Thursday, July 18, Abidjan, Cote D'Ivoire

I've been trying all morning to post photos to this blog but the internet connection is too weak.
Yesterday I had one of my typical walking days. I walked for several hours all about the center of Abidjan. I began by trying to find the Liberian Embassy in the interests of getting a visa to go there, but the embassy had moved.
Then I looked to get a SIM card to make my phone functional in this country. That led to an adventure.

First I found a little shop with cellphones in the window. The lady inside spoke no English, I spoke no French. We tried to communicate. She tried putting a card in my phone. Nothing happened. Then a nattily dressed young man entered. He tried to intervene. He spent ten minutes fiddling with the back of my phone trying to make it work. No luck.
I resolved to move on. The salesperson and the young man were having nothing of that. They gestured that I should follow the young man out into the street. Reluctantly I consented.
He led me up and down avenues seeking....something, I knew not what, but I was gradually getting the idea that he knew where to locate a SIM card.
We went to various shops and offices, each one motioning for us to go somewhere else.
Then we encountered a shoeshine boy who apparently had nothing better to do with his life than help a confused tourist. He gestured for us to follow him. Now we were a merry band, the shoeshine boy, followed by the nattily dressed young man, followed by the white tourist in the funny hat.
At some point we arrived at Abidjan's version of a Sprint or TMobile shop, starkly modern in the midst of a city of tubbledown shops.
After some inquiries we were directed to an air-conditioned office in the rear manned by a pretty young woman in western garb.
For the next 20 minutes or so the shoeshine boy and I waited while the young man conversed with the pretty young lady. He did some charming, I think, but mainly he tried to find out how I could get a SIM card.
Finally another employee came in and explained to me that they could get me a card but that it would take a few hours as their computer system was slow. I nodded agreement and headed off to tour the city. They told me to return in two hours.
I then bopped around Abidjan. I saw the trash-covered banks of the lagoon that border the city. I saw the expensive district where all the white tourists supped and shopped. I found an ATM. I gawked at shop windows.
Then I returned to the store for my phone. Success.
With my errands completed I decided to do some more exploring. After walking for an hour or so I noticed on my LP map that there was a place for "shared taxis" back to Grand Bassam, the neighborhood of my hotel. I headed for that spot.
Bad move. No one knew of such a spot, and I managed to consume another 90 minutes of fruitless walking trying to locate it. When I gave up the search I realized I had to backtrack another hour or so to find a taxi to take me back to the hotel. By now I was tuckered out, but I resolved to put one foot in front of the other till I found myself back in the central Downtown. I did it.
Then I took an expensive taxi home. We are way out of the city here, on the ocean. It's a nice location and my host, an expatriot German, speaks English. I expect to stay here two more days, then......I'm not sure.