Where to go in West Africa in 2022, right after or still during Covid?
Ghana seems OK. Enough tourist-friendly, though not so easy to reach for a Polish passport, due to the strict and inflexible visa rules.
Polish passport must apply in Berlin and in Berlin only. Reports on iOverlander seem to be saying that now the good people in Ghana Embassy in Abidjan are giving out the visas to the overland travellers but still – Berlin is easier to reach than Abidjan. Shame the fabled e-visa is nowhere in sight. Really Ghana, shame.
So I decided Ghana it is. I also decided to splurge, and pay 360EUR for a one-year multiple entry visa. Hell, I might have enough time, and maybe money, too, to go there more often? See the North? Come back to the hills of Togo borderlands? Ah.
But first the application. It’s online and easy to fill and I still had to book 2 separate hotels to put them into the application. In the spirit of making it all as smooth as possible, I splurged further, on a next-day-delivery to Berlin with DHL Express (45EUR from Krakow). And it was going smoothly. I still had to wait “10 working days” for the visa processing. Just don’t think the 360EUR covers express service.
A couple of days later while checking my application status I got an error: can’t find my email, can’t find my application id.
Another couple of days later the system still can’t find my email and application id. I made an old-school move and wrote an email to the embassy asking what’s up. Whether it worked or not, a day or two later they did call me and said that while my papers are in order, they have a problem with my online application and they ask me to fill it out again and they’ll match it with my passport.
The online application looked something different now: I had to provide more papers, including proof of covid vaccination. I had to again book a flight without paying for it (esky.pl is good for it), hotels again etc.
Good enough, visa has been granted. However, under the collection date there were just mutliple question marks. This time I called. I was told to call again before collecting the passport so that they have it ready for me but I can come anyday the embassy is open (i.e. not on a Friday).
As I don’t really know how to get the passport back using a courier service – and I remember a story of a friend of mine, to whom the Embassy of Sudan sent back her passport using standard unregistered mail – I was ready to go and collect the passport myself.
I went to Berlin by train. I also decided, since I have never really stayed in the city, to stay there for a few days. First-timer, I don’t really see the appeal of the city, it does look like a slightly better-maintained Warsaw.
A friend of mine warned me I should expect crowds in the embassy. The embassy building has grown, there is a now a proper looking document collection room, I was there on Thursday just after opening.
And I got my visa, but when I looked at it, something didn’t look right.
How many entries do you see? Well, I saw one. And my application clearly said multiple visa is ready for collection.
I asked the woman who gave out my passport. She looked at it and without blinking said it’s a multiple visa.
Fine. I left the embassy a bit disoriented. Walked towards Alexanderplatz and somewhere there – while testing out a double espresso (still a good sport) – my good Nigerian spirit Amyn chatted me up about Nigerian visa. She agreed to give me invitation to Nigeria when I was gonna apply for it. At that time I had no time plan to travel to West Africa, the Ghana visa was a bit of I can block my passport for 3 weeks for the visa now so let’s do it kind of thing.
And I did show my multiple visa and Amyn saw only a single journey in it. So at 2pm I sat on a tram and went back to the embassy to ask again, what they really gave to me.
I reached the embassy not too long before they closed fot the weekend. This time the document collection room indeed was full with people and the woman in the counter – the same one who gave the passport to me in the morning – was just shouting to all the white people that sorry their visas would be ready on Tuesday only (so much for same day/express service) and asking the other white people for what else they came to the embassy.
I came to the counter and asked the same woman again, this time pointing to the fact that the word multiple is actually crossed out. The woman was adamant: this is a multiple visa, it’s valid for one year, no other type of visa is given for a year but multiple visa. No I won’t have any problems at the border don’t worry. Yeah, she did sound convincing. Amyn agreed that the embassy woman knew what she was talking about. I guess I will find out at the border, hopefully at an airport although who knows. I did have no travel plans yet, next in line was Nigerian visa, if anything, and the easiest plan is to do an Accra to Lagos classic. Small small, we will get there.
My you really have to want to see Africa thought has been reinforced later when I met up with Kaleef in Berlin. Kaleef is Nigerian and when he heard about my visa travails he just laughed. But Bartek, why do you want to go to Accra? What will you do in Lagos? What’s there in Abidjan?
Right, what is there?
Coming back to Maman 