidjan and Burkina Faso's capital, Ouagadougou.

I spoke with a couple security officers at the Gare de Treichville on Friday 26 July, and was told that though the station was closed today, it would be open tomorrow and the direct train to Ouagadougou would leave at 9am.  A sign at the station confirmed this, and named two departure stations: Treichville, and Gare de Ouagadougou.

We turned up on Saturday morning at 8am and found the station was still closed and quiet.  An official told us, no, all trains leave from the other station, Gare de Ouagadougou.  We got in a taxi for CFA 1,500 and crossed Abidjan, arriving at the correct station at 8:30 - only to be told, the train would depart at 11am.  We bought the tickets (Second Class) for CFA 24,000 each, filled out a fiche de controle next to the ticket booth, and in order to ensure our seats, boarded the train early.

Our tickets turned out to be wrong: they were for Koudougou, not Ouagadougou.  With the help of the kind man who sat across from us, who seemed to know everyone on the train, including staff, we merely had to pay a CFA 2,000 difference just past Koudougou.

The journey took 36 hours, arriving at Ouagadougou at 9pm the following day.  The train was fairly clean and about 80% full for most of the journey.  The windows opened down a little ways, just enough to buy food or drink at the rapid whistle-stops, and the carriage-top fans worked on the first day, but for some reason did not operate on the second.  On the second afternoon a man a few rows ahead of us became ill, perhaps in part because of the heat, and lay unconscious on the floor for a few hours until an ambulance picked him up at Koudougou.  Several men took turns fanning him, while police, train security and other staff walked by, took a few notes, and stared.  When he was carried off the train, a puddle of his vomit and feces spread on the floor and stunk up the car.  We moved with the rest of the people, and returned an hour later after it had been cleaned up and disinfected.  Most others didn't follow us, so we each got a whole bench to ourselves.  Being small, Al enjoyed this; but I can't say that two hard metal seats were much more comfortable than one.

The Border

We arrived at the Burkina Faso border town of Niangolako at 7:30am of the second day, Sunday 28 July.  Burkina Faso police had already come through the train to collect passports.  After 20 minutes, our names were called and we received our passports with entry stamps.  The train departed Niangolako after one hour, at 8:30.

Visas are apparently issued upon arrival by train in Burkina Faso.  In the office where we waited for our passports to be stamped, a sheet of paper on the wall gave the following prices:

1-3 days transit visa: CFA 24,000
Single-entry: CFA 47,000

Next to this office was another room, marked "Visas".  We did not notice anyone apply.

Yellow Fever vaccination certificates are supposed to be required for this border crossing.  At 5pm of the first evening an official on the train advised passengers to have their certificates ready, but there was no follow-up, and we were not asked to present them at the border.

Also, we never received exit stamps for the Ivory Coast.  They were not issued on the train, and we only stopped to enter Burkina Faso, not exit the Ivory Coast.  I can only assume we should have acquired them before departure from Abidjan?

What We Needed

In Abidjan

• Money: CFA 48,000 (24,000 each) for visa fees
• Two one-page application forms (in English and French) filled per applicant
• Passports
• Passport photos, two each
• About an hour

For the train

• CFA 48,000 (24,000 each) for train tickets, plus CFA 2,000 for correction charge as a result of incorrect destination
• Food and water, or money to purchase either at stops or in the bar carriage (only rice and beer available)
• Books, music, cards, conversational skills, and sitzfleisch sufficient for 36 hours of travel

At the border

• Passports with visas acquired in Abidjan
• One hour

Happy trails,

QM

Train Carriage No. 2, empty

Train Carriage No. 2, full.
Stand at the windows for the sake of the heat.

The train

One of the many whistle-stops

Sunset, Day 2

Koudougou

o : Grand Bassam

La Madrague
Grand Bassam

Dear o,

Everyone knows us by name now.  The beach merchants with their beer bottles of nuts, sarong racks and pet turtles call our names when we’re sitting for lunch in view of the giant Atlantic waves.  The pot-bellied hotel steward knocks on our door every night at 7:15 to ask what we want for dinner, to be served before 8 so he can go to bed on time.  The French-cuisine dinners he caters, as well as the breakfasts and lunches, are downright lousy, and we rarely eat here – but we’re not camping anymore, and wander from hotel to hotel for our meals.  It’s either that or takeaway pizza, a greasy vice just rediscovered.  We miss the semi-self-sufficient life on the road.  But we don’t have use of a campfire or our multifuel stove or our sacks and sacks of beans anymore.  We’re not moving onto the next place tomorrow, preparing our wallets and passports and languages for the journey.  I feel rusty when I get behind Archer’s wheel.  We’re stuck here, outside of Abidjan, on the wood-fenced, coconut-groved and wet-weathered resort stretch called Grand Bassam.  The merchants with wooden giraffes who pester sunbathing visitors are getting bored with us.  They shout our names and wave but only bother waving their product halfway up in the air.

We were only supposed to be here for a week at most, to acquire visas for Ghana.  But that didn’t turn out the way we planned, and then our plans turned out to have a few new holes, bored in since we left Europe: bureacracy, war, and international import/export law.  I wrote another, earlier letter to I. about our predicament, and things have changed some more.  Things have changed, and we’ve stayed put.  The daily rains have now arrived, and most of the people have left.  Locals populate the weekends while ghosts take on the Mondays.  Hotels are empty, restaurants are dead, half of the beachfront establishments are shut while the other operate for show.  We’ve sailed into the low season on a tide of waiting.

After learning that we may not be able to get into the DR Congo without weeks spent ferrying our passports to the UK and Canada and back again – weeks we don’t have – we decided to drive to Gabon, and sell or ship Archer from there.  On the way we wanted to have a few fixes (busted antenna, loose batteries) done in Accra, Ghana, but our transit visas afford us no time there.  A few noises in the engine and cranks in the steering prompted us to get the truck checked out a few days ago in Abidjan.  We asked for a full inspection – the same thing requested and never given in Bath, San Sebastian and Agadir – and we got one.  Archer has problems; a lot of problems; serious problems.

The Master Diagnostic Technician at the Abidjan Toyota shop was straightforward and friendly as raised Archer and brought me underneath the truck.  He explained that the steering fluid was not only empty (we knew that) but leaking.  Okay, I said, what about the cranking at 1500 RPM?  He pointed to the universal joint behind the new propeller shaft – the one replaced in Spain – and said the joint is broken and needs to be replaced.  Okay, I said, do you have these parts in stock?  No, he said, and he wasn’t finished.  He showed me wornout brake pads, busted suspension frames, leaking engine oil, and a handful of other problems I couldn’t quite see, couldn’t understand in French, or both.  Okay, I said, are these problems serious?  He looked at me and almost laughed.  Of course they’re serious.  He stepped out from under the truck as if he was worried the whole thing was going to collapse.

I returned the next day, driving between Grand Bassam and Abidjan which surprised the Master Diagnostic Technician, to receive the devis: list of parts required.  The total amount we would have to pay to order all the parts and have them installed would be more than twice what we paid for the truck itself.  And even if a lot of the problems are being made up, the steering fluid leak is serious and real: and that part would take three weeks to arrive.  After three weeks wait, we’ll have just two weeks left to drive 3,200km across six borders in the heavy rainy season when some roads will be washed out, to arrive in Gabon.

Clearly, our drive ends here.  The plan is now to get rid of the truck – and most of our mountain of stuff, shipped or sold – and go overland by train, bus and bushtaxi as far as we can get, and then fly the rest of the way to Tanzania.  After a few days sulk about our failure to get across the continent as we hoped and dreamed, this new way started to sound good: just a couple bags, no truck to worry about, no thinking about how much is actually left in the tank (instead of what the gauge wants us to believe), and the chance to meet others on the way.  We got excited.

And then we found out how hard it is to sell a right-hand drive truck in Africa (in many countries, such as the Ivory Coast, the government will not register a right-hand car), and how few ships bring cars to the UK.  There are countless routes and companies the other way around: perhaps a majority of cars on African roads are used European imports.  One man in Sierra Leone didn’t believe us when we told him that we’d bought our truck second-hand in England.  He thought all Europeans and North Americans buy their cars new, and when done with them, send them off to Africa.

So, I regret to inform you that the distances covered between my letters might diminish – it already has.  My last to you was from an hour away.  My next to you might be an hour further down, or five minutes.  Hopefully I’ll know a little more about my surroundings, because my discoveries in the last couple weeks have been mostly confined to embassies, visas, international shipping, how to sell a foreign car, and ADX power-assisted steering fluid.  Oh, and a few names of the merchants on the beach.  One of them is Yao, and he said he has a friend who might buy the truck.  But would it be possible to move the steering wheel to the other side?

Honestly, it’s worth a try.

Yours,

QM

View from our first lodging: Hotel Etoile du Sud.
Notice the fogginess?
That's the lens - it's very damp here.

Atlantic Beach

Viven : How we crossed from Liberia to the Ivory Coast

Dear Viven,

This crossing required a good deal of time, effort, patience and even some courage to get through without paying a bribe or illegitimate 'fee'.  It wasn't our hardest, but in retrospect it may have been the most dangerous.

The information in this letter is accurate at the time we crossed the border on 23 June 2013.  We are one British and one Canadian, driving a 1996 right-hand drive Toyota Hilux Surf from Paris to Tanzania.

Our previous crossing was from Sierra Leone to Liberia, and our next crossing is unknown.

Visas

Visas were required in advance.  We visited the Ivorian Embassy on Rue Commerce in Conakry Centre-Ville on Friday 14 June, arriving at 2:15pm.  After waiting for 15 minutes we were summoned into a glowing, happy man’s office.  He insisted on telling and writing for us his name: Santini Saidei, consular assistant.  Santini asked a few questions, switching between French and English, and had us fill out forms at his desk.  He asked for passport photos, Yellow Fever vaccination certificates, passports and money, and said the visas would be ready by Tuesday at 2pm.  After the ten minute interview we waited in the comfortable holding room with couches while he prepared a letter stating that the embassy was in possession of our passports (a necessity for us, as we were traveling quite far from Conakry for the weekend, and faced many greedy, corrupt gendarmes).  The happy man forgot about the letter, so we ended up waiting until 4pm. 

We returned on Tuesday 18 June at 2pm, and received our passports with Ivory Coast visas by 2:30pm.     Santini remembered to retrieve the embassy letter regarding our passports; this was called a laissez-passage, much like the single-country version of the carnet de passages.

Insurance and Carnet

Both Brown Card insurance and one page of our carnet de passages was required to enter the Ivory Coast.  As with Sierra Leone, Liberian officials were typically dumbfounded by our carnet, as apparently very few people do what we are doing here; but this was more of a speedbump than a problem.

Language
French is widely spoken in the Ivory Coast, or more properly Côte d'Ivoire, which is perhaps the most francophile nation in West Africa.  There are about 70 other languages in the country, and English is often understood in the well-established tourist sector.

Money

In the Ivory Coast we returned to the West African franc (CFA), which we last used in Guinea-Bissau. From Guinea-Bissau we carried a large enough chunk to get from the border to Abidjan, where we knew there was ATMs for both Visa and Mastercard, and also exchanged our remaining Liberian dollars (LRD) for CFA at the border, at a rate of LRD 155 = CFA 1,000.  ATMs (Visa and Mastercard) turned out to be widespread outside of Abidjan, with at least two in Man, and more in other cities and towns along the way.

The Route
We drove on some dismal Liberian roads (it would have been better if they weren't paved at all, given the deterioration) from the Liberian capital of Monrovia northeast through Totota to the border crossing at Loguatua, leading to the Ivorian city of Danane.  The roads, though bad, remained passable until the border, but then immediately upon entering the Ivory Coast became difficult dirt (mud) tracks.  Though it is only about 20km from the border to Danane, where the road becomes paved, the route is probably difficult at any time of year, and perhaps impassable during heavy rain.  For the condition and season that we crossed, I would advise against anything but 4x4s or motorcycles.

Only a few kilometers outside of Sanniquellie, a few hours drive before the border, we got our second flat tire of the trip.  Luckily, we were close enough to the town for me to hitch a ride, find a jack, replace both our front tires with the two extras we had strapped to the roof, and get on our way in a few hours.

The Border

We arrived at Loguatua on the Liberian side at 4:30pm, and had to dance around the customs building (to the right of the road) while one officer looked at our carnet de passages and another at our vehicle registration.  Both were holding out for money or bribes, but we outwaited them both and got on our way.  The immigration building (to the left of the road) housed some happy police who chatted with us for a bit, and then said they needed to refer our passports to someone else.  They asked what we thought of Liberia, and we said we were loved how friendly people were, and were pleasantly surprised with how little corruption we came up against, that not a single official had asked us for money or gifts.  As soon as we finished saying this, the two men smiled, agreed that Liberia was great for corruption, and then in all seriousness, asked us for "a gift to remember you by."  It was a very sad moment, and when we did not give anything, they actually looked confused.

The Deputy Commander to whom our passports were referred was a real grump who didn't say a word, but merely looked thoroughly at our pages, gave us stamps, and sent us away.

We crossed the river to the Ivory Coast side, parked at the first checkpoint, got assailed by the half-dozen officials there for gifts and money (back in French West Africa...), and visited on foot the police office for passports and the Douane office for the carnet.  At the police office, one soldier was playing on a MacBook Pro, so we were quick to mention this in order to make him feel stupid if and when he asked for money (he didn't).  We were processed quickly and efficiently, and then let go by 5:30pm.

The whole process from arrival to departure took one hour.

After about ten minutes of driving from the border we arrived at a military checkpoint.  We played the "I-don't-have-time-for-this-game" and hoped to be waved through, but we were summoned from the truck.  The commander eyed us up, while his sunglassed lieutenant tried to intimidate me with a bone-crushing handshake, that I simply returned in kind.  A couple on a motorcycle were passing through, and paid CFA 1,000 each.  When our passport details were entered into their logbook and our documents thoroughly inspected, the short-and-shirt-wearing commander told us to pay.  I asked why.  He asked who I was to ask him why.  I said we only had Liberian dollars.  He snapped his fingers at a scared woman at the military camp who gave us an incorrect rate of change (in our favour) and I got out the LRD 115.  I asked for a receipt.  Everyone laughed.  The commander asked who I was to ask for a receipt.  I ignored this and got a pad of paper, and wrote out the receipt.  I asked for the commander's name.  The commander asked who I was to ask for his name.  I said I could have anyone's name.  Everyone laughed.  The hard-faced lieutenant pointed at his lapels and asked what that meant.  I said military.  He said yes.  I said, does that mean you don't have a name?  Everyone laughed, now nervously.  Someone in the back of the now-gathered crowd said it wasn't 'normal' to ask for a receipt from the military.  The commander was getting pissed off, but we continued to be difficult yet kind and patient (in other words, acting dumb).  He got into my face, and I realised that not only was he about to stop thinking rationally (and thus, of the consequences for, say, arresting/hurting/killing us) but that he was being humiliated, and might need to show his troops who is the big man.  Just as I considered just paying up and getting the hell out of there, he shouted in my face that he didn't want my money.  I said good, closed the notepad with the 'receipt', and got in the truck.  But now he wouldn't lift the barrier.  I said I could just go around it.  He was furious, and ordered his man to raise the gate.  We drove out and didn't look back.  I was nervous about being suddenly chased all the way to Danane.

This encounter took about 20 minutes, and a lot more was said, all in French.  But that's the gist of it.  Maybe I was being too cocky and stupid?  Yes, but at the same time, we have come this far without paying a single bribe, paying a single 'fee' without a receipt, or giving a single 'gift'.  I won't pay the first time without a fight and a damn good reason (such as, I suppose, keeping our lives).

What We Needed

In Conakry

• €220 (€110 each), paid with CFA 145,000
• Yellow Fever certificates
• Passports
• One passport photo each
• About 30 minutes

At the border

• Money: 0 (CFA 2,000 demanded at a military checkpoint)
• Passports with Ivory Coast visas
• Carnet de passages
• Vehicle registration document
• Brown Card insurance document
• Drivers' Licence

Yes, I promise to be more careful.  But don't just say to me "it's the African way" - Africans, like the couple on the motorcycle who wouldn't think of not paying the commander / god-in-shorts, deserve better than that.

Happy trails,

QM

Fixing the flat tire

Sound a little American? 

0 km.  I got in trouble for taking this photo 'without permission'.

I. : Why the Route May Have to Change

Dear I.,

Remember how I mentioned that things could change, we might have to adjust our plans, schedule, and route depending on the situation?  Well, cross your fingers, because nothing has changed yet - but we're on the edge.  It's not the war in Nigeria or the Congo.  It isn't a flat tire (we've had two so far), a car accident (though we do need yet another roof rack, which would be Rack No. 3) or malaria (though I do have a bad cold, the first for both of us of the whole trip).  We haven't lost our big folder of documents, or passports, or international stash of money.  The politics are as stable as we could hope for, the roads still passable, and unlike some beloved hometowns, the rainy season hasn't washed us out.

No, it's bureaucracy.  Pure, simple, non-straightforward "oh well, it's Africa" bureaucracy.

It's the end of the business week, which means our embassy shuffle must cease for Saturday and Sunday - not a big deal, because we're we're swimming in the blue pool, crashing into the tall waves, and enjoying a beachside hotel to ourselves at the former French colonial capital of Grand Bassam, which is pretty much a resort suburb of Abidjan, in the Ivory Coast.  We arrived on Monday after a mad dash of driving on terrible roads from Liberia, and went straight to the Ghanaian embassy on Tuesday morning to get our visas.  From our research, we anticipated problems for this one.  Officially, Ghana only issues tourist visas in the home country of the applicant.  Because we are driving and taking a long time, applying in advance from France would not have been possible: the embassy would not issue us visas, and even if they did, they would likely expire by the time we got to Ghana.  Most people applying for visas, of course, travel by airplane.

The officials couldn't care less about our situation, wouldn't let us speak with the Consul, and said all that we could do was to apply for 48-hour transit visas.

Why is it so important that we get more than 48 hours in Ghana?  Because, in the Ghanaian capital of Accra, we intended to apply for both the hard-to-get Nigerian and the Angolan visas.  What happens without the time to do that?  We must take our chances and apply in other places (in Benin for Nigeria, and in Nigeria or the DR Congo for Angola), where there is no guarantee that we'll get more than transit visas for both; because, in those countries we'll need to apply for further visas (the Cameroon visa, applied for in Nigeria, and the Angolan visa, applied for in Nigeria or the DR Congo - because we cannot apply now in Ghana).

Sound confusing?  Don't worry about it.  This isn't really the problem.  Once we're in a country with a transit visa, we can spend weeks in the morass of paperwork and officialdom extending our stay: being in the middle of an application for an extension means you aren't overstaying your allotted time.

No, we discovered the problem when we came back to the internet to research the domino-effect consequences of a Ghanaian transit visa.  There is news from the DR Congo.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Ghana and Angola were the four countries for which we worried most about getting visas.  I explained a little about Angola in my first letter to you, but the other three governments also state officially that it is not possible to get a visa except at the embassy in your resident country.  We know there are ways around this (the 'African Way'): Nigerian visas are still issued in Ghana and Benin, Ghanaian visas in Sierra Leone or here in Abidjan, Angolan visas in Nigeria, Ghana or the border town of Matadi in the DR Congo, and DR Congo visas in Libreville (Gabon) or Brazzaville (Congo).  We get this information from travelers who made this same trip just a few months ago.  And, even if these things change, there is always the power of patience, perseverance, shuffling around and giving people a hard time, and the bribe.

But here's the news: as of only a few weeks ago, DR Congo border officials are refusing entry to people who carry a valid visa in their passport from an embassy that is not in their country of residence. Not only that, but these officials stamp a large 'VOID' sign on the visa, so it is not possible to try again and again at different crossings or different days.  And, if the crossing is attempted and the visa refused, we will find ourselves on the other side of a river (Congo and the DR Congo are separated by the Congo River), without clearance to return to the other side (our passports will be exit-stamped upon boarding the car ferry).  It is possible that our truck would be impounded, and we could be stuck in no-man's land until we're clear to go back the way we came.

Add to that, the political situation is the eastern DR Congo has changed: the rebel group, Mai Mai Kata Katanga, is threatening to march on Lubumbashi next month.  If we drive through Angola, this shouldn't be a concern; but if we can't get the Angolan visa, we must cross the DR Congo on the notorious road from Kinshasa to Lubumbashi.  If the rebels do indeed take the city, or even get close, this Plan B is suddenly off to the wayside.

Why not skip the DR Congo, you might wonder?  We can't.  There is no viable, even reasonably safe route from where we are now that does not pass through at least part of this vast chunk of Africa.  The Central African Republic, Chad and Niger - countries through which we would pass in order to go straight east from where we are now - are extremely dangerous for travelers, particularly in the regions we would have to go.  It is not possible to simply go back the way we came, and across north Africa to Egypt, then drive down to the Sudan, because the border between Morocco and Algeria is completely closed.  We could return to Europe and get a ferry to Egypt, but this involves not only reobtaining visas for the countries we've already crossed, but also getting a new carnet de passages (a process that takes up to a month) with more pages, and one special page for costly Egypt.

The real problem is time.  If we stick to the DR Congo route and play the diplomatic game, we'll probably eventually get through - after months.  We read a recent account of a traveler who waited in Brazzaville for 90 days to sort out his visas and letters of invitation and so forth, and he didn't bother with a car.  And, if we return to the Mediterranean to attempt the eastern route, we would be too late (it would probably take a month just to get back up there).

So what are going to do?  At the moment, we're in contact with all sorts of embassies and officials who write fancy, stamped letters, to see if our intended route is possible.  We may be able to send by overseas express courier our passports and visa applications to the DR Congo embassies in our resident countries (one to Ottawa, one to London).  We first need to confirm that this is possible (the embassies don't like answering the phone, or doing much work at all), then confirm that it could happen in a reasonable amount of time (the website for the DR Congo embassy in London says 10-18 days to process mailed applications, which is too long, but could it be expedited?), and then we need to get letters of invitation from the DR Congo, notarised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (and who knows how long that will take).

Failing that, we change the plan: this means shipping the truck back to England from here in Abidjan or from Libreville in Gabon.  We'd then fly ourselves to Kenya, Zambia or somewhere else in east Africa, and reach Tanzania on foot.

The one thing I really have absolutely no clue about, is how does the DR Congo's policy give any benefit whatsoever to the DR Congo?

Most people here answer that question with, "it's Africa, that's the African way".

No, it's not.  It's bullshit, any way, and Africans deserve a better one.

Please tell your mother I'm sorry about the language.

Will be in touch,

QM