More food in Abidjan...

Abidjan has decent sushi.  Who knew?  Kaiten is pretty amazing and since they understand that not every Ivorian is down for raw fish, they even serve hot food (like pasta) to placate the anti-raw among us. All in all, it's expensive and service is slow.  But it was GOOD.

 

 

We also hit a place called Les délices de Suzanne.  This was a tea room kind of place that was lots of fun, laid back and very quiet.  It's best known for its incredible chocolate, but since we didn't have any, I can't really speak to its quality.  The brunch was excellent, though...

 


I was craving Chinese food, so I figured I'd head over to the Wasabi Retaurant in Zone 4.  It had CCTV blasting from a large screen and a couple Chinese people eating, so I figured it couldn't be too bad. Well, it was pretty bad.  I didn't die.  But it was bad. 

It's been awhile / Housing limbo in Abidjan

I have been gone for a bit. Sorry!   In my defense, work got super busy, I moved out of my temporary place, and have been waiting for my wire transfer from a French bank account to pay my deposit on my new place.  Also, our furniture deal seems to have fallen through.

Housing limbo is no fun! Avoid it by coming to Abidjan with enough cash for a deposit or with an Ivorian Bank account.  Some banks (I'm at SGBCI) are allowing folks to open them before they even get here. It may not work for everyone, but it's worth a try.  Had I known things would be this tough, I definitely would have investigated this option before coming.

I am also discovering the joys of trying to get electricity and water in my place...  It seems like the landlord should do it, something the realtor neglected to tell us, so we've been running around for the past couple of days trying to get that done.

I've come to realize that there are lots of resources within my company to help with my move; I've just been quite bad at making the most of them.  I'd seriously suggest you use every tool at your disposal when it comes to coming or settling here.  Abidjan is a place where ignorance can be costly.    

Abidjan vibe

Someone asked me what I thought about Abidjan. Despite my many frustrations with the place, I can't deny that there is an incredible vibe here.  A sense of optimism, a feeling that the war is done for good, and that the best is yet to come. I saw this video and the joy, energy, and hope of the place really shines through.

Weekend getaways: Grand Bassam

I've got lots of great news: I figured out a way to get my pictures uploaded (despite having lost my cable) and it's Friday!!!  I can't wait for the weekend to be here! As promised, I am sharing last weekend's pictures when we went to Bassan and had an amazing time.

Grand Bassam, or Bassam as most people here seem to call it, is a beach town located about an hour outside of Abidjan.  Bassam has some lovely colonial architecture, which was built by the French who had made the city their first colonial capital.  
I rode out for the afternoon with a couple of friends and had a blast.

 Bassam is a popular weekend spot for many expats. 

 The food was really good!

Vendors flock to the areas popular with expats to peddle their goods.  A rope barrier is designed to keep them from crowding the people trying to enjoy the beach. 

The resort has a pool, which is really practical for people with children.  The waters can be choppy and dangerous, so many kids swam in the pool, instead of in the sea. 

Travel and Regional Integration

Before arriving in Abidjan, regional integration was a far off concept that I didn't know much about.  I'm not a econ or political science person. In fact, to me, it sounded like someone wanted to create an African EU.  Now that I am in Abidjan and would like to travel to explore the continent -- or even buy things in one country and move them to another -- I have come to understand why so many people are saying that regional integration is one of the things keeping Africa from achieving its full economic potential.
 
Case in point:
Travel in West Africa is fraught with difficulties at every turn.  Flights are a rip-off. Every country has a border and requires a visa. Routes and schedules are not well thought out.  I decided to get out of Ivory Coast for a little bit and started looking at flights with no particular destination in mind.
Immediately a couple issues sprang up:

•  Since I am not from a West African country, I need a visa to go to every country that borders Ivory Coast.  These visas cost quite a bit of money, and it may not be worth it, especially if you're just heading out for a long weekend.
• Flights are ridiculously expensive.  So much so, that I have friends who take the bus to Lomé and Accra on a regular basis. 
• Interior flights are expensive.  That means you are going to pay quite a bit of money to fly Air Ivoire to San Pedro, or Yamoussoukro 

In the end, I found a ticket to Paris from Abidjan for 411 dollars on air algérie.  That was 4 dollars cheaper than a flight to Accra on the same days.  Yes, you've read that right folks.  You can fly to Europe for less than what it would cost you to fly to a bordering country.  Of course I had friends begging me not to get on Air Algérie assuring me that to fly them would be to risk sudden death, but I believe that fortune favors the brave, and would not let that deter me!  I may or may not be flying them soon, but I've been told that it's no worse than flying the Libyan national carrier... 

Getting the best deal possible:
As I was looking for tickets, I noticed that there was a huge disparity in ticket pricing.  Because many people still go to travel agencies, there are some incredible deals to be had online -- provided you know where to look.  My top travel sites for flights out of Abidjan are:

• Kayak:  Decent fares, with one major caveat: Air France isn't advertising many of its flights in and out of Abidjan 
• Google flights:  Incredible way to know who flies where, when, and for approximately how much. I haven't bought from them, but it did help me figure out where to buy a ticket.
• Fareboom: Sometimes it's great, sometimes it's awful.  But this site is a gem with some incredible deals (remember that 411 dollar flight to Paris I mentioned? It came from there). You can also book stopovers longer than 24 hours, which Kayak hasn't figured out how to do in an affordable way. ( Casablanca with Royal Air Maroc, Nairobi with Kenya airways, etc)...
• The airlines themselves:  Brussels Air had cheaper fares on their site than on any of the other sites.  So it never hurts to double-check.