Transitioning to Stage 3

Transitioning to Stage 3

After a wonderful Camino experience, I made my way from Santiago to Paris where I would catch my flight to Cape Town. I had about a day and a half to take care of a lot of errands before I made my way down to Africa. I needed to pick up the bag I stored at a local travel agency while I was hiking, stock up on a few supplies, and most importantly try and arrange my Mozambique visa for a tour I was taking in November. I wasn’t able to procure one before my trip due to the fact that the visa was only valid for 60 days after it was issued. In the past, you were able to buy one on the border, but due to new regulations this was no longer possible.

My time in Paris was a complete whirlwind. I arrived in the late afternoon and checked into my teeny, tiny hotel room near Notre Dame. The hotel I stayed in is a bit shabby with few amenities, but the location and price are both excellent. Needless to say, I didn’t have WiFi and this made it difficult to figure out exactly where the Mozambique embassy was in Paris. I also needed to print out a visa application form and with the once plentiful internet cafes going the way of the dodo in Paris, getting copies of that form was also going to be a challenge. My first night, I tried to just take some time and enjoy the city. After wearing essentially the same clothes for 6 weeks, the last thing I wanted to be doing was stomping around Paris in my hiking clothes. I made a beeline for Chatelet, a large shopping district in Paris, and bought an inexpensive outfit at H&M. It felt great to be wearing something different – although I may regret those jeggings after I’ve been sitting on a truck for three months and gained back my pre-Camino weight! I ate at a little Mediterranean café I like in the 5^th for dinner and escaped a pop-up shower at a café near my hotel. The first thing I noticed about Paris is how much the restaurant prices have jumped since my last visit. Maybe I was eating in the super touristy places but 4 euros for a cup of tea is outrageous. I missed my Spanish cafes with their cheap eats and plentiful WiFi.

The next day, I was going non-stop from the moment I woke up until I boarded my flight to Johannesburg. Part of my trip payment for Africa was in USD (cash of course) and I didn’t want to carry such a large amount of money with me when I was hiking. So finding a bank and getting several hundred dollars in USD was also on the list. After searching in vain for an internet café, I finally gave up and made my way to the travel agency to pick up my bag. The company is called Blue Marble Travel and they do bike tours all through France. It is owned by an American couple living in Paris. I was so lucky to have met one of the owners that morning, because she helped me find the Mozambique embassy, print the necessary forms, and search for the best place to buy USD. We thought the French post office would give a better rate than some of the change places in the touristy areas and since I needed a lot of cash, finding a place with a good rate was key. She agreed to watch all of my bags while I went to the post office to sort my money.

The post office man was helpful, but not particularly discreet. I kept lowering my voice so he wouldn’t keep shouting that I wanted to change a huge wad of cash to the entire post office audience. Fortunately I got the cash and got out of there without any problems. When I went back to the travel agency, I thanked the woman profusely and gathered up my belongings. One comment she had made about my bag was “It’s quite heavy.” As I was strapping it onto my back, I realized just how heavy the damn thing weighed. My “throw it in a bag” packing system was coming back to haunt me. I now had two bags full of stuff to keep up with for three months in Africa. I had to race back to my hotel, re-pack everything for the flight and then check out before I could start my adventure to the Mozambique Embassy.

Paris Snapshots

Notre Dame de Paris

Mozambique Visa Issues

The Mozambique Embassy was located in the 17^th arrondisement, quite a ways out from the city center. I had a rough idea of where it was, and fortunately it didn’t take me too long to find the office. Unfortunately, they only processed visas until 12p and it was just before 1p when I arrived. I figured I would try anyway and rang the bell. The woman who greeted me was very nice and agreed to help me with my visa. As we were speaking, she realized that I was a US citizen without permanent residency in France. Unfortunately, the embassy could only process visas for French nationals or permanent residents. I asked if I’d be able to get one in South Africa, and she said no (for the same reasons). The assistant consul came over and we all discussed my situation at length. Essentially, they would not be able to issue the visa but they would fax my paperwork to both the US Embassy Mozambique branch as well as the border post. I had been unable to get any sort of help from the US branch of the Embassy, so I was hopeful that maybe this man could get the paperwork sorted. 

At the end of the day, he told me to just go to the border and explain my situation to the agent and they would issue a tourist visa on the border. He seemed positive that this would work, but I was skeptical. There were no guarantees that the random border agent would let me through and if he didn’t then I would be stuck on some African border and subsequently booted from my tour. I emailed the tour company and relayed what the assistant consul had told me. They basically said that the regulations were really strict on the border and I needed to get everything in writing. When I emailed the assistant consul to confirm the process, he first re-iterated what he had said originally and then sent a separate email re-canting all that was said. As it turns out, there was no way to get a visa for me unless I went through the US Embassy and since I am traveling continuously for the next several weeks, I do not have time to be couriering documents back and forth between Africa and the US. The only thing I could do is cancel my tour and lose quite a bit of money in the process. I’m disappointed by the whole situation, but since there is little to be done about it, I just have to suck it up and move forward. I now have several weeks free towards the end of my trip. I have no doubt I will find something to do, but I’m not sure how much time I will have “trip planning” while on the road. It will probably be a fly by the seat of the pants situation.

I spent the rest of my afternoon in Paris visiting my old neighborhood and trying to avoid the shops. I passed by my favorite, saw something cute and subsequently had to go in. I came out with a new dress and a top to add to my already flowing bags. By the end of the day, my feet were tired, my bags were packed, and I was back in my hiking clothes for the long journey down to Cape Town. When I arrived at the airport, it was an absolute mad house. I printed both my boarding pass and luggage tag at the kiosk but it took over AN HOUR to simply drop my bag off at the desk. The system was less than efficient to say the least. I made it to the gate shortly after and was thankful that I had given myself three hours before my flight to make it through the Charles de Gaulle airport insanity. The flight itself was long but uneventful and I was glad to be finally on my way to Africa and starting Stage 3 of my trip!

Cape Town

A long flight, a layover in Johannesburg, and a missed airport transfer later, I found myself in a taxi on my way into Cape Town’s city center. The taxi man had this African music playing and I could see Table Mountain in front of me. After all this time of dreaming about making it down to South Africa, I was finally here. It felt great. I was staying at an upscale backpackers where my tour group was meeting the next day. The place had a lively restaurant and a courtyard full of people hanging out, drinking a few beers and relaxing in the sunshine. I was in a 4 person dorm and instantly met Kristin, a young German girl who had been living in Cape Town for 2-1/2 months doing an internship. She was leaving in a few days and would spend a week back home before finishing her studies in Singapore. She was the kind of person you like instantly –charming, funny, and full of personality. She told me all about Cape Town and recommended that I just do a sightseeing bus tour the next day to get the lay of the land since I would be coming back to the city for a week at the end of my vacation. I usually don’t do the sightseeing bus thing, but after so many hectic days of racing around, doing the hop on/hop off tour at my own pace seemed like a perfect way of spending the day until I met my tour group later that evening.

The other girl who was staying in our room was a fellow world traveler from Scotland named Hannah. She had already spent several weeks in South Africa and was ending this portion of her trip in Cape Town. Hannah had made her way from Jo’burg to Cape Town via the Baz Bus, something I would be doing later in the year, and had lots of advice on where to stay and what places she found most interesting. She decided to do the bus tour as well the next day and I was glad to have some company. After a low key evening, we all woke up early and enjoyed a really nice breakfast on the patio before starting our day. Hannah and I decided to stop at Cape Town’s botanical gardens first which were noted to be very beautiful and difficult to get to apart from the tourist bus. As promised, the gardens were very pretty and had Table Mountain as a stunning backdrop. We roamed the gardens for a couple of hours taking pictures and enjoying the sunshine. We next stopped at Hout Bay, a pretty cove with a small port filled with fishing boats. Afterwards, we cruised along the coast and enjoyed the gorgeous scenery. Cape Town is beautiful. It reminds me of Sydney in a way, a lively city surrounded by an impressive natural landscape. 

Hannah and I split up afterwards, I decided to stop and lunch at Camps Bay, which was a popular beach area, and Hannah decided to head towards the waterfront further along the route. Camps Bay was full of restaurants and featured a large, white sandy beach that spilled into the Atlantic. I wasn’t exactly in my beach attire so I didn’t spend a whole lot of time at Camps Bay, but it is definitely on my list of places to come back to when I make my way back to Cape Town. The last stop of the day was at the Victoria and Alfred (not Albert) waterfront. Alfred, one of Victoria’s sons had spent a lot of time in Cape Town either diamond exporting or developing the city. I can’t remember the specifics. In any case, the waterfront area had been renovated and modeled after both the Sydney’s waterfront area and San Francisco’s in the past 20 years. Personally, I found it really touristy and a bit like Disney World but it was a nice area full of shops and restaurants. I enjoyed a beer by the water before returning to my backpackers.

Botanical Gardens

Botanical Gardens

Botanical Gardens

Hout Bay

Camps Bay

V&A Waterfront

Cape Town to Vic Falls

I met my Intrepid tour group later that night. We have a wide mix of people from all over the world. Australia, England, Germany, Switzerland, Ireland, New Zealand, Canada and the US are all represented. A few of us went out to dinner in Cape Town and I am happy to report that I have a really nice group of people to travel with over the next few weeks. My tent mate, Lucy, is originally from London but has been living in Abu Dhabi for the past 7 years doing marketing for a large global law firm. She is full of funny stories and is also taking some time off from the working world to travel. There is an older man from Switzerland, Kurt, who brought this huge alpine horn with him (think of the Ricollla commercial). I thought I had trouble packing! The group spent last night at a small farm that is part of a co-op that sells their grapes to different vintners. They produce their own wine so last night we all had a chance to sample some of their different wines before dinner. Once again, we have many long days scheduled on the truck, but fortunately they are spread out over the three weeks so I am hoping that it isn’t too bad. We will cross into Namibia tonight and will be in Swakomund in a few days.

The farm where we stayed

Wine Tasting in the Western Cape

Our camp

I am not sure how often I will have access to the internet (or more importantly, have access to a good internet connection) over the next several weeks so my blog posts may be few and far between. Fortunately since I have been re-united with my laptop I shouldn't run into the same issues where the text is cut off, the pictures are all wonky and haphazardly dumped into the posts, etc. Hopefully the posts will be a lot easier to read for those of you who’d like to follow along.