So far, all good things about francaphone africa.
Bobo is a very relaxed town and we had fun wandering the big market and chatting with people. food, they put everything in baggettes here and make a sandwich. In ghana, it's only the egg sandwich that is recognised as legitimate, but here you can throw what every you have into some long crusty bread and eat it that way. We also met a nice lady on the bus who wanted to introduce us to her daughters. We accepted of course, and ate with her one night, and the daughters drove us around on motos.
On a map, the trip from Bobo to Bamako doesn't look too bad, and the roads are all good, so it shouldn't take 14 hours, but it did. After crossing the Mali border, our bus was repeatedly stopped and made to wait at "security checkpoints" where the driver and conductor had to deal with officials who occasionally wanted to actually check the bus for something. The conductor took a collection on the bus to make up for all the bribes he was paying. Overall, almost half our time was spent waiting at a standstill for approval to continue. Eventually we got to Bamako.
Bamako is a very nice city and Mali just celebrated it's 50th birthday so everyone is happy and the place is all decorated. The only downsides are that it is really hot and beer is hard to find. Also, Jack is getting tired of bagettes and brochettes. But i'm not, and my antibiotics are making me feel powerful. Tomorrow we will take the train to Kayes and from there continue on to Dakar and the beach. I'm looking forward to the water.
All the best to all my bestest,
-Toby
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
COS travel plans
So, I officially ended my peace corps service on August 19. I got all my medical checks upped, signed all the forms, interviewed with the boss and wrote up my Description of service official report. I'm done, I'm free and i can do what ever i want. up to a point of course. RPCV!!!!!
Jack is from Berkley CA and he and i are both without detailed plans when we finally get back to the US, so we are traveling around West Africa before we leave and having fun. After COS, we traveled back up through Ghana and visited Sonya, Brenden, and the TSO before getting to Serena's site. We went to a yam festival with her and had a good time before we continued from there into Togo.
Serena's sight is right on the border of Ghana and Togo, so it wasn't too long of a trip. When we got the border, we tried to buy a visa there and the one lonely togolese immigration officer said we couldn't do that. After a wait, he simply stamped our passports and told us to go to the next Border town and get our visas. Our plans didn't include going to that town, so we didn't. We hung out in chill town called Sokode and then went down to Kpalime, which had mountains and waterfalls of which we saw a little on a short hike. Mostly, we took it easy, tried the local food and beer and tried to hit on the local women. Togo is a lot like Ghana and we felt right at home, but with French influence so they have better food. Both Jack and I speak passable french, and we get by alright. We traveled to Lome and looked for Togolese pcvs but only found one on our last day in togo. We were going to go to the beach near Lome, but decided to save it for Ghana because we know those beaches better. We tried to cross back into Ghana at Lome, and there encountered minor problems. The immigration guys were not so friendly and not amused that we didn't have visas. One guy told me he wanted to slap me, but he didn't do it. They sent us to another building to buy the visa we should have gotten upon entry, but on the way, the Ghanaian officials saw us and waved us over to start entry procedures. They always like us because we have residency permits. We thought we had gotten through without having to pay when a big Togolese official came looking for us. He made us go back to the Togo side where we got yelled at and then had to wait around for a while before they took us the the other place where we bought our visas and passed through. The ghanaians where confused as to why we had left and come back, but still happy to see us.
Back to Accra, we hung around and looked into what it would take to get a visa to Cote D'iviore. Eventually we turned in the paperwork to the cold-as-ice reception lady at the CI embassy. We met some other fellow travelers and hung out with them in Accra: Jimi the Nigerian and Hans the German, cool guys. It's too expensive in Accra, so we went to the beach to wait for the visas. A few days at the Hideout turned into a week and suddenly we realized that we would have to rush back to get to the embassy by friday, or stay the weekend, so we did. Stay that is. We didn't spend much because we ate in the village: Lobster and fufu. Also, the group of omnibus pcvs after us had their COS conference that week and afterwards a bunch of them came to the beach we were at, so we stayed and had fun with them. Eventually, after a total of 10 days at the Hideout, we came back to Accra to leave for real.
Back in the Peace Corps office people kept seeing us and saying "I thought you were gone!" I've said goodbye to some pcvs so many times that it's a little ridiculus. Jack and i got up nice and early and went to the Cote D'Iviore embassy to pick up our passports only to be told by cold-as-ice that we were rejected because we did not have a ligitimate hotel reservation in Abidjan. That was true, we didn't have one because all the hotels there were too expensive. So rejected by Cote D'iviore, means we don't have to worry about how expensive and maybe dangerous it is there. Instead we decided to go back to Burkina.
Originally, I did not want to pass through Burkina because i have already been there three times and the visa just increased to 10 times the previous price. Our grand plan is to travel across west africa to Dakar, Senegal and then up to Morroco and cross into Europe. Get out your atlas and you will see that there are a number of ways we could go from ghana to senegal passing different countries along the way. From Bobo-Dioulasa in Burkina, we will go to Bamako, Mali and then to Dakar. Long bus rides, but only if we get the burkina visa. which we did, in only a few hours and the consular was very nice and the receptionist was cute too. Burkina is now clearly superior in Embassy services to Cote D'Iviore, the only downside is that the visa we got cost 100 USD and is a 5 year multiple entry visa. So I'll be coming back. And yes, they required it to be paid in US dollars, although Burkina uses the CFA.
Tomorrow, we will start again and travel up through Ghana again to Wa. from there, leave and never come back, at least until next year. But we are really going this time, promise.
That's a summary of the travel so far and the tentative plans i've got. It will undoubtedly change, but such is life. Wait, we are going to a bunch of francaphone countries. Se la vie! If you live along the way, i'm coming to visit you, otherwise i plan to be back in WI by the end of October and in Madison for Halloween. oh yeah.
love and kisses,
-Toby
Jack is from Berkley CA and he and i are both without detailed plans when we finally get back to the US, so we are traveling around West Africa before we leave and having fun. After COS, we traveled back up through Ghana and visited Sonya, Brenden, and the TSO before getting to Serena's site. We went to a yam festival with her and had a good time before we continued from there into Togo.
Serena's sight is right on the border of Ghana and Togo, so it wasn't too long of a trip. When we got the border, we tried to buy a visa there and the one lonely togolese immigration officer said we couldn't do that. After a wait, he simply stamped our passports and told us to go to the next Border town and get our visas. Our plans didn't include going to that town, so we didn't. We hung out in chill town called Sokode and then went down to Kpalime, which had mountains and waterfalls of which we saw a little on a short hike. Mostly, we took it easy, tried the local food and beer and tried to hit on the local women. Togo is a lot like Ghana and we felt right at home, but with French influence so they have better food. Both Jack and I speak passable french, and we get by alright. We traveled to Lome and looked for Togolese pcvs but only found one on our last day in togo. We were going to go to the beach near Lome, but decided to save it for Ghana because we know those beaches better. We tried to cross back into Ghana at Lome, and there encountered minor problems. The immigration guys were not so friendly and not amused that we didn't have visas. One guy told me he wanted to slap me, but he didn't do it. They sent us to another building to buy the visa we should have gotten upon entry, but on the way, the Ghanaian officials saw us and waved us over to start entry procedures. They always like us because we have residency permits. We thought we had gotten through without having to pay when a big Togolese official came looking for us. He made us go back to the Togo side where we got yelled at and then had to wait around for a while before they took us the the other place where we bought our visas and passed through. The ghanaians where confused as to why we had left and come back, but still happy to see us.
Back to Accra, we hung around and looked into what it would take to get a visa to Cote D'iviore. Eventually we turned in the paperwork to the cold-as-ice reception lady at the CI embassy. We met some other fellow travelers and hung out with them in Accra: Jimi the Nigerian and Hans the German, cool guys. It's too expensive in Accra, so we went to the beach to wait for the visas. A few days at the Hideout turned into a week and suddenly we realized that we would have to rush back to get to the embassy by friday, or stay the weekend, so we did. Stay that is. We didn't spend much because we ate in the village: Lobster and fufu. Also, the group of omnibus pcvs after us had their COS conference that week and afterwards a bunch of them came to the beach we were at, so we stayed and had fun with them. Eventually, after a total of 10 days at the Hideout, we came back to Accra to leave for real.
Back in the Peace Corps office people kept seeing us and saying "I thought you were gone!" I've said goodbye to some pcvs so many times that it's a little ridiculus. Jack and i got up nice and early and went to the Cote D'Iviore embassy to pick up our passports only to be told by cold-as-ice that we were rejected because we did not have a ligitimate hotel reservation in Abidjan. That was true, we didn't have one because all the hotels there were too expensive. So rejected by Cote D'iviore, means we don't have to worry about how expensive and maybe dangerous it is there. Instead we decided to go back to Burkina.
Originally, I did not want to pass through Burkina because i have already been there three times and the visa just increased to 10 times the previous price. Our grand plan is to travel across west africa to Dakar, Senegal and then up to Morroco and cross into Europe. Get out your atlas and you will see that there are a number of ways we could go from ghana to senegal passing different countries along the way. From Bobo-Dioulasa in Burkina, we will go to Bamako, Mali and then to Dakar. Long bus rides, but only if we get the burkina visa. which we did, in only a few hours and the consular was very nice and the receptionist was cute too. Burkina is now clearly superior in Embassy services to Cote D'Iviore, the only downside is that the visa we got cost 100 USD and is a 5 year multiple entry visa. So I'll be coming back. And yes, they required it to be paid in US dollars, although Burkina uses the CFA.
Tomorrow, we will start again and travel up through Ghana again to Wa. from there, leave and never come back, at least until next year. But we are really going this time, promise.
That's a summary of the travel so far and the tentative plans i've got. It will undoubtedly change, but such is life. Wait, we are going to a bunch of francaphone countries. Se la vie! If you live along the way, i'm coming to visit you, otherwise i plan to be back in WI by the end of October and in Madison for Halloween. oh yeah.
love and kisses,
-Toby
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