New visas: Mwanza-Muscat Part 3
A refrigerator box made an excellent container to transport my bicycle on a plane out of Tanzania. Cycling away would have been preferable, were it not for the fact that in order to go north, which is the direction I'm generally going, I'd be re-riding some of the roads I'd already covered. This rarely has much appeal, unless the roads are stupendously scenic, which they weren't.
Fortunately FastJet fly from Kilimanjaro Airport to Uganda and tickets cost all of £20. Well that's before tax, after which the price quadruples. Even still, with an extra £20 for the bike and several quid for the gear the total price made it an affordable option. I also had good memories of cycling in Uganda.
My 3-week stay at the Arusha Hotel finished with me signing a bill I was very glad I didn't have to pay. Goodbye full English breakfasts and 5-star luxury. Goodbye bus-loads of safari-clad tourists who always filled the hotel lobby every morning to be briefed by tour-operators about their impending trip to one of the nearby National Parks. None ever seemed to venture onto the streets of Arusha. Well that wasn't in the itinerary, and being hassled by multi-lingual touts would only mire what were probably very expensive holidays.
The hotel must have been making an absolute fortune from this lot. Had I cared more I would have told the Indian manager to invest in some better customer service. It's a concept that remains mostly foreign in Tanzania, even when people pay western prices. Instead I gave one of the security guards the two pairs of trousers I'd bought to work in and pedalled off to a Warmshowers host. Thanks for the fridge box if you happen to be reading this Eric.
My short teaching contract provided a welcome break, as well as a good opportunity to be back in the classroom interacting with Tanzanian students. If I could live a life of cycle-touring for several months then pick up a 2 or 3-week well-paid teaching contract in an interesting location I might just spend the rest of my life doing that.
Ugandan immigration had little time for my reasoning that I didn't need a visa when I arrived. I was in Uganda for a weekend in late May and paid $50 for a visa which I hoped would allow me free re-entry to the country within 90 days. Tanzania and Kenya at least follow this policy. So much for an East African Union making it easier for people to travel freely around the region.
Uganda now in fact charges $100 instead of $50 (prices changed on July 1st) and I was going nowhere until I paid it.
'Don't worry.You will enjoy Uganda. There is plenty of food and good security', said a portly immigration officer as he relieved me of a crisp bill and stamped my passport.
As international airports go, Entebbe's is an easy one to cycle away from, located as it is at the end of a peninsula jutting into Lake Victoria. The main road from here, well pretty much only road, heads to Kampala, just 35km away.
I hadn't planned such a long stay here, but then didn't anticipate the obstacles and delay in acquiring a visa for South Sudan. Fortunately, Kampala, despite the crazy traffic and near death experiences every time one gets on the back of a boda-boda (a motorbike taxi) isn't such a bad place to pass the time. People are friendly, they speak good English and there seems to be less of the immature 'Mzungu' calling that accompanies a stay in Tanzania. There also happens to be a great selection of bars and restaurants. An easy place for a single man to get trapped perhaps, as I'm sure many have...
When I first conceived the idea for this current tour South Sudan had never been on the agenda, fraught as the country is with civil war. A quick look at the FCO website will confirm that the 4-year old country isn't the safest on the continent to visit right now. But I've never used the FCO website as a means to plan where I go, recognising that conflict in one part of a country doesn't necessarily mean everywhere is actually as dangerous.
A friend in Tanzania had worked in the country a few years back and started convincing me, or rather helped convince myself, that it would be a challenging and adventurous way to enter Ethiopia, which remains the plan.
A visa for South Sudan isn't easily obtainable, requiring a letter of invitation from within the country. Anticipating this to be a minor hurdle I decided to write my own invitation letter and forward it to my friend's colleague in South Sudan, who could then sign it, which he did.
The problem is self-written invitations don't look so impressive without official letter-heads and stamps. My application was quickly rejected.
I returned two days later with what I considered a formal invite, only to be told that I now needed a 'Certificate of Incorporation' in order to prove that the company who had invited me were officially registered. The letter could also not be addressed 'To whom it may concern' but the 'Visa section'.
By this point I was close to giving up, which wouldn't have been a huge issue as I can just cross back into Kenya and enter Ethiopia that way.
The certificate was soon emailed to me with the necessary letter changes. I returned once again. This time the Consular wasn't in the office, but I was assured the visa would be processed, which indeed it was. Same day service as well (normally it takes 3 working days). Another $100.
I have until September the 6th to enter the country. Well I assume that the 1-month duration of my visa is from the day I enter the country rather than the day the visa is issued. Such trivialities shouldn't matter in Africa. I have northern Uganda to explore first.
