Thursday, March 16, 2006

More Visa stuff

Visas are proving fun, as I knew they would.

Burkina Faso and Benin were as easy as pie. You turn up at the consulate in UK (in the case of BF this is a shed outside a house in Surrey, I kid you not) and a very nice man stamps your passport while you wait, and also provides interesting & entertaining conversation. This is how it should be.

Guinea and Sierra Leone would probably be OK, but they both require a letter of invitation from the country. This makes things more tricky. We're waiting for a fax from Guinea, but I'm not getting much life out of Sierra Leone. This is a little frustrating as time isn't endless. Hopefully once I get these letters, the rest of the process will be relatively easy.

Guinea Bissau looked fine until the consulate resigned! Now you have to go to Luxembourg or Paris to get the Visa. In our case we're going to try to get them in Dakar. Annoying, as it'll tie up time when we're there, but I'm not sure there is much alternative. I could use an agency, but this would be costly and take time.

Mali and Niger are probably the hardest. I'm hoping Dakar will prove the key to this, but Mali in particular doesn't seem well represented. These two are giving cause for concern.

The other essential piece of paperwork is the Carnet de Passage, but I have to say the RAC were very efficient in processing this and it's safely in my paperwork folder already.

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