speaking from experiance...i would not say its easyer coming down...plenty of people dont make it with the visa...just look in the guestbook when you get to the hippocamp in braziville...lots of sad storys

and im sure you dont want to hear it...but.......if you are in a nice westernised place like namibia then it would be so much easyer to send your passport to a agency in europe...depending on your natanality

Just a headsup and update -

I'm in Luanda now, after getting my visa approved in Windhoek for $35. It took repeat visits, but finally they issued without forcing me to send back to Canada.

I crossed at the Cunene crossing - very quiet, no hassles.
After 25 days I headed to the SME office to extend another 30 days. This time it was 9000 Kwanza (About $95). Different from a friend who was heading south and only paid 2000 Kwanza. My visa is a Visto Ordinaro and can be extended 3 times before running out.

I'm a day away from knowing if I get a DRC visa or not - 6 month Multiple Entry for a $550 kick in the pants. No receipt issued, so I'm hoping that it gets pushed through. I will cross into Matadi and then head back down to Lubumbashi and spend some time in Zambia before returning back up to Kinshasa and crossing into Brazzaville.

Good luck.

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Pedaling around the world since 2009
Tried of I.T! http://www.tiredofit.ca

Thanks for the updates. I'm currently in SA, getting ready to head north (driving!) - planning to spend June in Angola and then DRC and onwards.

I'm about to send my passport off to London to get my Angolan and DRC visas, planning to try and get the others locally en route.

Can you please keep me updated as to how you get on with visas for RoC, Gabon, Cameroon and Nigeria? Much appreciated! There's a cold in it if I pass you out somewhere in North West Africa maybe!

Thanks for your updates Tiredofit. I'm about to cross into Namibia and head up to Windhoek to apply for both the Angola and DRC visas.
Could you be more specific about how you managed to get the Angolan visa in Windhoek ? Did you have a letter of invitation ? Did you get it though a hotel booking ? Also where did you get your visa extension ? In Luanda ?
Good luck with your ride, looking forward to hearing from you mate.
Levelo.

Hi, we have just failed to get our DRC visas in Lusaka so having to resort to sending our passports back to London. Just wondering if you were going through an agency back in london? Tricky trying to explain to them we are going overland, not flying in as most of the paperwork they request seems to be geared towards people flying in and out on tours. So how have you gone about explaining how you are entering and exiting the country? Hope all is good on the road and hope you have success with your visas. Archie

- For anyone hoping to get the DRC visa in Lusaka in the future its sadly not possible unless you have residency here. Anatole, the Chancellor, was very friendly, helpful and shockingly uncorruptible! We tried pretty much everything under the sun even with the idea of getting a volunteer work permit which gives you two years in the country, but no luck.

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www.archieleeming.com
Edinburgh to Cape Town - Feb to Nov 2013 - http://www.facebook.com/WildTracksInAfrica

Yea, I went with CIBT visas. They're pretty expensive but seem experienced at the Angolan visa (in for processing at the moment), organised and are pretty responsive to my many questions at the moment.

For DRC I said I was going overland which CIBT said meant I needed to get:

"Applicants travelling from the UK to an interim destination prior to arriving at Congo D.R. overland must provide an original personal statement stamped by the local Direction Generale de Migration and the local Agence Nationale de Reseignement security service explaining the route of travel and including the car registration details."

and

" A copy of the hotel confirmation showing paid in full and legalised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs"

They weren't able to give me much clarification as to what the first request meant. I'm flying back in to Jo'burg on Friday and am going to visit the DRC embassy there and see if they can help with these last bits of paperwork. I managed to find a couple of hotels where I could get a booking confirmation without paying anything which I may be able to... fix to seem like it's paid in full, i'm hoping that this combined with all the details from a friend in Kinshasa should be ok.

Any tips from anyone else would be appreciated.

I'll keep you updated as to how it goes.

I visited the DRC embassy in Pretoria yesterday hoping that they could write me a letter of introduction which might cover some of the requirements the embassy in London are looking for. While they were extremely polite and courteous they were unable to help or even shed light on what exactly London seem to be asking for.

They also confirmed that they weren't allowed to issue visas to non residents, I didn't follow up on this so i'm not sure if this is flexible at all.

I'm now in contact with a fixer in Kinshasa who has worked with a friend of mine who might be able to get the required letters from the ministry of foreign affairs and immigration services in country.

Some of the boarder guards know that we travellers have to optain the visa in our home country. Google will let you find out more about, too at HuBB.

So you can run into a bribery scenario easily when your Visa isnt issued in yor home country (if it has to be actually).

For shure it "looks" (and is) cheaper if you bribe, but this makes the life of the next traveller not easier. This was at 2012/13 - i dont know if the rules are the same - but it looks like if they dont want to give you a visa in Africa.

Surfy

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About Overlanding, Travelogues, Equipment
Trans-Africa over the west coast

I just had my Angolan visa issue in London with no problem thanks to a great Letter of invitation (LOI) from a friend there.

Sadly my DRC visa application wasn't even accepted at the embassy even with a LOI from an NGO there, organised by a fixer in Kinshasa, that had many stamps on it including one from City Hall authorising the letter.

I see from another post that Tiredofit seems to have gotten a visa for 550USD in Luanda and successfully entered at Matadi with it.

How did Levelo and Arch get on with your plans?

Hello there.

Windhoek doesn't seem to be such a bad place to apply for visas after all...

- Angola.

I HAVE YET TO RECEIVE IT ( been waiting for more than a week ) but my application was accepted thanks to the incredible kindness of one of the embassy staff after she took the time to listen to my story ( she waived the Namibian residency requirement, amongst other things ). You will need a notarized letter of invitation, though. They want it to be faxed to them but their number/fax machine must be defective so make sure you are sent copies via email and bring it to them. They want to see copies of your vaccination card and travel insurance, too. It is only N$380 for a one-month, visto ordinario, you pay at the FNB bank across the round-about.
Heard that the consulate in Oshakati might be a much easier place to apply, no LOI needed, but it is also considerably more expensive.

- DRC.

It took a couple of visits but they are a pretty friendly bunch. Again, they waived the Namibian residency requirement and the return ticket for me but still wanted to see both a hotel booking ( easily done through one of the expensive Kinshasa hotels ) AND a " Note Verbale ", kind of a letter of support from my embassy. This I was very nervous about since I was going to a potentially dangerous country and I have had problems with this requirement in the past but much to my surprise they issued me one on the spot. My application was accepted, I paid N$950. My visa was ready within 4 days, it is valid for a one-month stay in the country and 3 months overall, which is great. One of the embassy staff actually called me up to let me know that my visa was ready, drove up to my hostel and delivered it to me in person. An absolute first in Africa !

-Congo-Brazzaville. The easiest of the 3. Incredibly friendly and helpful staff. It is N$ 700 for a one-month stay in the country, you have to pick your dates as it is time-specific. They just want a color photocopy of the first page of your passport and the usual 2 photos. Takes 2 days to issue.

Hope that helps.

Happy trails,

Levelo.

Just a short update : I picked up my Angolan visa today. I am good to go.
Best of luck to all,
Levelo.

Hey,

Its been a while but we finally managed to cross the Congo! A month to get the visa in Zambia and another 2 months in the Congo. Apologies for not replying earlier with the information on obtaining a visa.

This is what we had to do as UK passport holders:

Our original application at the Zambian embassy was rejected as we were not residents of Zambia. We looked into applying for a volunteer permit which would have given us a year residency, but this was not a guaranteed route. Also the embassy said we could re-try at the Ndola consulate, but again this was not guaranteed as we were down on the system as rejected. Sadly the suggestion of bribe was not accepted, so after all this we were forced to go with the route of sending our passports to the DRC London embassy.

We used the agency Visa HQ and sent our passports via DHL (approx. £19 GBP).

It was a bit of a nightmare to organise as VisaHQ weren't custom to applying for visas for people who wanted to arrive to the country overland so were forced get a rather large selection of official stamps and documents from various congolese offices. We used the services of Michel from GoCongo tours who was a great help and very efficient with organising the documents.

Michel organised the following for us:

Notorized Letter of Invitation and a document with DGM Approval - 140USD pp

Hotel booking in Lubumbashi for one night as a booking is required to get the document - Cheapest hotel at 40USD (Hotel Soweto in Lubumbashi for a twin room)

Michelle then organised the following as the London embassy would not except just the invitation letter -

Signed and stamped documents from the following -

National:
- Minister of Tourism
- Minister of Interior
- DGM Director
- ANR Director

Province de Katanga in Lubumbashi
- Governor
- DGM Director
- ANR Director

Costs for these Documents:
Carrying the letters to the different services in Kinshasa : 25 USD
Carrying the letters in Lubumbashi : 25 USD

Michel advised us to get a guide for the arrival at the border as ANR would insist this, this however turned out not to be necessary as crossing the border caused no issues at all as we arrived before our guide did.

Transport guide to Kasumbalesa and back: 18 USD
1 day labour Guide Lubumbashi: 25 USD

This was all paid via western union

All these documents are acceptable as scans

VisaHQ costs for a 3 month visa with 3-4 business day processing - £254 GBP

We got VisaHQ to send our passports ahead of us to the Kitwe DHL office so we could travel while it was being processed.

The documents we had to then produce ourselves were:

- Passports
- Proof of address - we used a police background check which was faked
- Itinerary with flights to current destination and explanation of onwards travel - We faked the flights and gave a light version of our travel plans onward travel through west africa.
- Yellow Fever Vaccination copy
- Employment letter - Fake document from a relatives company saying we were on holiday and would return to full time employment after the trip
Bank Statement with at least 50USD for each day of your visa - Again we faked this.


I think thats about it! Otherwise crossing the border was straight forward and the officials were all very keen to meet us. We didn't pay a single bribe for the full time we were there. We had no issues with safety, but we stayed mainly in the west of the country. DGM officials will track you down in most towns and want to see your paperwork. This was only a time consuming process, and we just laughed when they demanded money and eventually they would get bored of us and let us be on our way.

Regarding cash - Cash machines only give out USD to foreign cards which you then have to transfer to the local currency.

Also there are catholic missions dotted all over the country who offer a friendly quiet place to stay.

Good luck to all people heading that way!

We hope to have a full account on our blogs soon. www.charliewalkerexplore.co.uk and www.archieleeming.com

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www.archieleeming.com
Edinburgh to Cape Town - Feb to Nov 2013 - http://www.facebook.com/WildTracksInAfrica

Hi,

We just tried the same a 1-2 weeks ago and we failed, but you can get a visa for Angola in Oshakati, Namiba, it's $100 for EU passport holders and it's ready in a day.

Good luck!
Might see you on the road?

http://www.facebook.com/waarisworteltje

Eef and Dries

Thank you for sharing your trip, and details about your experiences about travelling upwards!

Had an wonderful read through your blog with that stunning pictures

I guess a good part of your luckage consists of equipment for photography...

Surfy

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About Overlanding, Travelogues, Equipment
Trans-Africa over the west coast