Bureaucracy Success in Sudan

Sudan is well-known among travelers for its lengthy, confusing, and ultimately pointless bureaucratic procedures for arriving tourists. We’d already had to jump through a few hoops to get our Sudanese entry visas in Nairobi, and we really weren’t looking forward to all the offices, papers, and stress that were waiting for us on arrival.

Well, I gotta say: bureaucracy has changed – for the better – in the region.

We experienced this as soon as we crossed from Ethiopia into Sudan. We’d heard that the Sudanese side of the border was painful – running from one office to the next, photocopying papers, waiting ages in the heat. In fact, it took us only an hour to complete our immigration, customs and security procedures.

The best part was that we were able to register our entry at the border. Sudan requires all tourists to register with the central office in Khartoum (Sudan’s capital) within three days of arrival. This was always a lengthy, expensive, and frustrating procedure that had to be completed in Khartoum. Now, it can be done at the border as well. We highly recommend it – it was not only cheaper (less than $40 per person), but all we had to do was fill out a form, sit and wait while documents were photocopied and stapled together, pay the fee, and get our passports stamped.

Bureaucracy success #1!

Sudan also requires its tourists to fill out travel and photo permits – essentially a permission slip for taking photos and traveling to various regions of the country. We’d read that these were two separate permits, requiring two separate days of forms and photocopies, running around to offices, and playing the waiting game.

That too has changed, my friends. Our first day in Khartoum, we went to the tourism office, chatted with the friendly employees there, filled out a painless form, had them photocopy it for us, gave them the photocopies, kept the originals, and left. Now a single form, we were in and out in thirty minutes – and I even got a free map of Khartoum, as well as some Sudanese food recommendations!

Bureaucracy success #2!

The Sudanese requirements out of the way, we turned our attention to Saudi Arabia, the supposed most difficult bureaucracy challenge of all. We gathered a few documents – passports, photos, carnet de passage for the car, and marriage certificate. We waited until the embassy opened at 10am, waltzed through security, sat in the waiting room until a man ushered us to a window, and then pleaded our case.

“We’re driving around the world in a camping car. We’d like transit visas for Saudi Arabia, as we want to go to the United Arab Emirates to visit friends.” An embellished truth.

“It’s impossible. Our embassy doesn’t issue transit visas.”

“Really? Because our friends just came here a month ago and got transit visas at this exact embassy to drive through Saudi Arabia.” A half-truth.

“Ok, let me check.”

We wait.

“Ok, you [Bruno] can get the transit visa. But Canadians have to wait 21 business days to be issued a transit visa.” Damn you Canada.

“Please? Can’t you do something? She’s my wife! She has to travel with me.”

“Yes,” I pipe in for the first time. (I’d been trying to be a good, meek woman, playing the role I figured the Saudis would prefer.) “I must keep my husband awake while he drives 1600km in three days. Without me, he will surely not make it.” Said with humor, but meekness as well, of course.

“Ok, let me check.”

We wait.

There’s another white couple in the waiting room. They’re from Holland, traveling also by car back to Europe. They’d applied three days earlier, through an agent (the actual way to apply for any Saudi Arabian visa). The man had gotten the visa, and the woman had been refused.

Things weren’t looking good for me. Bruno and I discussed alternatives. Drive through Egypt? I fly to Dubai?

“Follow me,” a man says to all four of us. We are ushered out of the building, to another entrance, through another security gate and into another office.

And there appears our salvation. The lovely, English-speaking Saudi who’d been trying to help us earlier.

“I have good news. You’re all going to get your visas. Today.”

Bruno and I look at each other in surprise. We’d come to the embassy today to gather information, not to get a visa. And in any case, the general rule of thumb is a three-day wait. It’s often a three-day wait for a denied visa.

“I’m going to send you to the same agent as the Dutch couple. Fill out the required forms with him, and bring them back directly to me. I’ll be waiting.”

We do as he says, as fast as possible, before the man realizes he actually doesn’t want to help us and doesn’t want to issue us transit visas. The documents are completed in less than an hour, and we return with them to his office.

“What would you like to drink?”

Huh? This man is not only giving us visas, but drinks? This is too much.

“Chai be dawa,” I respond, using the Arabic vocab I’d learned the day before at the tourism office. Tea with spices. It arrives very sweet, with mint and cardamom, like I remember from Mauritania.

By the time I’ve sipped my tea down to the syrupy sugar at the bottom, our passports are back to us with three-day transit visas stuck into them.

Bureaucracy success #3! We are still bewildered at our dumb luck. Either that, or Bruno has a way with officials. (He does – a few days later, our friends Josu and Ana go to the Saudi Arabian Embassy, and are immediately given their three-day transit visas just by dropping Bruno’s name!)

Folks, it’s official. We’re driving through Saudi Arabia! Our entire travel plan rested upon getting Saudi Arabian transit visas. Now that they’re pasted into our passports, we can breathe a sigh of relief. We know our route out of Africa.

Saudi Arabia, here we come! But first, it’s time to stop doing paperwork and actually visit Sudan!