Making plans in Africa...
There is only thing that is really important when making plans in Africa, and that’s flexibility. This week we were supposed to be in Cameroun, where I have numerous childhood memories, which I want to revisit. Unfortunately, and for reasons that have mostly to do with post-colonial heritage (English v. French), Cameroun has no representation in Ghana, and as a result there is no direct flight from Ghana to Cameroun. So, what people like us have to do is, get a visa for La Cote d’Ivoire and fly to Abidjan to go to the embassy of Cameroun, where allegedly visas can be obtained within a day - it takes 3 days in Lagos, before catching one the 3 weekly flights from Abidjan to Douala. Aside from the bureaucratic nigthtmare, this process adds up to a considerable amount of money (well over $1000 per person for the flights alone). Hence we decided it would be a lot easier, and certainly not more expensive, to arrange the trip to Cameroun when we will be in Afrique francophone, which left us with an extra week to fill.
With Jer away in France on business, no car at our disposal (we are still trying to buy one), and the power supply in Accra getting more and more erratic, spending the week in Ghana was not an option. So when we found the fare to Johannesburg was just over half that to Douala, our minds were quickly made up and within a couple of days we were on board the South African Airways flight number 53 to JNB.
Wherever we say we’d go,
that’s where we are not !
Monday, 19 February 2007
