Our room with no electricity or running water
Today was LONG. It was an early start so we could get to the Nigerien consulate before they close at 3. It didn’t matter about waking up early, nobody slept well anyhow. Our swanky hotel had no electricity or running water and it was boiling hot during the night. Instead of negotiating for lesser prices I had to negotiate to get two buckets filled with water per room rather than one bucket per room. The cold water from the bucked came in handy later on to cool off.
The road was excellent to Kano; we were flying at 100 to 120 kph. Kano was exactly as we all imagined Nigeria to be; hectic, dirty, and packed with people. We arrived just in time to make it to the Nigerien consulate. They took us right away to fill out our papers. It is the same story in each embassy we have been to. They began a policy to charge US citizens reciprocal rates as they US charges African citizens. The visa for Niger cost us 250 USD per person. We won’t even be able to enter into the most beautiful parts of the country because the military took it over. We will still need to get visas for Burkina Faso, Mali, and Mauritania. Luckily for Senegal and Morocco we don’t need visas. We don’t have many more to get, the cost is just such a shock.
The hotel is past its glory days in Maiduguri
After we handed in our passports and applications, we went over to the Christian district to get some food; the only place to have food out since it is Ramadan. Ate some more gloopy fufu and spicy stews. The woman did not charge us for the food, only for the drinks.
After driving across town to get to the tourist camp, we came across and official gas station….WITH DIESEL! We used all of the money we had on us to get what we could. Luckily the tourist camp has a money changer on site and we got there just in time to change money before they closed so we can pay for our exorbitantly prices visas since we cannot pay in USD. At least the campsite is a bargain, only 350 naira, about $2 a person. Tonight we will celebrate our success at a nice Indian restaurant. It seems that we will leave for Niger on Friday.
