29th April 08

Date: 29th April 08
Location: Yaounde, Cameroon
Weather: Cloudy and humid, 34°c
Status: Resting up and recovering after the climb. Colonel – puncture fixed and treated to a washed bottom.

Visas, visas and more visas is the name of the game during our extended stay in Yaounde. All of the embassies are located here which will hopefully allow us to get all of our visas for the next 3 countries Gabon, Congo and DRC but each have differing requirements on the time it takes to get them, the costs involved and the number of forms/photos/photocopies they need.

After much research and to’ing and fro’ing between them all we worked out that if we played our cards right and used the express service on offer we could have all we needed in our passports by Thursday at the latest. And so the mission started…..

To the Congo Embassy first, collected the forms, filled them in, photocopied and stuck photos on and together with the 70,000CFA each (£87.50!) had our first application in by 9am. After some sweet talking in my pigeon French the lovely Janet decided to allow us to collect our visas the same day for no extra cost, excellent diplomacy!

Next job was to rush from the Congo Embassy to the DRC Embassy before 3 o’clock with our freshly stamped passports in order to make use of the next day service, so same rountine and just managed to get them there by the closing time with 5 minutes to spare.

Stomach was rumbling away that night so had a small dinner and headed to bed early.

End of day location: Yaounde, Cameroon
Distance covered: 10kms