Sometimes it pays to be unprepared
Trip Start
Sep 17, 2007
1
248
272
Trip End
Oct 08, 2008
Chipoka,
Zambia
Friday, August 29, 2008
Erin had made to go online to check that the visa was obtainable at the border the day before (Not the cost of the visa, mind, but whether we could get it at the border). But I had reassured her that I knew what I was talking about. And besides, when had my research been wrong before? She didn't look, and right as we were leaving I had a funny feeling that I was going to end up eating my words...
We took a minibus to the town of Mchinji, then a shared taxi for the last stretch to the border. We had something like $100 US dollars in Malawi Kwacha, which we were planning on exchanging, plus our dollars. We got stamped out of Malawi, walked over to the Zambian side, and went inside the little office. We asked for a visa application. He said there wasn't one. All we needed to do was give him $135 US dollars and he would give us a visa. That was $135 US dollars EACH, by the way.
We both looked at him in shock for a full 20 seconds. At first it was because of the cost. Then it dawned on us that we simply weren't carrying enough money on us period. We only had $200 and we needed $270. And how the hell had the visa price gone from $25 US dollars to $135? We had never paid more than $100 for a visa, and that was for reciprocal visa counties like Brazil, China, and (apparently) Tanzania. This was just ridiculous. The other problem was, even if we had enough money to pay for the visa, there was the chance that we could get stuck on the other side. It was a full day's drive to Lusaka, and the town we were heading to, Chipata, had one dubious ATM. This was a slight problem.
The guy who had broken this bad news was pretty nice. I think this happened quite a lot actually. He didn't want us to get stuck across the border either. After the fact that we were, yet again, being screwed with a huge visa cost sunk in, I went to the forex booth to change my kwacha into dollars for the visa. THEY DIDN'T CHANGE MALAWI KWACHA. Tell me, what is the use of an exchange that doesn't change money from the country on one side of it?
I went to the guy and showed him that we had $200 in US and some Malawi Kwacha. Most other countries would have refused to take anything but US dollars. In fact, most other countries would have sent us back to Malawi. But this guy took $100 of my dollars, about $20 worth of kwacha, and gave us both visas.
I stared at him, speechless, and then thanked him wholeheartedly and left the office before he changed his mind. We had got into Zambia with a two-for-one special.
When we were processing the news, Erin had said, "I hate Africa." It was true that we looked back longingly to our cheap, friendly, safe, and easy days in Southeast Asia. But after it all she had to take it back. "Okay, maybe I don't hate Africa. I love it and hate it at the same time."
We later saw the announcement about the change of visa prices. Our visa was three years multiple entry (there aren't any other options, which pretty annoying when you are planning on spending five days). The British had it much worse. A multiple entry visa costs 240 POUNDS. I'm pretty sure Zambia isn't worth paying $480 to get into. The prices within the country are out of control as well. Zambia better be careful or people are going to start risking Zimbabwe to save some money.
~Travis
