It’s a new day and Ulises and I are up early, although we don’t feel that bright given the all night travel planning we have been doing. That said, we head over to the internet café, print out all of our paperwork, and head out to the Chinese Consulate again, with the sunshine at our backs, and no navigational issues with the taxi driver (well none now that we know where we are going). We arrived at the Consulate at 10:30, slightly groggy, but quite sure that we would be successful. The gentleman behind the counter began going through our paperwork page by page…“Oh, where is your bank statement? Oh, here it is, and where is your hotel information? Oh, here it is…and where is your internal transportation information…?”
WHAT! Internal transportation information? We are supposed to take trains, busses, taxis, rickshaw, donkeys and large fireworks if needed – we’ve got no clue how to get around inside the country.
So as the look of shock and sadness on our faces must have registered with him, because he was kind enough to say – “just write down how you will get around”
So after scribbling down “we will travel by train” and handing over lots of personal information, we submitted our visa applications for rush one day processing.
We were in good spirits as we headed back to Cape Town, but despite having a great morning and window shopping for a couple of hours, the 5 hours of sleep caught up with us and it was time for a nap…
We went out for a late dinner and explored a new section of Cape Town, stumbling across an art gallery showing the picture below. We have encountered many people around the world who are excited and hopeful about the thought of Obama – and little things like this serve to give us a little ray of light from home.
We closed out the day by eating a huge platter of fried and fresh seafood from Cape Town, and it was amazing – muscles as big as you fist (well not really, but close) – doesn’t Ulises look like he could eat another one?
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