Crossing Borders – Jordan to Israel

I have done a few tricky border crossings, but the anarchy that awaits me on this one must rate right up there.

I take the Service Taxi from Sports City (JD5) for the 50 minute ride up to King Hussein Bridge. All well and good. However there are no signs other than Arabic ones as i wonder round aimlessly trying to find the “Foreign” immigration office.

After 10 minutes i find a cramped office with some 80 odd GAP students from a diverse background (predominantly American, Chinese, Spanish and French) with three people working the counters. It’s complete mayhem. After half an hour one of the three officials come out from behind the glass counter and demands everyone sit down. I take this opportunity to shoulder my way in to the Departure tax counter where a lackadaisical woman official issues me with two stamps for JD8. I then find myself in the front of the Immigration Officer to collect my Departure stamp, but he then refuses to return my passport to me. He tells me to board a bus outside and the driver will return my passport to me in 10 minutes. I look on dubiously, and reiterate that i am an independent traveller, not a GAP student, but he refuses point blank and orders me onto the bus.

I explain the situation to the bus driver who agrees to take me (it’s forbidden to walk across the bridge anyways) and sells me an official ticket (JD3 per person and JD1,25 per bag) and i wait. And wait and wait. An hour passes by and i’m anxious for the return of my passport. The bus is now full to breaking point, before the Immigration Officer finally comes onto the bus with a few passports. None of which is mine. He asks if everyone now has their passports and three quarters of the passengers respond negatively. He disappears for 10 minutes, returning with a few more passports. The German woman adjacent to me throws a wobbly and i’m sweating like Usain Bolt’s armpits. It finally shows up on the third attempt.

The bus trundles slowly across just to be faced by an absurd amount of people queuing to enter Israel. Many of the GAP students (the American ones) are refused entry and plead desperately in front of me.

I finally get to the front of an attractive young Israeli immigration officer and i’m prepared for trouble.Two pages of my passport are clearly stamped by Sudanese immigration; relationships between the two countries are well dodgy and i am told this is reason enough to refuse entry. However i have two uncles who are Israeli citizens (one of which is a judge) and i have had the foresight to collect their mobile numbers to hand. The officer looks at my variety of African stamps in my passport and asks about my journey. She points to a few visas and asks me what countries they are from. She then points to one of my Sudan stamps and asks which country it is from? “Ethiopia” i immediately respond and she continues her perusal.

When the officer asks the purpose of my visit i am able to play my trump card. “Visiting relatives for Passover” and suddenly she is all excited. “You’re Jewish?” “Absolutely” i lie and suddenly she is all smiles. “Maybe you want to live here? Do you speak Hebrew?”

I deny all knowledge of the language and tell her i have a teaching job waiting for me in August. I am now in a position to ask her not to stamp my passport – an Israeli stamp inside will prohibit me entry into almost all Islamic countries. She wants to know why, so i refer her to my passport and remind her i travel the world.

“No problem Sir” and she gives me a separate piece of paper.

The whole process from the Jordanian immigration to their counterparts on the Israeli side has taken some three and a half hours. My relief at the end is immense.

Border Crossing - Tanzania to Rwanda

It is an early start for me as i make my way from Bukoba to the Rwandan Border.

I got the first daladala from the central bus stand to Karagwe (Tsh.3,500) which departed when full at 6.40am. It managed to squeeze in some 28 passengers on 18 seats reminding me of my Mozambique travels. The journey took 2 hours 20 minutes with only the first hour on sealed road.

Geting off at the Omurushaka terminal i take a big bus onto Benaco (Tsh.7,000) across unsealed roads and dramatic hills spying huge long-horned cattle and a variety of antelope.

Nonetheless the journey is desperately uncomfortable and my stomach does not feel good. After completing this leg in just under five and a half hours, it is already 4pm and i have no desire to cross the border and arrive well into the night in Kigali, so i pit-stop for the night in Benaco in the Silent Night Guesthouse. At Tsh.5,000 its as cheap as chips but you get what you pay for and it is a fairly squalid affair with outside bathrooms reminisent of some of the dodgy toilets found in Tibet. The village is a two street dusty place frequented by drunks.

I'm up early the next morning at 6.20 with no sign of a daladala so i enjoy a quality pillion ride to cover the final 20kms to Rusumo (Tsh.3,000) with a beautiful sunrise over the hills.

The border post opens at 7am and i am third in line, so i am cleared through really quickly with no departure required. Walking across the Rusumo Falls bridge i am stamped into Rwanda within 10 minutes. Totally painless!

There are money changers in "No Man's Land" but don't use them. There is a much better rate of exchange on the Rwandan side.

Express buses depart regularly for Kigali taking just over four hours. The bus driver is just a youngster and fairly incompetent, and we have three near-misses on the journey. The road is excellent and the scenery over Rwanda's "1000 hills" quite beautiful.

Border Crossing and Mbeya

From Kalonga it takes less than an hour and a half to hit the Tanzanian border.

Visas for Tanzania can be purchased at the border, but only US dollars are accepted. Having changed local kwacha for US$50 back in Lilongwe, For this i am granted a three month visa which also allows me to re-enter during these three months from any of Tanzanian's neighbours. Very cool.

From the border i walk 2kms to catch the bus heading to Mbeya - the "capital of the South West". It's a three and a half hour ride in through mountanous lush vegetation. My altometre on my watch gets a reading of 2200 metres - the highest i've been since leaving The Ganj last December.

Arriving into Mbeya i have lost an hour (Tanzania is +3GMT) and it's too late to purchase a rail ticket for Dar Es Salaam. Twice daily buses plough this route taking aome 12 hours, but i take advantage of any alternatives - bus trips have been so frequent, so crowded and so uncomfortable on this road trip. The journey by rail is about 24 hours. Tanzana run two express trains a week and i get the next available train out of here. I opt for 2nd class and costing TSh23800 (1st class Tsh32,400, Superseater TSh21600 and 3rd class TSh19600) leaving 2pm Wednesdays and Saturdays. Delays are not unusual.

Mbeya itself is an unattractive spread out city that serves primarily as a transport hub.After small-town Malawi, Mbeya seems unfriendly and un personable. Finding people who speak evern the most basic English is difficult. I was hoping for an omelette breakfast but it ends up as chapatis and a sprite. I can see the need for a crash course in Swahili if i am going to navigate successfully.

If you have to go through Mbeya you could do far worse than stay at Holiday Hotel. The better rooms are TSh15500 and there is the Metro Cuisine restaurant opposite for food.

Why Mbeya has decided to place their railway staion in a field outside the city is a mystery.

Into Haiti - Port au Prince

my first Haitian sunset - at the border

I have arrived safely in Port au Prince, although since leaving Madrid, everything seems to have been running late.

A sick on-board passenger meant the plane returns from the runway, with the plane eventually arriving more than 2 hours late in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic. My rucksack arrives almost 2 hours later than the plane, and despite promises from the school I am to inspect next month, no-one to meet and greet me.

It´s around 11pm local time so i grab a taxi from outside the airport and show him an address in the Old Part of town. US$4 he says – perfect! I sit in the front seat and go to do up my buckle, but cannot find the catch. As I dig around in the dark I pull out the most enormous revolver I have ever seen. I immediately shun the seat-belt and spend the rest of the hour journey hoping that he has no intention of playing with his toy in the near future for my fingerprints are now all over it. The further we drive the more I become skeptical of the price. Sure enough, when we do arrive the price has multiplied 10 fold. He has got a big revolver and all i have is an electric toothbrush so I count my losses.

I get up at sunrise and chat to the Guest House owner. Betty is an American x-pat who has lived in Santo Domingo for 30 years and runs the Plaza Toledos Bettyes Guest House (prices ranging from US22 - 35) at 163 Isabela Catolica, Zona Colonia.She is very helpful and allows me to leave my “work” clothes for collection by the school and calls me a taxi to take me to the shuttle-bus for Haiti. She insists that I use Caribetours for whilst charging a whopping US$40 it is comfortable and a free lunch is served on board.

It takes almost 5 hours to get to the border, through banana, plantain, and pineapple plantations with occasional bougainvilleas and 3 metre high cacti. Most of the land is parched as it is dry season.

Then we hit the border crossing and all chaos and pandemonium breaks loose. The scene is one of complete mayhem with traffic backed up for almost a mile. Seriously bored I take the opportunity for a smoke, wander and take a few photos. I chat to the Spanish truck driver in front carrying essential medical supplies – he has been stuck for 12 hours!

I get chatting also to a New Yorker, Edison, who arrived in Haiti within 24 hours of the Earthquake striking. He reassures me that the improvements have been enormous and his organization has built 5 temporary hospitals, constructing temporary shelters and just opened an orphanage. He passes me his details and tells me to look him up if I fancy helping out. It might offer an alternative if my skills are not fully utilized by HODR.

a bored truck-driver waiting to cross

backed up traffic

a Dominican soldier on the border

Finally...at the dusty border

It takes us 5 hours to clear the border and customs, by which time it is already dark as we enter into Haiti, so there is not much to see out of the window. A further 1 and a half hours see us enter in Port au Prince and it looks like a cross between a squatter camp and a building site. Again there is scene of mayhem outside the bus terminal and punches are being thrown. I quickly grab my bags and hastily “disappear” into the night.

But to where? I walk around a bit, clearly looking like a lost gringo – not a good idea. I call into a restaurant asking for a hotel and pointed to an auberge. All there is are rubble and squatter tents. It transpires that it had an adjoining hospital which had collapsed whilst a few of the disabled patients and staff that survived are now living in tents outside the remnants. A group of missing limbed guys are playing dominoes outside, and they kindly offer me shelter for the night in one of their tents and I sleep erratically for a few hours.

Again I am up at dawn, find a motocyclet who takes to the Kinam Hotel. It ain´t cheap (US$114 standard deluxe room) but boasts a swimming pool and wi-fi. My new home for the next couple of days. I await news from HODR about their shuttle-bus service to Leogane.

Editor´s Addition: Got to remember to eat. Coffee is good but lacks all the nutrients i need.