I woke up all sweaty in my $17 apartment. Not good. Mornings are cool and I should be fresh and crispy and here I am, melting at 6am. At least there were no mosquitoes and in the room there was no mosquito net and the carpeted floor makes burning a coil risky.
The plan for Monday was a visit to Liberian and Nigerian embassy. The reports from iOverlander say it’s one place where they don’t refuse the tourists immediately based on the “you must be a resident of this country” principle.
Also, I was planning to change the accommodation. Surely, the lodge is nice and it’s even quiet despite the terrible night club noise downstairs – this doesn’t happen normally. I’d slept in $200/night 5* hotels that suffered from a nearby night club. Jeska Mac Lodge – good job.
I changed a t-shirt for the occasion of the embassy run. One must look neat. I attached long legs to my shorts. One must not show a knee in front of his or her excellency ambassador/ambassadress.
My 3,000le moto driver didn’t really know where the embassy was but at least we were on the same street. It’s an unmarked gate, hidden behind a high wall. Inside a nice white villa and a flag on a pole. I entered and a secretary introduced me to the consul / ambassador.
I sat down, explained I’m going to Liberia, he said $100, 2 photos and gave me a form which I filled onsite. I only had one $100 bill with me and he didn’t like it: it was from 2006. As far as I know USA never made any of its bills invalid, yet noone ever likes the old bills. I only had smaller bills on me in case the visa is more than $100. He took them without blinking. He said I can collect the visa on Wednesday, in two days. I asked if it may be possibly maybe done in a day – he said it’s normally five working days. Ha! But he agreed when I asked nicely again. He said I could collect the visa anytime after 10am, which really means the visa will be done the same day. But the papers must lie down to gain importance.
Next: Nigerian Embassy, or strictly speaking: Nigerian High Commission. I’m welcome by a tiny “Garden managed by Nigerian High Commission” on the street corner, then a high wall with barbed wire with a “Keep off Nigerian High Commission” sign and then the guarded entry. Consular affair are open from 10am, it’s 9:40, come back and no, you can’t take a photo of the entry.
I walked around trying to maybe find something to eat and maybe there would be a café, after all I’m in a posh embassy and villa district? Nah, but there is a supermarket. I drink my water sitting on the edge of the managed garden, I see another white man waiting for the embassy and then I see a German-registered land cruiser pulling up. Two people come out and enter the embassy, the other man – he was Lebanese – following them, so I go too.
We all sign for entry two times, at the gate and inside a big green and white building. A man comes up to meet us and tell us about the visas.
First the Germans. They get a quote for the visa: $174 paid to the bank account of the embassy and 500,000LE ($58/€51/220zł) for a single visa. Each. Waiting time is normally 12 working days (!!) but is seven days good by them? The couple try protesting but they didn’t get much else and they leave. Then the Lebanese man tries getting a better processing time, saying he flies out on Monday. The embassy man sighs and says maybe possibly visa will be ready by Friday. Later on I met the Lebanese in the bank and he told me his visa was $148 + 500k. My turn. I try to attach myself to the Lebanese terms of visa delivery and ask about fast processing time and the embassy man says yeah I can get it on Friday of I bring the passport on Tuesday before noon. He has a paper with a list of countries and visa fees for each country. Poland is $100 for single visa, no other type of visa (multiple entries or work permit) available here. Of course I must also bring the 500kLE. He points the price to me without even saying out loud the price. He also hands us out visa application forms: 6 long pages and list of requirements: 2 photos, flight itinerary, Sierra Leone residence permit, invitation to Nigeria, bank statement. I ask about the invitation, he says it has to be typed and accompanied by photocopy of passport of the person who invites me. I ask about the permit and tell him straight I don’t have one. He asked when I entered Sierra Leone. I say “yesterday.”. He sighs and says it’s up to the visa officer to decide. But I have to pay $160 beforehand! I ask how long the visa will be valid. He says they will give me 3 months. Fine.
The iOverlander notes on this embassy don’t mention the invitation, the long waiting time (in fact in January people wrote they got visa the next day), they all say they provided flight bookings and hotel bookings. And now I’m asked for invitation. What we used to pay in Poland in the Nigerian Embassy for multiple 6-month-valid visa used to be $102 paid online + 250zł in cash. So not much difference except here it’s a single visa and they ask for an invitation.
I decided to use some of the friendships I made in Nigeria. I call up Amyn Bawa-Allah, a daughter of Mimy, a lady I used to work with in Nigeria. She works in a TV so she should have access to printers and scanners and she also is an avid book-reader (follow here on IG for the latest on not only Nigerian books @lipglossmafia and Somethingbookish) so she should have no problems writing up an invitation.
I call her, she agrees to write the invitation for me.
I go back to my guesthouse, have a palm wine stew with rice (tasty, no palm wine though) and call the SLARI guesthouse if they have space. They do. I almost run down there immediately so that noone takes my space. It’s 100,000le, it’s in a quiet neighbourhood, off the main road, my room is vast, the electricity is mainly on, same with water. I take it.
I did my flight booking using esky.pl. Problem with most of the online flight booking is you must pay immediately. On Polish version of eSky they allow you to pay by bank transfer and you have until end of the day to do so. Good enough to print out the booking. I did two flights: Freetown – Lagos 1 May, Lagos – Krakow 20 May, just for the sake of the visa. Then I logged into the American version of eSky so I can print out these flight bookings in English. Yes, they all state in big bold red that “your booking is waiting for payment” but that’s obvious and only underlines the stupidity of flight booking requirement of any visa. I used to know people from a travel agency who’d sell me a flight ticket via SMS but the agency has now closed. One of those people can still issue flight tickets as he says “in the evenings” but I didn’t wanna bother him. The invitation letter used up my pool of favours for this year. Bank statement for the visa – I just edited the dates of the bank statement I had for Ghana visa.
Amyn said the invitation will come the next day before 10am. There is a printer around where I stay in Lumley so I should be fine.
Soon after I left the embassy I got a text from David the cyclist. He got his Nigerian visa in Conakry for… €37!!!! Lucky bastard! He said Japanese passport gets visa for even less. He said he loved Conakry, mainly because of the best djembe players ever. He goes straight to Ivory Coast because of high visa costs for Salone and Liberia.
Lumley is a good area to stay. Very busy junction, traffic of all kinds, the pavements occupied by peddlers of all sorts of stuff so all your needs will be satisfied. It’s close to the Lumley Beach and the embassies.
Afternoon I went to the Lumley Beach. It was almost empty, a stark contrast to the busyness of Sunday. The bars opened but devoid of customers. I took a Guinness or two in two different bars – often it’s not even that cold. After dark Bradt Guide says I should be able to buy roasted fish but I never stay until long enough after dark and the better-looking restaurants have better-looking prices. I need women roasting fish on the street.
I came back to Lumley. Because of traffic I got off earlier than usual and walked to roundabout. The crowd was immense. I saw scotch egg on a display of one of the stalls. I don’t exactly know what scotch egg is made off but it’s hard-boiled egg in a bread crumble shell. I know it mainly from Nigeria and I’m a fan, here it was 5,000le and was rather salty.
I walked to get food at my previous accommodation – Jeska Mac Lodge. It’s cheap and good, food there. When I asked the caretaker of SLARI Guesthouse about restaurant, he said I should ask and they will bring it to me or I should just go “to the junction” and ask. He did however say the guesthouse has drinks, including beer.
On the street walking to Jeska Mac I saw a restaurant “Fine Food. Best and you will forget the rest.” I walked up the spiral staircase. Noone was there. And they had an extensive menu. There was jollof! I first wanted it but when I saw there was barracuda fillet I went for the fillet. 50,000le, not too cheap but I deserve it. There was no beer, the WiFi (miracle that it was even there) didn’t work. The fillet was fried I think, the fried rice was ok, the salad while fresh came with ketchup and mayonnaise.
On the way back I bought water, biskrem and a large can of Guinness. Muhammad reprimanded me for Guinness saying that I should buy from him. Next day I will.
The evening was quiet and warm as only Africans evenings are, there are no mosquitoes in my room, there is electricity and water and I have 3 big buckets and a HUGE barrel of water in the bathroom anyway. Tomorrow visa run continues.
Coming back to Maman 