Crossing the Chari river-Ndjamena-capital of Chad
Trip Start
Oct 12, 2008
1
7
10
Trip End
Dec 21, 2008
N'Djamena, Chad
Saturday, November 29, 2008
with the Cameroon immigration police, I arrive at the Chadian border post, and here it is African bureaucrazy at its best, stamps, registration with the security department, and 2000 CFA, around 3 euros, under the table money! N'djamena is not really prepared for backpackers, and to find a reasonably priced accomodation is really time consuming, since
most of the foreigners here are expats working for the UN or other international organizations, or NGO's sponsored by foreign governments, the few hotels in town charge
ridiculously high prices.About the place I stayed, Lonely Planet writes: "there is no power or water during the day, and the frequent comings and goings are a tad suggestive,but the location, right next to the market, is unbeatable!"It is Hirondelle hotel, a run down establishment where no major investment was made for the past 10 years!The rooms are lousy, no aircon,no cabinet, no mirror, some even have no windows.A no frill place.But the cheapest option in N'djamena.Luxury hotels with nice swimming pools (day tickets available for 15 euros) are the "Méridien", the "Novotel", and the "Kempinski Libya", financed by Chad's influential northern neighbour. The meeting place of the expats here is simply called "Bistro de N'djamena, well stocked with French wine bottles and goose liver paté.
My next trip is with Toumai Air Tschad airline to Bangui, in the Central African Republic.
But the plane is 7 hours late as they are not using their own aircrafts, but lease them from "Nasair", registered in Eritrea, with russian/kyrgisian pilots/flight attendants,quite an exotic combination. Another suprise to me, was the suddent arrival of a Swiss plane on the tarmac
of N'djamena's airport, it was an ambulance aircraft of "Rega" that they use for medical emergencies and evacuations.
