What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been
Jan. 6th, 2006 09:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amalthyaThursday 4:54 pm
Who'd ever think that I'd be in the same bed in Congo twice. But we're here, at the VIP Hotel in Goma, safe and sound, and they put us in Room 25 -- the same room Debby and I stayed in! Quelle surprise!
Last night, our hotel, Travelers Rest, had put on a dance performance, clearly muzungu-money-hoping, but it ended up being wild and fun to watch. Afterwards we sat in front of the fireplace again, although the atmosphere was somewhat diminished with the replacement of Chet Baker for static-y talk radio. Carol and I watched the last two episodes of Lost on my laptop, the two episodes which I'd successfully downloaded from the iTunes Music Store before we'd left Entebbe.
Wow, what a long, strenuous trip we ended up having today. We woke up, leisurely, and had our cabbie meet us at the Travelers Rest where we'd stayed last night. We figured after a long thought process that we'd go through Bunagana, where I'd gone with Debby and Ben before.
The immigration guy on the Ugandan side was the same guy who'd been there before, and when I greeted him in local tongues, he got very strange and, well, I can only describe it as a mesh between Dom DeLouise's characters in Blazing Saddles and History of the World, Part I. He got all, cutesy, and started telling me how beautiful and "smart" I was (the way you call someone well-dressed here) and he's telling me that I should come through the border all the time. You know.. uh, thanks? It's just especially weird when someone is hitting on you by/while being effeminate.
We arrived at the border crossing around 11 am with our very competent cab driver Herbert, only to find that Jungla, the JGI-Goma driver, had not yet arrived.
I felt much more at ease in Bunagana, and even took photos of the border because I'd sort of been there before, and felt safe.
There was something quietly unsettling, though, in that the leisurely soldiers we'd previously seen, ambling around with not a care in the world, were running, looked nervous, and people seemed far more on edge. We went into the office and paid for our visas, and sat and waited. I traveled across to Uganda to call Delphine, and discovered that some cars had been attacked and raided on the very road which we thought we were going to travel. As a result (and this time with merit) Jungla had gone through Rwanda and was looking for us in Kisoro (which is the main town by the border in Uganda and where Travelers Rest is). So, we picked up all our stuff and walked back to Uganda. There were kids just ENCIRCLING us (which there hadn't been last time) and this guy with a switch (ie a long stick/branch) started just flailing them. One small boy, carrying a tray of peanuts, started to cry, and I just felt awful.
I bought some peanuts from him for 2000 Ugandan shillings (which is really far too much, but he was crying and I'm a sucker).
Unfortunately, being a sucker is distinguishable and suddenly, all the kids were surrounding me. This one kid would just NOT leave us alone and was invading our personal space and followed us all the way back into Uganda. I gave him the peanuts I'd bought, but he STILL wouldn't leave us alone, and I seriously wished I had a switch. I ended up just yelling at him and chasing him away.
I'm so evil.
We headed back into the Ugandan border office. See, the trouble is, we'd been stamped OUT of Uganda, thereby invalidating our prior not-yet-expired visas. We'd already PAID for our Congo visas, which, by leaving Congo, were also invalidated. (We'd tried asking for a refund because we were leaving Congo only to go back into Congo, but the border official basically laughed at us). Technically, being in Uganda, we were supposed to pay for a visa for 1-30 days, which is $30. To get back into Congo on the Rwandan side, we'd have to pay another $30. See how it starts to get expensive?
Anyway, so I go in, hoping to use my sway with the Ugandan Dom DeLouise. I go in, and he like, kisses my hand, and I think, if I can sell snow to Eskimos, can I convince this guy to let us into Uganda for an hour for free?
I figure it's a victory when he offers to let us in for a discounted rate -- $20 each instead of $30. It's not what I was hoping for (free!) but it's better than paying $30 each. Saving $20 is good!
I make the mistake of asking him for a receipt, and he starts acting very strange, and claiming that he's going to have to charge us the full rate and I quickly say no no no, we don't need a receipt it's okay, and finally convince him to let us off at $20 each again.
Which is when I realize that I'm not paying a discounted rate ... I'm paying a bribe. ... Dammit.
Anyway, while we're at the Ugandan border office, Jungla finds us, and hurrah! After the last visit where we waited 5 hours for him, I nearly cried, seeing him before noon.
I could SMS Delphine from the Uganda side, so we let her know we were on our way. I realized after even the Congo border patrol rejected my Ugandan shillings, living right there ON the border, that I was going to have trouble if I couldn't convert my shillings to dollars fast. We stopped back in Kisoro, and went to the Stanbic bank to change money. Of course, they only changed dollars to shillings, not the other way around.
Fail.
I called a friend who lived in Kisoro, "Gad" and he let me know that there was "this guy" at Bunagana who'd change my money for me.
Well, no thanks. I've been to Bunagana once today already!!
So, we winged it, and headed towards Cyanika (the border crossing for Uganda-Rwanda). After getting stamped out of Uganda (AGAIN), Jungla found some money-changers for me to exchange my shillings.
Now, I'm sure I wrote about how Jungla is ex-military and very hardcore and how, when we stopped for veggies in the Congo previously, people swarmed him and he just negotiated it with ease. So even though I was standing there, holding approximately $400 in Ugandan shillings, with 5 different money changers (to manage to get enough US Dollars) I felt totally safe. He even got their rate down from 2000 shillings on the dollar to 1900. It's still 50 shillings more than I'd pay at a bank, but *shrug*... At least I was getting dollars.
Carol was a little more nervous, because we were certainly drawing a crowd. I managed to change for 500,000 shillings -- which, at 1900=/dollar is about $263.
Certainly not enough to last me two months here, but definitely better than nothing. Plus, Delphine offered to pay the difference of our border crossings because she felt bad, us having to double-pay everything.
Anyway, I had dollars, and we headed into Rwanda. At every crossing, you have to fill in these little cards stating your name, profession, purpose and passport number. After a day of border crossings, I felt like I'd filled in a hundred of these cards. But at each crossing, they never have a pen so you have to use your own pen. Really, the only pen I could find in my over-stuffed bag was my jangly Lobster Pen.
So, at border after border, I used my Lobster Pen, its claws waggling in the border breeze, to fill out my exit and entry cards. A man at the Rwandan entry point said "Your pen, it scares me." Tee hee.
Thank goodness, that, in our quest to pay the MOST money at borders, Rwanda was not included because, as Americans, we get in for free. Whee!
Rwanda was just as beautiful as I'd remembered, and it made me quite sad that I wasn't visiting MGVP or staying in Ruhengeri or anything. It was actually prettier than last time as we drove to Gisenyi (the Rwandan-Congo border) because it was sunny and sparkling out. (last time it had been gray and overcast)
I took hordes of photos. Everything was glittery, and lush, and green and lovely. Even the clay they'd used to make their houses, high in mineral content, literally glitter like the rocks that geodes hide inside.
The terrain is perfectly green - I always think of it in my head as CGI Hobbiton Green - and the soil is SO fertile, and dark, rich brown. Rwanda is very hilly, so nearly every shot I took included this incredible terracing.
We were slightly late, but planned to meet with Delphine for lunch/dinner when we got to Goma. We stopped to get some pomme de terre (tomatoes potatoes [thanks ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
delirium6969!!) for Jungla while still in Rwanda, and the kids pressed themselves against the window and I took funny photos of them. They got a kick out of seeing the photo in "preview" mode (I held it against the window) and it was nice to make them smile and laugh.
I did recognize the area once we got close to Gisenyi and we got to the border in one piece. It was easy getting stamped out of Rwanda, and we were asked to walk across to the Congo side (only the driver was allowed in the vehicle). They only offered 8-day visas in Goma, so we got 8 day visas and were on our way.
As we pulled into the office, it started to rain. We're back in the VIP Hotel for the time being, and I'll write a separate entry about dinner last night.
It certainly was a long, strange, day. Who else can say they'd been to Congo twice in one day?
Who'd ever think that I'd be in the same bed in Congo twice. But we're here, at the VIP Hotel in Goma, safe and sound, and they put us in Room 25 -- the same room Debby and I stayed in! Quelle surprise!
Last night, our hotel, Travelers Rest, had put on a dance performance, clearly muzungu-money-hoping, but it ended up being wild and fun to watch. Afterwards we sat in front of the fireplace again, although the atmosphere was somewhat diminished with the replacement of Chet Baker for static-y talk radio. Carol and I watched the last two episodes of Lost on my laptop, the two episodes which I'd successfully downloaded from the iTunes Music Store before we'd left Entebbe.
Wow, what a long, strenuous trip we ended up having today. We woke up, leisurely, and had our cabbie meet us at the Travelers Rest where we'd stayed last night. We figured after a long thought process that we'd go through Bunagana, where I'd gone with Debby and Ben before.
The immigration guy on the Ugandan side was the same guy who'd been there before, and when I greeted him in local tongues, he got very strange and, well, I can only describe it as a mesh between Dom DeLouise's characters in Blazing Saddles and History of the World, Part I. He got all, cutesy, and started telling me how beautiful and "smart" I was (the way you call someone well-dressed here) and he's telling me that I should come through the border all the time. You know.. uh, thanks? It's just especially weird when someone is hitting on you by/while being effeminate.
We arrived at the border crossing around 11 am with our very competent cab driver Herbert, only to find that Jungla, the JGI-Goma driver, had not yet arrived.
I felt much more at ease in Bunagana, and even took photos of the border because I'd sort of been there before, and felt safe.
There was something quietly unsettling, though, in that the leisurely soldiers we'd previously seen, ambling around with not a care in the world, were running, looked nervous, and people seemed far more on edge. We went into the office and paid for our visas, and sat and waited. I traveled across to Uganda to call Delphine, and discovered that some cars had been attacked and raided on the very road which we thought we were going to travel. As a result (and this time with merit) Jungla had gone through Rwanda and was looking for us in Kisoro (which is the main town by the border in Uganda and where Travelers Rest is). So, we picked up all our stuff and walked back to Uganda. There were kids just ENCIRCLING us (which there hadn't been last time) and this guy with a switch (ie a long stick/branch) started just flailing them. One small boy, carrying a tray of peanuts, started to cry, and I just felt awful.
I bought some peanuts from him for 2000 Ugandan shillings (which is really far too much, but he was crying and I'm a sucker).
Unfortunately, being a sucker is distinguishable and suddenly, all the kids were surrounding me. This one kid would just NOT leave us alone and was invading our personal space and followed us all the way back into Uganda. I gave him the peanuts I'd bought, but he STILL wouldn't leave us alone, and I seriously wished I had a switch. I ended up just yelling at him and chasing him away.
I'm so evil.
We headed back into the Ugandan border office. See, the trouble is, we'd been stamped OUT of Uganda, thereby invalidating our prior not-yet-expired visas. We'd already PAID for our Congo visas, which, by leaving Congo, were also invalidated. (We'd tried asking for a refund because we were leaving Congo only to go back into Congo, but the border official basically laughed at us). Technically, being in Uganda, we were supposed to pay for a visa for 1-30 days, which is $30. To get back into Congo on the Rwandan side, we'd have to pay another $30. See how it starts to get expensive?
Anyway, so I go in, hoping to use my sway with the Ugandan Dom DeLouise. I go in, and he like, kisses my hand, and I think, if I can sell snow to Eskimos, can I convince this guy to let us into Uganda for an hour for free?
I figure it's a victory when he offers to let us in for a discounted rate -- $20 each instead of $30. It's not what I was hoping for (free!) but it's better than paying $30 each. Saving $20 is good!
I make the mistake of asking him for a receipt, and he starts acting very strange, and claiming that he's going to have to charge us the full rate and I quickly say no no no, we don't need a receipt it's okay, and finally convince him to let us off at $20 each again.
Which is when I realize that I'm not paying a discounted rate ... I'm paying a bribe. ... Dammit.
Anyway, while we're at the Ugandan border office, Jungla finds us, and hurrah! After the last visit where we waited 5 hours for him, I nearly cried, seeing him before noon.
I could SMS Delphine from the Uganda side, so we let her know we were on our way. I realized after even the Congo border patrol rejected my Ugandan shillings, living right there ON the border, that I was going to have trouble if I couldn't convert my shillings to dollars fast. We stopped back in Kisoro, and went to the Stanbic bank to change money. Of course, they only changed dollars to shillings, not the other way around.
Fail.
I called a friend who lived in Kisoro, "Gad" and he let me know that there was "this guy" at Bunagana who'd change my money for me.
Well, no thanks. I've been to Bunagana once today already!!
So, we winged it, and headed towards Cyanika (the border crossing for Uganda-Rwanda). After getting stamped out of Uganda (AGAIN), Jungla found some money-changers for me to exchange my shillings.
Now, I'm sure I wrote about how Jungla is ex-military and very hardcore and how, when we stopped for veggies in the Congo previously, people swarmed him and he just negotiated it with ease. So even though I was standing there, holding approximately $400 in Ugandan shillings, with 5 different money changers (to manage to get enough US Dollars) I felt totally safe. He even got their rate down from 2000 shillings on the dollar to 1900. It's still 50 shillings more than I'd pay at a bank, but *shrug*... At least I was getting dollars.
Carol was a little more nervous, because we were certainly drawing a crowd. I managed to change for 500,000 shillings -- which, at 1900=/dollar is about $263.
Certainly not enough to last me two months here, but definitely better than nothing. Plus, Delphine offered to pay the difference of our border crossings because she felt bad, us having to double-pay everything.
Anyway, I had dollars, and we headed into Rwanda. At every crossing, you have to fill in these little cards stating your name, profession, purpose and passport number. After a day of border crossings, I felt like I'd filled in a hundred of these cards. But at each crossing, they never have a pen so you have to use your own pen. Really, the only pen I could find in my over-stuffed bag was my jangly Lobster Pen.
So, at border after border, I used my Lobster Pen, its claws waggling in the border breeze, to fill out my exit and entry cards. A man at the Rwandan entry point said "Your pen, it scares me." Tee hee.
Thank goodness, that, in our quest to pay the MOST money at borders, Rwanda was not included because, as Americans, we get in for free. Whee!
Rwanda was just as beautiful as I'd remembered, and it made me quite sad that I wasn't visiting MGVP or staying in Ruhengeri or anything. It was actually prettier than last time as we drove to Gisenyi (the Rwandan-Congo border) because it was sunny and sparkling out. (last time it had been gray and overcast)
I took hordes of photos. Everything was glittery, and lush, and green and lovely. Even the clay they'd used to make their houses, high in mineral content, literally glitter like the rocks that geodes hide inside.
The terrain is perfectly green - I always think of it in my head as CGI Hobbiton Green - and the soil is SO fertile, and dark, rich brown. Rwanda is very hilly, so nearly every shot I took included this incredible terracing.
We were slightly late, but planned to meet with Delphine for lunch/dinner when we got to Goma. We stopped to get some pomme de terre (
delirium6969!!) for Jungla while still in Rwanda, and the kids pressed themselves against the window and I took funny photos of them. They got a kick out of seeing the photo in "preview" mode (I held it against the window) and it was nice to make them smile and laugh. I did recognize the area once we got close to Gisenyi and we got to the border in one piece. It was easy getting stamped out of Rwanda, and we were asked to walk across to the Congo side (only the driver was allowed in the vehicle). They only offered 8-day visas in Goma, so we got 8 day visas and were on our way.
As we pulled into the office, it started to rain. We're back in the VIP Hotel for the time being, and I'll write a separate entry about dinner last night.
It certainly was a long, strange, day. Who else can say they'd been to Congo twice in one day?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-01-06 12:49 pm (UTC)Granted I didn't pay *too* much attention in French class, but I'm reasonably sure a pomme de terre is a potato, not a tomato... an "apple of the earth"
no subject
Date: 2006-01-06 12:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-06 12:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-06 12:55 pm (UTC)And I bet you know a lot of Polish by now! Are you already back now, or still in the US, btw?
no subject
Date: 2006-01-06 12:59 pm (UTC)I've tried to catch up as best I could on my FL from the past week, but it's good to hear that you arrived in the Congo safely! Can't wait to see the pictures
no subject
Date: 2006-01-06 01:01 pm (UTC)I'm sorry you're sick :( You never post when you're at home, so sometimes I worry!