We went to the Consulat of the Cote d'Ivoire in Marseille yesterday!
We've got our visas, & are thrilled. 'Madame' a lovely lady from the Antilles eventually issued them an hour and a half after we arrived. Despite my phone calls to the consulate to check what was needed she threw a couple of spanners in the works.
A few months ago a 'letter of invitation' was needed; they've done away with this thank goodness but asked for an address. I gave her an address of someone I know through someone else who lives in Abidjan & works in cocoa. It didn't work, I didn't have the post box number; wasn't thinking quickly enough to tell her any old number! So I said to put us down as staying in one of the chain hotels ... she looked a bit dubious and wrote it in!
She's marked Dani as travelling with her 'mother' with a little comment about 'not waking the sleeping man in Paris'. She didn't want to see all the parental letters I had from her mother to allow her to come on this trip with me!
We had our yellow fever certificates, all well & good, but she hadn't mentioned that we need our tickets; Dani's isn't' paid for so I don't have it anyway. After a bit of pleading she let me ring my travel agent who duly faxed the details through ... without even looking at it she told me I should hang onto the piece of paper & always have my ticket on me ...?!!? What was that lesson all about???
Showing posts with label cote d'ivoire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cote d'ivoire. Show all posts
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Monday, September 10, 2007
A few months to go ...
Still 3 months and 4 days away from departure but already the excitement of getting back to Africa is building up. Having to organise a visa prior to departure for the Cote d'Ivoire, constantly thinking of the 12yr old who'll be tagging along with me & whether Gianni, my Italian travel partner will make his mind up about joining are all keeping me occupied!
The route 'should' be from Abidjan to Ghana where we'll pass Morree to go & see KingaFreespirits' foundation created by her mother Krystyna who I'm trying to assist http://www.fundacjafreespirit.pl/eng/index0_eng.html
From there we're looking at going north to Banfora in Burkina Faso to keep someone's geography teacher happy - it's in this year's text book, then to Boromo where there's meant to be a great auberge and onto Bobo Dioualasso then a short night in Ouagadougou before catching a bus to Niamey, Niger. From Niamey we should be able to get a pirogue downriver for 36hrs or so; it's a commercial run that many boatmen take and the idea is to get us to the border of Benin. If the train is running from Parakou to Cotonou we'll go south by that but there's some news that it stopped running for good back in April 2007.
Back through Togo & Ghana - hoping to take in a bit of slave history to make this a little more educational than just a 'jaunt' across W.Africa, we'll go back past Abidjan for a few days of R&R in San Pedro near the border with Liberia.
It's a shame, as the original plan had been to go through Liberia and back into my favourite African country; Guinea. Since I left last year the situation with Conte, the dictatorial president haven't been good & I was lucky to leave when I did. I wanted to go back there ... but it'll have to wait until the end of 2008 when I hope to drive down there ... in'shallah
The route 'should' be from Abidjan to Ghana where we'll pass Morree to go & see KingaFreespirits' foundation created by her mother Krystyna who I'm trying to assist http://www.fundacjafreespirit
From there we're looking at going north to Banfora in Burkina Faso to keep someone's geography teacher happy - it's in this year's text book, then to Boromo where there's meant to be a great auberge and onto Bobo Dioualasso then a short night in Ouagadougou before catching a bus to Niamey, Niger. From Niamey we should be able to get a pirogue downriver for 36hrs or so; it's a commercial run that many boatmen take and the idea is to get us to the border of Benin. If the train is running from Parakou to Cotonou we'll go south by that but there's some news that it stopped running for good back in April 2007.
Back through Togo & Ghana - hoping to take in a bit of slave history to make this a little more educational than just a 'jaunt' across W.Africa, we'll go back past Abidjan for a few days of R&R in San Pedro near the border with Liberia.
It's a shame, as the original plan had been to go through Liberia and back into my favourite African country; Guinea. Since I left last year the situation with Conte, the dictatorial president haven't been good & I was lucky to leave when I did. I wanted to go back there ... but it'll have to wait until the end of 2008 when I hope to drive down there ... in'shallah
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