Third Full Day In Accra: Three Visas In One Swoop

Day 3. My mission is to get the Visa Touristique Entente. I headed out to find a place where I could have a coffee and a pastry and fill out my forms. Le Petit Paris was my destination, but I couldn't find it. So back to Osu which is close to the Togolese embassy. I ate at Frankie's. Frankie's is a local place popular with the foreigners and richer Ghanaians. I had a couple of donuts, a coffee, and an orange juice. They had CNN and AC, too. But it is definitely on the pricey side. I keep buying expensive food and translating the cost into meat pies. You can get 2 meat pies for GH¢1.

The guy at the Togolese embassy had told me to come at about 9:30 so I headed up to get there at 9:30. The guard guy let me in but I still wasn't being required to sign in. Just to walk right in though the guard guy accompanied me to the window. I, of course, knew why--later he'd most likely hit me up for a little money. I handed my passport, forms, 2 pictures (I panicked because they were wedged in my Lonely Planet instead of my money belt where my passport goes) to the officer at the Reception window. The officer glued the pictures to the forms. Then he got a numbered plastic tag and wrapped it around my passport while giving me a matching number. At that he took the CFA 30000 (US$60). Interesting. Ghana's Bamako embassy gave me a receipt. So far only Ghana and Togo had embassies that give me something to prove that they have my passport. The man told me to come at 2pm.

So now I had some time. I went to an internet cafe in Osu and surfed for 2 hours. Then time to check out Frankie's at lunch. They had Sky News instead of CNN this time. Yuck. For a while they had a Sky News/Fox Business News segment but I was severely distracted by the extremely annoying logos of Sky News and Fox Business News spinning around and wobbling and what-not. I had a GH¢5.80 hot dog. You'd think for that rice it would be a big sausage, but it wasn't. I stayed until about 1:20. Then I went to another expat place--the Koala market. It's a grocery store with imported goods. I got some peanut butter after determining that groundnut paste is, in fact, the same thing as peanut butter. Also a pack of Starburst.

Then it was about time to head back to the Togolese embassy. I went in at 2 and got my passport. Yay! The guard guy met me on the way out and rubbed his fingers together. Just as I suspected. I slipped him a Cedi.

Mission accomplished, I headed to Ryan's Irish Pub. For the first time I didn't get lost trying to find it. When I walked in there was a baseball game on. Near the beginning. I asked if it was live. A guy at a table said it was last night. I told him not to tell me how it turns out. He asked if I wanted to make a bet on the result. ;-)

Here is how much I follow baseball. Not only did I not know that the Phillies were in the World Series, but I didn't even know that there exists a team called the Tampa Bay Rays. It was the first I ever heard of them. I didn't really have a dog in the fight so I applied rule #1 when I don't care--when a Union state team plays a Confederate state team, root for the Union state team. I don't know who does the counter for number of outs and ball/strike count, but whoever it was must have been chatting with his girlfriend or something. It was just annoyingly inaccurate. It isn't the one Fox does in the United States--but a non-network generic "World Series" score and count for overseas broadcasts.

The game pretty much took me to happy hour which mercifully lasts from 5 to 9 on Thursdays. I paid GH¢7 for 2 beers and a water during the game and GH¢6.50 for 4 beers during happy hour. Much cheaper. I met a nice British woman who drive from London to Accra with her husband 5 years ago and now works in the British High Commission. I asked her about taxi prices. She said that the drivers pretty much all add an obruni premium and you have no choice to absorb it. I also met an Irish guy who is here on a UN project. We talked about Ireland and other places he has lived and worked. Pretty interesting. Finally at about 9:30 I hailed a cab and went to the 24 hour Busy Internet cafe. He charged me GH¢3 after a threat to walk away. I surfed until after midnight there. Not many people there after midnight. There were more in Conakry's cafe late at night. Of course, the MouNa is right in downtown Conakry and this is on Central Ring Road. Then I got a taxi home for only GH¢2.50.

Friday, October 24, 2008 7:22 Ghana local time