Abidjan, Ivory Coast
November 5, 2022
Today we arrived in the Ivory Coast. Our port was the city of Abidjan. We picked up the pilot at about 6 am and were at the port about 7 am. Lots of irony on this stop. The ship had to be first cleared by the Ivory Coast health official. The port had a very foul smell, the water on the cruise in was full of debris (captains language) I called it garbage. The port was a working port but there were broken pallets and other garbage everywhere.
The ship we are on is immaculate. Crew members are constantly cleaning, polishing, painting. It may be 20 years old but it looks brand new. We were approved by the health official about 20 minutes later.
Men supposedly at work.
After the health approval, the official immigration officials and the team of official passport stampers. The problem the stamping team had was that passengers were told they would need to carry their passports with them as they left the ship. The ships crew passed them out the day before. I mistakenly thought that we would have immigration officials stamping our books as we left. We were also told that we would need our “original” vaccination card. No such thing happened. No passports or vaccination cards needed. What a waste of time and energy.
Just another example of how stupid government can be. Different country, different levels of stupidity.
Our goal today was to meet up with a guide we hired through trip advisor. She would meet us at the National Library at 9:15. Pedestrians were not allowed in the port so we hopped on the HAL shuttle. Believe it or not, the HAL passengers were already complaining about something. We were dropped off at the Pullman Hotel at about 8:50. We can walk fast but 1.5 miles in 25 mins was not be doable. I sent our guide a note that we were on our way but would be a few minutes late.
We arrived at the point on our map that said Biblioteque de Nationale de Cote d’Lvoire. There was no guide. I did ask a woman where the Bibliotheque was and she pointed and spoke in slow and loud French. I guess since slow and loud English works for us, other countries are adopting this attitude when speaking to foreigners. The library was 4 blocks further.
We made it to the library. No guide. I sent her a message or two on WhatsApp. I finally called her. “5 minutes” she said. When she arrived, there were 2 other couples in her car. Ship people and we recognized them. They stopped for pastries on the way and that is why they were late. We were already fuming because our guide was 45 minutes late and all aboard was 3:30. I took the guide aside and told her we would do the tour ourselves. One of the ship people was unloading his walker from the car. No way he was going to make it on a walking tour in this city. Broken sidewalks, wide open man holes, drainage ditches wide opened. I told the guide we would request a refund and we left. I sent a refund request and chatted with the tour company. They were very understanding and send us a refund.
Just of sample of the infrastructure in the country. Manholes open everywhere. You must looked at the ground constantly. The exposed drainage ditch. Get out of the car on the right side and you be in a 3 ft deep ditch.
We chose to hike back to the center of town and see what there was to see. We did find a rather hidden market area that was not visible from the street. An article I read about the city did give the location of the market. This was like the bazaars we have seen in many cities with the difference being tourists. There are little to none here. This market served the local population. Terri started to barter with a jeweler and we did convince him to take USD. We wanted to look at more shops and decided we would need local currency. They use Francs here. France uses euros now but a few former colonies still use the Franc.
Fortunately, there was a bank close by with an ATM. After some laughs with the security guard, I was able to get $50,000 Francs.
Back at the market, we stopped into a little stall and had a local beer and wine. The beer was 500 Frances or 80 cents USD, the juice container full of wine may have been a bit more. Very little if any English spoken in this country. We had some great laughs trying to communicate. Both parties always defaulted to Google translate.
We stayed for a bit. A gent approached me with some men’s socks. Quite nice. I bought 5 pair.
On our way back to the shuttle bus we decided to grab some lunch. We went in a nice little cafe and bought a sandwich, a pain au chocolate a croissant, a San Pellegrino and a Perrier. $9 USD. Huge bargain and great food. The pastries were good but still didn’t meet Paris standards.
We ended up back at the Pullman Hotel and had another drink.
We took the shuttle back to the ship We were wringing wet again as it was in the 90s.
It was Orange Night in the dining room to celebrate the founding of Holland America in the 1800s. Lots of silly costumes.
The evening entertainment was another performance of Ch2. New tunes although they did play Billy Jean again. I think it is used to highlight how the rhythm guitarist uses the body of the guitar to produce percussive effects. Another great performance. Look them up.…