today is a special day for me. i have been entrusted with the task of typing the blog as we now have english keyboards and it is not painfully slow. i shall be employing a different style to anneliese, one that shuns capital letters and many other forms of punctuation. we are in the gambia engaged in a long process of arranging a visa and flight to sierra leone. the visa is being processed at the reasonable expense of $100 each. our flights will be paid for tomorrow because the bank withdrawal limits are tiny and credit cards are not accepted, so we need to save up. if you bank in the gambia you are allowed to take out enough money each day to buy a small bag of peanuts. peanuts are big business here, we met an ex-new york cop now making a living trading peanuts. it took all of yesterday to try and sort out these things because there was no internet available in the whole of the capital city so we had to travel to a nearby town. the capital city is only 35,000 people. on arrival at the nearest town it began raining heavily and it didn't stop for three hours. we did a lot of walking arround looking like drowned rats and trying to cross roads that had become foot-deep swamps.
we have decided to fly to sierra leone becase it looks difficult to cross guinea due to travel and border restrictions because of the upcoming elections. we have also decided not to travel to guinea-bissau after the guide book informed us to expect to pay a miminum of 60 euros a night for a hotel and a lot more for one that is nice. the main attraction in guinea-bissau is the archipelago, amazing beaches, seas, wildlife... again, the guide book informs us, we would need to pay a transfer fee by boat between each island of around 400 euros. finally, the guide book helpfully proclaims that there are no ATMs in the country so you would need to bring enough euros with you to pay for everything and you can only change these in the capital city, which would mean investiving in a suitcase just to carry the ridiculous amounts of local currency we would need around with us. maybe we will return one day after robbing a bank.
lots of love from Ross and Anneliese.
Hello. I like countries that start with the word The, it makes them sound more important somehow. Perhaps we should be The Great Britain.
ReplyDeleteIt is cold in The London.
Hello, if you are going to Liberia my brother may well be working there in Monrovia in case thats any use.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, nice blog.
Rishi.
I'm with Olly. Every country should be prefaced with the word 'The' from now on. By Olly's logic, I think I might start calling myself The Tristan. But I think that makes me sounds like an exoctic rodent rather than an important person.
ReplyDeleteHey, Ross, isn't it your birthday in a week or so? Where do we send presents!?