Sudan Baby!
Cairo, Egypt
Yesterday I went down to the Sudanese consulate in Cairo to investigate the possibility of getting a visa for Sudan. It's hard to get any concrete information either in books or on the web as to what it takes to get a Sudanese visa. Some places say you can't get one. Others say it takes several weeks, while still others say it's actually quite easy. In fact, in Dahab, I met a "tour guide" who was adamant that there was no way I could get one. One thing you learn while traveling is to always view any information you're given with a little skepticism. I figured that someone is getting visas for Sudan and I wanted to figure out if I could be one of them. If not, then I'd have to take a plane from Cairo to either Kenya or Tanzania, neither of which is a cheap destination and lets face it, going from Barcelona to Cape Town overland is just so much cooler then having to add in "oh, but I flew over Sudan and Ethiopia". It's like winning the silver medal in anything. All everyone wants to ask you is how come you didn't win the gold.
So, Monday morning I headed out of the hostel with a rather vague "birds-eye-view" map of Cairo in search of the Sudanese Consulate (or Embassy I'm not quite sure the difference nor do I know which one Sudan has in Cairo...) Turns out, many of the embassies are in a part of town called "Garden City", which happens to be within walking distance of the hostel.
You know you've reached Garden City because a) There are trees and the streets are very residential like, and b) There's enough police force and barricades present to make you wonder if you're even allowed in the neighborhood. Turns out you are, and you just walk past the security without anyone questioning you. I guess it's more for the cars, though plenty of cars seemed to be streaming in and out so really, I'm not sure what all the show of force is for. (But that goes for all of Cairo, I've never seem so many policemen with machine guns posted outside buildings. Frankly, they look so bored, tired and probably severely underpaid that I really question in "security" that they might provide, but that blog update is for another time, back to the Sudanese visa...)
So I turn off the main street into Garden City and immediately you notice one rather hilarious thing. In front of each building, there is a little guard house that is painted in the flag of the country for the given embassy. The guard houses look like something straight from the front of Buckingham Palace in London, though here they have Egyptian police standing around with machine guns instead of those guys in the red coats with the huge black hats that don't smile.
One thing that quickly dawns on me is that I don't know what the Sudanese flag looks like. Since the writing on all the buildings is in Arabic, I'm left to ask a local policeman where the Sudanese embassy is. Two things of irony here to point out 1) I end up asking the guard posted outside the Canadian embassy and 2) It turns out that the Sudanese embassy is literally across the street. Maybe that should be the first criteria for anyone wanting to travel to Sudan... Can you recognize the flag? Of course, the Canadian guard told me to go around the building, which only led me to a Sudanese guard who sent me back around to the "front", which happened to be right were I entered Garden City and just 20m down from the Canadian embassy... Gotta love chance...
The Sudanese embassy doesn't have much going for it. There's no security check, no "check-in", not much of anything really. You duck your head and step into a "lobby" that is floor to ceiling covered with that "salt and pepper" marble that is so common in office buildings. There's a beat up desk in the corner, and a small little kitchen/cafe in the other corner. Around the perimeter there is a wide ledge to sit on. Honestly, I think the cafe was doing more business then the embassy.
After waiting almost an hour (I had no idea the business hours so just arrived at 9am) someone arrived and sat at the desk. He immediately handed me a "Visa Application" form and told me to fill it out. No questions. Basic form, but of course I couldn't fill out one third of it. ("Sponsor in Sudan?" "Blood Type?" "Religion?", etc...) I handed the form back to me but instead he told me to go get a photocopy of it. Turns out the photocopies in the cafe/lobby don't work, so he motioned me to go outside and find one. So I walked outside (with an older American traveler who was also applying for a visa) and at the street corner some locals pretty much guessed that we needed a photocopier and pointed us in the right direction. (One thing that still amazes me is the number of people that are just standing/sitting around in Middle Eastern countries. I have no idea what these men in Garden City do, maybe they stand on the corner pointing out the direction to the photocopier for every Westerner because they didn't really seem to be attached to any building... Strange.)
With photocopies in hand, it was back to the Sudanese Embassy where I was then asked for my "Letter of Recommendation". I went through this in Istanbul for the Syrian visa and tried to politely ask the guy if I could get away without the letter but he wouldn't have any of it. So, it was off to the Canadian Embassy, which so conveniently is located across the street.
In stark contrast to the Sudanese, the Canadians have a security guy at the door who does a visual check of your bag, you then pass your bag through an x-ray while you walk through a metal detector. The waiting room feels like being at a nice dentist, with leather arm chairs, magazines, carpet, office "mood lighting", etc... After a few minutes, you're told to go through "the door" where you're met with one of those thick windows, low counter, sliding tray for passing documents back and forth kind of cubicle.
Cost for a Letter of Recommendation is 50$CDN and it takes 24 hours, no way around that. So I pay my fee and spend the rest of the day exploring the Pyramids (more on that later).
Tuesday morning, it's back to the Canadian Embassy to pick up my letter, then back to the desk guy at the Sudanese Embassy. He likes what he sees and sends me to the adjoining room which feels like a sort of run down post office. They just have that thin, annoying plastic with the half-circle hole at the bottom for passing documents back. The glass doesn't go to the ceiling and is really just a nuisance when you're trying to talk to someone in a second language. There are maybe a half dozen "windows", none numbered or titled. I just stick my passport and forms through one of the half-moons and amazingly a worker grabs it immediately and starts looking it over...
Of all the people that I thought wouldn't notice a typo, the Sudanese Embassy worker did... The Canadian Embassy had mistyped my passport number in the Letter of Recommendation! Grrr. Can't get the visa with a typo, so it was back across the street to the Canadian Embassy to get the letter fixed.
Here's the part I love... Guess how long it took them to print a new corrected letter... Well, it took about 2 minutes, the length of time for the person behind the glass to presumably pull up the document in Word, correct the typo, print a copy and then stamp it. Why she couldn't have done that the previous day, I do not know... /sigh
Back to the Sudanese, but now it's gotten quite a bit more crowded. Lines don't exist so I just walk up to any open window, miraculously make eye contact with the worker who was helping me earlier and hand him my updated forms. This time he likes what he sees, writes something down on the forms, then tells me to go to "that window" next.
"That window" is the money guy. For those that don't know, it costs 100$US to get a visa for Sudan. Yes, 100$US and I've never heard of someone getting it for less. Even the Egyptians, apparently, pay 100$US. Oh, and it has to be in US currency, not Egyptian pounds. Nothing like withdrawing Egyptian Pounds from a US based bank account, then turning around and exchanging it back to US dollars... /sigh
So you had over the money and it literally goes into a briefcase beside the worker that is just full of loose bills. It is quite literally a briefcase full of cash. One can't stop but wonder which rebel force just received 100$US courtesy of some stubborn Canadian traveler who didn't want to take plane over Sudan. I can promise you the money is not going into furniture at the embassy.
I get a receipt back from the "money guy" who in turn tells me to have a seat and wait for the visa. There's not really any indication of how long it will take, but so long as there were other Sudanese and Egyptians still waiting to get their passports back I was feeling ok. After about two and a half hours of waiting (which was broken up for me by speaking to an American girl who had been waiting over 2 weeks to get a visa and still hasn't received it!) I got my passport back with a nice shiny Sudanese visa in it.
For all the hype and uncertainty around it, minus the Letter of Recommendation issues, getting a Sudanese visa in Cairo for me took 100$US and about three and a half hours of my day.
Yesterday I went down to the Sudanese consulate in Cairo to investigate the possibility of getting a visa for Sudan. It's hard to get any concrete information either in books or on the web as to what it takes to get a Sudanese visa. Some places say you can't get one. Others say it takes several weeks, while still others say it's actually quite easy. In fact, in Dahab, I met a "tour guide" who was adamant that there was no way I could get one. One thing you learn while traveling is to always view any information you're given with a little skepticism. I figured that someone is getting visas for Sudan and I wanted to figure out if I could be one of them. If not, then I'd have to take a plane from Cairo to either Kenya or Tanzania, neither of which is a cheap destination and lets face it, going from Barcelona to Cape Town overland is just so much cooler then having to add in "oh, but I flew over Sudan and Ethiopia". It's like winning the silver medal in anything. All everyone wants to ask you is how come you didn't win the gold.
So, Monday morning I headed out of the hostel with a rather vague "birds-eye-view" map of Cairo in search of the Sudanese Consulate (or Embassy I'm not quite sure the difference nor do I know which one Sudan has in Cairo...) Turns out, many of the embassies are in a part of town called "Garden City", which happens to be within walking distance of the hostel.
You know you've reached Garden City because a) There are trees and the streets are very residential like, and b) There's enough police force and barricades present to make you wonder if you're even allowed in the neighborhood. Turns out you are, and you just walk past the security without anyone questioning you. I guess it's more for the cars, though plenty of cars seemed to be streaming in and out so really, I'm not sure what all the show of force is for. (But that goes for all of Cairo, I've never seem so many policemen with machine guns posted outside buildings. Frankly, they look so bored, tired and probably severely underpaid that I really question in "security" that they might provide, but that blog update is for another time, back to the Sudanese visa...)
So I turn off the main street into Garden City and immediately you notice one rather hilarious thing. In front of each building, there is a little guard house that is painted in the flag of the country for the given embassy. The guard houses look like something straight from the front of Buckingham Palace in London, though here they have Egyptian police standing around with machine guns instead of those guys in the red coats with the huge black hats that don't smile.
One thing that quickly dawns on me is that I don't know what the Sudanese flag looks like. Since the writing on all the buildings is in Arabic, I'm left to ask a local policeman where the Sudanese embassy is. Two things of irony here to point out 1) I end up asking the guard posted outside the Canadian embassy and 2) It turns out that the Sudanese embassy is literally across the street. Maybe that should be the first criteria for anyone wanting to travel to Sudan... Can you recognize the flag? Of course, the Canadian guard told me to go around the building, which only led me to a Sudanese guard who sent me back around to the "front", which happened to be right were I entered Garden City and just 20m down from the Canadian embassy... Gotta love chance...
The Sudanese embassy doesn't have much going for it. There's no security check, no "check-in", not much of anything really. You duck your head and step into a "lobby" that is floor to ceiling covered with that "salt and pepper" marble that is so common in office buildings. There's a beat up desk in the corner, and a small little kitchen/cafe in the other corner. Around the perimeter there is a wide ledge to sit on. Honestly, I think the cafe was doing more business then the embassy.
After waiting almost an hour (I had no idea the business hours so just arrived at 9am) someone arrived and sat at the desk. He immediately handed me a "Visa Application" form and told me to fill it out. No questions. Basic form, but of course I couldn't fill out one third of it. ("Sponsor in Sudan?" "Blood Type?" "Religion?", etc...) I handed the form back to me but instead he told me to go get a photocopy of it. Turns out the photocopies in the cafe/lobby don't work, so he motioned me to go outside and find one. So I walked outside (with an older American traveler who was also applying for a visa) and at the street corner some locals pretty much guessed that we needed a photocopier and pointed us in the right direction. (One thing that still amazes me is the number of people that are just standing/sitting around in Middle Eastern countries. I have no idea what these men in Garden City do, maybe they stand on the corner pointing out the direction to the photocopier for every Westerner because they didn't really seem to be attached to any building... Strange.)
With photocopies in hand, it was back to the Sudanese Embassy where I was then asked for my "Letter of Recommendation". I went through this in Istanbul for the Syrian visa and tried to politely ask the guy if I could get away without the letter but he wouldn't have any of it. So, it was off to the Canadian Embassy, which so conveniently is located across the street.
In stark contrast to the Sudanese, the Canadians have a security guy at the door who does a visual check of your bag, you then pass your bag through an x-ray while you walk through a metal detector. The waiting room feels like being at a nice dentist, with leather arm chairs, magazines, carpet, office "mood lighting", etc... After a few minutes, you're told to go through "the door" where you're met with one of those thick windows, low counter, sliding tray for passing documents back and forth kind of cubicle.
Cost for a Letter of Recommendation is 50$CDN and it takes 24 hours, no way around that. So I pay my fee and spend the rest of the day exploring the Pyramids (more on that later).
Tuesday morning, it's back to the Canadian Embassy to pick up my letter, then back to the desk guy at the Sudanese Embassy. He likes what he sees and sends me to the adjoining room which feels like a sort of run down post office. They just have that thin, annoying plastic with the half-circle hole at the bottom for passing documents back. The glass doesn't go to the ceiling and is really just a nuisance when you're trying to talk to someone in a second language. There are maybe a half dozen "windows", none numbered or titled. I just stick my passport and forms through one of the half-moons and amazingly a worker grabs it immediately and starts looking it over...
Of all the people that I thought wouldn't notice a typo, the Sudanese Embassy worker did... The Canadian Embassy had mistyped my passport number in the Letter of Recommendation! Grrr. Can't get the visa with a typo, so it was back across the street to the Canadian Embassy to get the letter fixed.
Here's the part I love... Guess how long it took them to print a new corrected letter... Well, it took about 2 minutes, the length of time for the person behind the glass to presumably pull up the document in Word, correct the typo, print a copy and then stamp it. Why she couldn't have done that the previous day, I do not know... /sigh
Back to the Sudanese, but now it's gotten quite a bit more crowded. Lines don't exist so I just walk up to any open window, miraculously make eye contact with the worker who was helping me earlier and hand him my updated forms. This time he likes what he sees, writes something down on the forms, then tells me to go to "that window" next.
"That window" is the money guy. For those that don't know, it costs 100$US to get a visa for Sudan. Yes, 100$US and I've never heard of someone getting it for less. Even the Egyptians, apparently, pay 100$US. Oh, and it has to be in US currency, not Egyptian pounds. Nothing like withdrawing Egyptian Pounds from a US based bank account, then turning around and exchanging it back to US dollars... /sigh
So you had over the money and it literally goes into a briefcase beside the worker that is just full of loose bills. It is quite literally a briefcase full of cash. One can't stop but wonder which rebel force just received 100$US courtesy of some stubborn Canadian traveler who didn't want to take plane over Sudan. I can promise you the money is not going into furniture at the embassy.
I get a receipt back from the "money guy" who in turn tells me to have a seat and wait for the visa. There's not really any indication of how long it will take, but so long as there were other Sudanese and Egyptians still waiting to get their passports back I was feeling ok. After about two and a half hours of waiting (which was broken up for me by speaking to an American girl who had been waiting over 2 weeks to get a visa and still hasn't received it!) I got my passport back with a nice shiny Sudanese visa in it.
For all the hype and uncertainty around it, minus the Letter of Recommendation issues, getting a Sudanese visa in Cairo for me took 100$US and about three and a half hours of my day.
Sudanese visa on the right, Jordanian on the left.
With the visa in hand, I'll now spend the next few days exploring Cairo before heading south to Luxor, then to Aswan, then finally down to the border to catch a ferry which supposedly only runs once per week to Sudan. There is no other way to get to Sudan, so you don't want to miss the ferry. (No trains, no buses or land transport).
Once in Sudan, I'll make my way to Khartoum, then east-south towards to Ethiopia, staying will clear of all the "hot zones" that have given Sudan such a bad rap. (Ok, so it's really more like a civil war, but the route from Egypt to Ethiopia is open to travelers and doesn't require an escort... Just don't go to Darfour is what everyone says, so no Darfour for me...)
One can only wonder what travel adventures await me in the coming weeks as I attempt to head from Cairo all the way to Cape Town overland. Many of done this route before me, and in fact for many African travelers it's not all that big a deal, but it still seems like an adventurous journey to have gone from Barcelona all the way to Cape Town overland. Half way there, here's to hoping the next half is as much fun...
Kenny
posted by Kenny Carruthers at 12/29/2005 02:37:00 PM
<< Home