A visa fiasco, stampless passports, and the Rwandans who were never there

We had all of our tickets in hand, the Johannesburg-Windhoek I had already purchased when I was last in Cape Town, and our flights to Johannesburg from Kigali I had reserved on the way to Algeria and the day before our departure was able to get them printed and paid for, another first. My research told me that the Rwandans needed visas in order to get into Namibia so I had started the process with the race organizer and Namibian Cycling federation contact Glenn Howard to obtain the proper visas. At the same time I was working with the Rwandan Sports Ministry to get "Service" passports which are given to governmental representatives, they are a step down from "diplomatic" passports and in most African countries they enable the bearer to travel to countries without advance visas, the visas are given at the port of entry. The only drawback of the service passports was that they were property of the State and they required a letter from the Office of the Interior in order to get them out of immigration, they remained at the airport at all times unless they were being used for travel. Sounds a bit complicated and it is indeed that. Just after I had submitted all the visas to Glenn I was notified by the Rwandan Cycling Federation President Charles that the "Service" passports would be ready the day before our departure and that they were valid for travel without prior visas for Namibia. That would save us some money and a bit of a hassle so I opted to cancel the Namibian visa applications and sure enough the service passports were ready the day before our departure, I was given the letter from the Office of the Interior when I got to the airport and we proceeded on our trip. I was traveling with four riders this time, Adrien, Rafiki, Abraham and Nathan along with our Lucky Rabbit film crew Andrew and Ryan. The letter I presented at emigration at the Kigali airport the officer he checks in all the riders and their passports and files the paper as he said to me all is ok, we proceed on our way. We board the Rwandair flight, Rwandair had offered to help us on our trip by reducing our airfares by 50%, an incredible savings for the "Team" that was greatly appreciated! Thank you Rwandair!

We had only two hours to change planes in Johannesburg, I say "only" because experience has shown me that everything especially travel goes much slower in Africa and with Team Rwanda, so I had instructed the riders that we had no time to waste time once we landed. Check in at the SAA transit counter for the Windhoek flight was going very smoothly, boarding passes printed and Raquel our very efficient SA employee was going through our Passports, I noticed she kept going through all the Rwandan passports twice until she looked up at me and said to me that the Rwandan passports needed visas to enter Namibia and they did not have them. I told her that they were "Service" passports and they did not need them, they would be given to them at the airport. "Where is the letter stating that" she responded, I immediately thought of the paper our emigration officer filed as we left Rwanda, "I don't have it". We then got into a discussion until she said that she would have to check with Namibia and would call, "please have a seat" she would call me when she had a response. It was obvious to me after the discussion that the "Service" passports did not work without visas in Namibia, I figured that we would have to spend the night and go to the Namibian Embassy the next day, probably send the camera crew on and hope that we could get a flight to Windhoek. I needed to get that document left at the airport faxed to the office where I was so started to make calls, finally got the number of a Rwandair employee who was at the Kigali airport who agreed to go upstairs to emigration and get the paper and fax it to me. While she was doing that I got the fax number from Raquel and the fax number to the SAA office in Windhoek in case we could get on the flight. Our comfort zone had passed we did not have much time left catch the flight, we were -30 minutes and counting in an airport where planes left on time more often than not. Raquel finally signaled me to come to her counter, she had spoke to the Windhoek office and they did not have any visas waiting for us and she was confirmed that the Rwandans needed visas to enter the country. With that said she smiled and gave me a choice... you can wait here and get a visa tomorrow at the Namibian Embassy or you can take the chance and go to Windhoek with the knowledge that they could and probably would send you back on the next flight to Johannesburg if your visas were not in order, I pondered for a brief moment weighing all the glitches of going vs. staying and decided to take the chance. We did not have much time to loose, with passports and boarding passes in hand I ran to the riders and camera crew motioning them go get moving! I needed to get a message to Glenn who would be waiting for us at the Windhoek airport so that he could already start the entry process with the Namibian immigration; darn his number was in my computer not my phone. While we were waiting in line at security I started to boot up my computer to get at my files, the battery was dangerously low; I knew I didn't have much time. Just as it booted up I had to close it to go through the x-ray machine, it was already giving me the low battery beep. I knew I needed to plug it in to get at the files so after the security checkpoint I ran off to get a SA plug adapter that I didn't have, with that in hand I realized we did not have enough time to get to the gate so we headed running to the gate. At the gate I was just able to get his office number before my computer went into hibernate and shut down. It was 5 minutes to 17:00 and we were on the bus to the airplane when I called his office, the receptionist rattled off his cell phone # so fast I had to have her repeat it and I got through on the first try, super, he would be at the airport early trying to do what he could with immigration.

Our plane was a jet but a small jet so as we boarded the plane with not time to spare they took our carry on baggage to give it back when we got off , none of the riders knew the potential that lay ahead. I was actually glad that I could at least tell Ryan and Andrew that the Rwandans could be refused entry and could be on the next flight out. We were the last flight in so I was not going to rush to emigration in case the flight was going to return to Johannesburg that night.

On the two hour flight I spent some time going through all the options if we were to have to go back, there weren't many so I resigned myself once again to that power above and took a nap.

Disembarking already things started to go off, they couldn't find my carry on bag! Huh where did it go I asked? It was there when I boarded and now they can't find it? I looked in the bags being unloaded for baggage claim and couldn't see it there either. Luckily I had removed my passport from it but not the vaccination certificate that they need on entry. If it got moved to baggage claim I had to go through immigration first so how was I going to deal with that? Oh well I figured we might not even make it through, oh yea then what will happen to it?

Immigration was not happy with us, Glenn was there which meant that there were three on one side, the immigration officials on the other side, Rebecca was the boss. We went over and over why I thought that it was ok to travel with "Service" passports to Namibia without visas. Glenn produced the visa applications and photos of the visas we cancelled, the SAA agent that Raquel had contacted, Salmon was on our side trying to get us through, no avail. Rebecca started muttering about "clocking out" and they were not getting paid for this overtime, it seemed we were the only people left in the airport, we were certainly the only ones left in immigration. Then Rebecca told us three Americans must step through to their side, we had to get our passports stamped and get into the country. The riders will have to spend the night on that side and we will have to get visas in the morning at Home Affairs, "We are a team and I can't leave the team in no mans zone" I piped in, she wasn't amused and kept telling me that I had to get my passport stamped and get in the country she was going by the book. Andrew and Ryan were first and I reluctantly handed my passport over to be stamped in fear of what she was going to do next. She actually was very nice about it all but she was not going to back down. So there we stood, 4 Rwandans on one side of the line and three Americans on the other with two additional Namibians next to us with Rebecca leading the line up of Namibian Immigration officers on unpaid overtime. I found a comical facet to it as I viewed the scene, Rebecca was getting frustrated, she had taken the passports in the back room and returned with photocopies and paperwork. She was filling out forms and it looked like a good thing, well kind of, she had the Rwandan passports wrapped up and then started stapling them shut. "I am impounding the passports; here are the copies of the passports and a paper to submit to the Office of Home Affairs tomorrow morning to get your visas. The Rwandans cannot leave the country without visas" she was adamant but with a smile as she handed over the paperwork to me. Wow, I turned to the riders and motioned them through. They were already a bit bewildered at what had been going on over the last hour so were glad to finally be able to move. And my carry-on was at baggage claim next door, but that was the only one of 10 bags that was there, none of our bikes, camera equipment or bags made it from Johannesburg made it so we had to fill out the forms and hope that they would come in on one of the 4 flights coming in the next day from Johannesburg.

We made it through I was incredibly relieved, even if it was without bags and bikes, I had grown accustomed to that being still without my bags from the Algerian trip. I did not have much left to pack on this trip except team equipment and parts.

The accommodations were excellent and the buffet food bar incredible. One less thing to worry about, getting the riders enough food! The riders had all of their belongings in their back packs that they carried on with them so all they were missing were their bikes.

The next two days were spent mostly going back and forth to Home Affaires for the visas and to the airport for our baggage. Before midday on the second day, Friday, I was activating plan "B"; borrowing bikes and buying shoes from the local bike store owner Tokkie who was incredibly helpful. E-mails were sent out to the local cycling community and by the afternoon we had three bikes and all the shoes for the riders, I could not get a large bike for Adrien yet but that was coming in the afternoon. Three riders at least were out on the course getting some valuable training and course practice. The race was the next day so we already were at a serious disadvantage of not being able to train and not being able to ride and get used to the technical race circuit.

I had been on the phone constantly with South African Airways in Windhoek, at the airport and even Johannesburg raising as much stink as possible trying to find out why after two days and 8 flights our bags, not one of them, were not here yet, even after the computer said that they were loaded on each flight coming in. They finally arrived at 12:40 Friday afternoon the day before the race, the airport was about 45 minutes from the hotel and by 16:00 we all had our bikes assembled and were headed out on the race circuit. Kiki's bike had a busted derailleur hanger so I took a short trip to Tokkies shop and actually found a replacement, amazing. Kiki rode his borrowed bike that afternoon and fixed his Scott MTB when we got back to the hotel.

The course was technical and very rocky in places, you never could get much speed up and the uphills were either rocky or loose rocks with little traction. We did three laps on the 7.5km circuit, the race would be 6 laps and I could tell it was going to be difficult. No real place to hammer; they were going to have to depend on their technical and descending on rocky roads abilities. This was the African Continental Championships which meant that the first two countries were automatically selected for one rider in the Olympics. South Africa had already been selected by points for the Olympics and since they had the strongest team it would be the first three countries that would have a spot at the Olympics. There were surprisingly few countries present, six and few riders racing 22 total. Unexpected for me in such an important race, I realized then how underdeveloped mountain biking is in Africa. In addition Glenn told me that this was the biggest participation they had ever had! Last year there were only three countries represented, they were all very glad, and surprised that Rwanda had sent a team and even more impressed when they watched the riders in their team "kits" looking and riding like professionals. I was disappointed and concerned about the travel and basically three days without riding, not the optimum preparation for an Olympic selection race but there was nothing I could do at this point but salvage the time we had the best way we could. Nathan was the best at the technical portions of the circuit with Abraham and Adrien close behind, three laps was not much practice but we had our bike and equipment, they could race on their own bikes which was already a plus.

The race started at 14:00, six laps which seemed like it wasn't much but it turned out to be very hard. From the start as expected the South Africans and Namibians dominated the race and were occupying the first 7 places. Three of Team Rwanda were climbing the ranks together, Nathan, Abraham and Adrien. Rafiki already was starting to get plagued by flats and would end up with 5 flats total for the day. There was a rider from Zimbabwe in 8th place, he was the third country and our riders were very close behind him, under one minute! I started to get excited and informed the riders of the Zimbabwean ahead. Soon they caught him, Nathan passed him and Abraham gets a flat so is out of contention. I could watch them come by twice per lap and could give them splits, three and a half laps had gone by, it was Nathan 8th, the Zimbabwean 9th under a minute and 10th Adrien 40 seconds behind the Zimbabwean, it was close. On lap four Nathan gets a flat! He is now 3'40" back, Adrien is trailing the now Olympic spot 8th place Zimbabwean by 40 seconds, he knows how important the place is and closes the gap. As he catches the rider his free hub starts to malfunction, the pawls are not engaging he looses his chain and is soon back at 1' trailing the Zimbabwean. He catches again and again his free hub malfunctions he looses more time and is plagued by this mechanical issue throughout the rest of the race. A very frustrated Adrien finishes 9th place 1'04" back from the Olympic spot 8th place. I could not believe how close we had come to the Olympic spot! Just 1'04" away, unbelievable, Tom had been calling the last half of the race and was as disappointed as I was on the unfortunate outcome. We had had three riders in contention for the 8th place Olympic spot and all three had mechanical issues, what a bummer. Adrien finished 9th, Nathan 10th, Abraham 11th and Rafiki 12th. Adrien was the only rider with tubeless tyres and the only one that did not have any flats but he had his own issues so it was almost as bad. In the future everyone will have tubeless tyres, they definitely are less puncture prone. The problem in Rwanda is that in order to get them seated on the rims you need an air compressor which we didn't have, Adriens were the tubeless left from the Cape Epic which had not deflated so he could still use them. In retrospect I could see other things that could have helped and enabled the riders to do better but we just did not have the resources to and foresight to address the issues. I also looked at where we came from; 6 months ago we had only an idea and a dream. In six months we had realized so much more than we ever imagined, I looked at what we had accomplished in a heartbeat of time and how close we had come to being selected for the Olympics. This was unheard of and though I was disappointed today I realized that what we had already accomplished was truly remarkable.

The remarks from the UCI officials and International cycling community present were encouraging. Rwanda was on the International Cycling communities' radar where they had never been before. Most would ask where on earth we came from, how long had the team been in existence? None would believe that 6 months ago we did not have a team at all, it was just not possible. Dr. Azzam the President of the Confederation of African Cycling told me that we had to get a "Team Egypt" going and invited us to the Tour of Egypt in February, we had to come and get mountain biking and road racing going in Egypt and more countries in Africa, the Confederation would be behind all of our efforts. There was a lot going on, I was just beginning to process the significance of what we had just accomplished. What a trek this has been, my thoughts turned to our visas we still had not received and what we were to do the next three days in Namibia waiting for our next flight with our illegal aliens.

I had looked at a map and made some inquiries and decided to head off to Swakopmund, a German settlement on the coast about 350km away. Tokkie had arranged a VW bus for our transport and by noon on Sunday we had headed off destination Swakopmund. After driving 2 _ hrs in the dry mountainous desert we unloaded the bikes, Adrien on my bike and the riders were off in this arid people-less Namibian country side on this small dirt road. We would see baboons and the occasional humped back mule like animals and no people. The countryside though arid it was fascinating, the undulating hills peaked at a pass and we could see in the distance the road flatting out into a valley disappearing to the coast. By sunset the riders had ridden 60 miles and were ready to get in the van, this land without people and no greenery was pretty much the opposite of what they were used to back home in Rwanda. They had never seen anything like this before in their lives, when I mentioned that it would be good to have a training camp here they all shook their heads in unison, no way. The eerie African light showed its colours as we drove through the Namibia landscape. The animals multiplied by the road in the dusk light, there where Zebras, Gemsboks, Ostriches, little funny looking foxes and miniature deer that looked out of place in this vast landscape. The lights of Swakopmund finally appeared and it wasn't long before we found small apartments by the ocean which would become our home for the next few days. Both nights we were there we had dinner at the beachside "Tug" restaurant which had incredible fish meals for really reasonable prices and view over the ocean, we could not have asked for a better setting in this desolate country.

Early the next morning Rafiki comes to me and informs me that he had Malaria, I could tell the night before that he was coming down with something but did not think that it was as serious as Malaria. Off to the pharmacy and soon I was back with not only Malaria medicine but a new type of tester, a quick way to determine if you really had it or not. He tested positive, it explained why he was not feeling that well on the bike, Malaria has a 6-15day incubation period, lives in your liver and invades your red blood cells so would directly affect an athlete's ability to perform. I shook my head thinking of the race he finished just two days earlier with what he had in his system.
He would not be on the training ride today; I had found a wheel for Adrien's bike so was off to explore the Namibian coast with its remarkable dunes ending right up to the ocean.

We headed south and then went inland going on the backside of the dunes on the way back. We might have seen a few cars but they were spaced so far apart we hardly noticed them; our only company were the shadows that the setting sun was casting of us on the road. Flat yes, dusty yes, desolate yes, the stark contrast to Rwanda had them shaking their heads and muttering "Namibia, Namibia" it seemed every ten minutes. The hard pack dirt road resonating the humm off our ATB tyres that surrounded us. We were glad to be back at our new abode and soon heading for dinner at the "Tug". I had been calling Glenn to check up on our visas and they still had not arrived yet, we had only one day left before leaving early on Wednesday morning I was wondering how that was going to work out if we couldn't get our visas by tomorrow.

The next day we went up the coast, it proved to be more bleak than down the coast! There weren't even beautiful sand dunes to gaze at, just the desolate Namibian desert. I could only imagine why farther up the coast it was called the "Skeleton Coast", it was probably all that you found there.

By 13:00 we were headed back to Windhoek, this time taking the tarmac road to gain some time. More calls to Glenn and still no visa, they promised that we would have them in the morning, he wasn't worried we were leaving at 7:45 in the evening right? No it was 07:45 in the morning, home affairs opened at 08:00; we were in for another ordeal at the airport I was sure.

We had our friend Rebecca at emigration waiting for us as we went in to recover our passports. At first they would not let me through the checkpoint, Glenn was in there alone with Rebecca, Salmon from SAA came to help and got me through, he had helped us getting our boarding passes and getting our bags checked in. Now our challenge was to get our passports back, Rebecca was insisting that we go to Home Affairs and get our visas and catch the later flight which would make us dangerously close to our Kigali flight which operated only three days a week. That would mean two nights at the airport, it was not worth the risk, we went over and over with Rebecca all the trips to Home Affairs trying to get our visas and how it was always "tomorrow" but never being ready. She could not stamp the Rwandan's passports without a visa, they were in the country and needed a stamp on their passports. There was that piece missing that she had to have there was no way around it, her mind just had to have all the pieces together to be satisfied. Rebecca tried calling her contact at Home Affairs but she did not get in until 08:00 15' after our flight left! It was under 30' to departure, I called Andrew and told them to go ahead and get on the flight, we probably were going to have to wait until the next flight and at least they could get going. Rebecca sent Salome out of the emigration office to see if he could get Kenya Air to exchange the SAA tickets for theirs so we could get on the later flight, it was Glenn and I with Rebecca. She has the stapled piece of documents that had the four Rwandan passports in it, she hands me the passports and says that we have to leave without stamps on the passports; the Rwandans were never in the country. It was 15 minutes before departure, I called Salmon to bring back our boarding passes and to make sure that our bags were loaded on the plane. I rounded up the Rwandans who were it seemed to be getting used to me disappearing at airports only to reappear right before each flight and then rushing to catch the next plane. From that point on our trip back to Kigali went surprisingly well, no glitches or mishaps, on arrival we only were missing one bag, Kiki's bike with he and Abrahams helmet and shoes. I was relieved to be home for a few days. The Tour of Rwanda was starting on Monday only 5 days away. This was their biggest and most important national race. This year there were 4 countries attending, Kenya, Burundi, Tanzania, and Uganda, all the eyes were going to be watching Team Rwanda. The question was starting to buzz within all the circles, how much better was Team Rwanda now after all this training and all these international races? This was a race that they already had experience in and it was going to be relatively easy to see how much improvement they had had in the last 6 months. I had a lot to prepare for; not only for the race but I was leaving back to America only two days into the race.