The past few days have been one set-back followed by another trying to get our visas to go to Burkina Faso and then on to Mali. We first found out that the Mali visa is now $100 if bought at the embassy (although the guidbook said it should only be $40) and maybe less ifbought at the border. So we figured we would buy bus tickets to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso and figure things out as we go. Yesterday we went to the Burkina Faso embassy to get the visas (which were also supposed to cost only $40) to find that the price of these had also been raised recently and that the visa's would now cost us $100 a piece. Well, neither of us has that sort of money and we remembered hearing that a friend of ours from the dorms bought a single entry master visa (one valid for five countries: Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Benin, Togo, and Niger) for only $60 at the Togo embassy. So, to make a long story (involving Jordan searching for hours in the mid-day sun for a place to get CFA Francs and us waiting impatiently at the embassy) short, we ended up buying master visas which will get us into the aforementioned five different countries in West Africa. Then we started thinking, we have visa's to all of these different places, why pay an extra $40 (probably actually $100) to get a visa into Mali when we could visit these other countries for no extra cost?? So Mali's out. No going to Timbuktu. And I probably won't be seeing the Sahara. Which is all sad news... but we will be traveling on from Ouagadougou to Niger, Benin, and Togo before coming back to Accra, which will be pretty sweet. And there's cause for celebration over our victory yesterday: we finally, after hours of trial and error and money wasted on taxis, got visa's to travel! Life is looking up.
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