Or, not quite. I am now lying in bed in my room, inside a beautiful house I’ve booked on Airbnb, recovering from a cold I caught a few days ago. I think it was because of changing environments; the temperatures are quite high here (~32C and no rain) compared to Dublin (4C and lots of rain and wind).

Anyway, this gives me plenty of time to take care of some administrative things I have postponed, like better route planning, sorting out visas and such.

Visa for Namibia

Applying for the visa for Namibia was easy, as I prepared (almost) all the papers and filled the form beforehand. It was harder finding the exact location of the consulate, which is located on floor 25 of a central building, with one of the best views across Cape Town:

I was missing the proof of a hotel reservation and even though I explained the camping situation to the lady behind the counter, she sent me to book something at a Namibian agency conveniently located on the same floor. I chose the Ai Ais campsite for one night (around 15EUR), as I will be visiting the Fish River canyon anyway. I went back to the counter with all the documents, submitted them together with 80ZAR, was given a receipt and was told to come back on Monday (February 12) to come back for the passport.

South Africa visa fuckup

The visa for South Africa states that it can be used “on or before 27/02/2018”, with the conditions “to hold onward/return ticket to be admitted for holiday purposes only”. After some research, I had reached the conclusion that they were going to specify the exact period I was allowed to stay in South Africa during the immigrations check at the airport. Unfortunately, they only stamped my passport with “ENTRY 06 FEB 2018”, which had no indication of any other date or time frame. I wanted to get this off my mind, so I went to VFS Global, which handles visa requests and visa extensions and which was close to the consulate of Namibia. I was explained that the people at the airport should have specified the period and that I should go back there to check with them. Of course, I left my passport at the Namibian consulate, so after getting to the airport and wainting there for about two hours, I was sent away and told to come back with my passport. Thinking about this for a few days, I decided not to go forward with this and just risk it. I am pretty sure they gave me the visa for three months, because the return ticket I presented and that they checked was for March.

Third dose of the rabies vaccine

Due to the fact that I postponed vaccination until a few weeks before my departure, it meant that I had to take the first dose of rabies vaccine in Dublin, the second one in Sao Miguel (Azores), the third one being due next Tuesday here, in Cape Town. I booked an appointment with a local travel clinic next Tuesday and hopefully, I will be done with all this. I’ll probably also go for vaccination against Ebola and meningitis, as recommended by the doctor in Dublin.

All in all, I now have all the time in the world, but I can’t really do anything with it because of this cold. I hope that it will pass and I hope that there won’t be any delays with the motorcycle being shipped, which is due on February 24. I now realize that is a Saturday. Do port employees work on Saturdays? I guess I’ll have to wait and find out.