After having been with the Toths for four weeks, leaving was unequivocally bittersweet. However, as much as I enjoyed the luxury of lounging, eating, adventuring and working out from the safety of KT’s house, it was time to move on with my adventure. PLUS, my Congolese visa was only valid 30 days from entry stamp, and I didn’t want to have to deal with immigration drama when I left!

Since my flight was at a convenient time for me, of course it was at a cruddy time for KT. Serendipitously, however, our friend Lawrence was also on the same flight as me, and Sean was driving him to the airport, so I was able to tag along with them!

In true Kinshasa form, in order to even drop a passenger off at the airport, you have to pay $5. ALSO completely Kinshasa, there are automatic ticket booths installed (you know, the typical American ones where you drive up, press a button, and a timestamped ticket pops out?), but only one lane works. AND by works, I mean there are no signs indicating that it’s the only functional one AND you have to drive up and a guard presses the button, hands you the ticket, and expects a tip. Ohhhhhhhhhh Kinshasa, you had to get us one more time, didn’t you?

Once we got inside, we had to pay our exit fees. Yes, not only do you have to pay a crapton of money to get INTO the DRC, you have to pay to leave, too. I suppose it’s no wonder they don’t have a lot of visitors… When you walk into the terminal, it’s not super clear where you have to go… interestingly, you have to pop into the Rawbank branch. Go figure.

There are two fees you have to pay. One is the “Exit Fee” and the other is a “Processing Fee.” The exit fee must be paid in USD and it’s $50. The processing fee can be paid in francs, and that’s currently 6,000. So, essentially about $56 USD to get out of Congo.

Make sure you keep an eye on the tellers and that you receive the proper change and TWO RECEIPTS. Lawrence and I both had issues (he didn’t get proper change and I didn’t get receipts), so who knows what can happen.

Once we paid, we hopped over to the Ethiopian counter, which is kind of like a “pre check” counter. I’m not really sure what purpose this counter serves, but they looked at my passport and gave me a slip of paper and waved me to a luggage weigh station.

Again, I’m not sure of the purpose of this, but we had to wait in line to weigh our bags. We got no receipt from this, and were told to move forward to another line to get to the check-in counters.

This attendant looked at our little slip that we got at the Ethiopian counter, and then waved us through. Now we were getting somewhere!

This next counter was actually our check-in spot, and we stepped up to our respective Ethiopian gate agents. I was able to get two window seats and my bag checked through to Kilimanjaro. The agent also told me that I was going to be getting an overnight accommodation slip brought to me on the plane, for use on my overnight layover in Addis. Sweet!

Lawrence’s check-in took a bit longer since he’s moving to Mumbai and had a ton of luggage, but we were both through relatively easily and headed over to security to scan our hand luggage. Once through there, we were in the terminal with about 2 hours to spare. Yay?

We plopped down at Eric Kaiser and Lawrence had a salmon bagel and I reprised the chicken Caesar salad that I had at the EK in the city with Kristen a few days before. Surprisingly, it was almost as good as the original.

Eventually we were called to board our flight, and boarding was a breeze. We were entitled to a meal on the flight, which was relatively pleasant. Along with my white wine, there was chicken curry, cabbage salad, and some kind of fluffy cake. The curry flavor was good but the chicken quality unfortunately left something to be desired.

Once we arrived in Addis, I hopped off the plane and headed towards “transfers.” WRONG MOVE.

I wandered around for a few minutes, and then eventually asked a customer service agent for help. She pointed me to the “inter-line” desk one floor below. I walked down easily but was HORRIFIED when I saw the line.

However… there’s nothing you can do about a line, I reasoned, so I hopped on the end to wait.

And wait.

And wait.

After about 30 minutes the line literally had not moved an inch.

I was about to go ask someone what was going on, when an Ethiopian Airlines agent walked over and announced a flight number, and about 100 people got out of line and followed him off somewhere.

WAT?!

Now people were just standing around confused, so I went #africamode and walked past all of the dilly-dalliers and right up to the counter. Ok, well, behind two other people who had done the same thing, but basically right up to the counter.

I was rewarded for my efforts with another 15 minute wait, and then a certificate for my stay at the Panorama Hotel and a transit visa voucher. SCORE.

Armed and ready, I headed to immigration, which only took about 15 minutes and then I was FREE! If you have a voucher, you need to turn right after exiting immigration and find the desk for the hotel your voucher is for. They’ll then call the hotel shuttle for you and walk you outside to where they are parked. If they tell you to go alone, it’s pretty simple but still preferable for you to have them show you, as the busses do not always park in their designated spots. I almost missed the Panorama bus because of this!

Once I located the shuttle, it was about a 15 minute ride to the Panorama. We unloaded when we arrived and the front desk was waiting with rooms for all of the transit passengers. We had dinner vouchers, wifi codes printed, and room keys ready. It was all a pretty slick process.

If you know me, you know I headed straight for dinner.

The spread was good – there were veg options, meat options, some starch and even fruit for dessert. I did *not* leave hungry! The food wasn’t five star cuisine, but it was hot, flavorful and plentiful, which is really all I was hoping for.

After dinner and a lengthy WiFi session, I headed up to the room, washed up, and passed out.

Panorama does a wakeup call an hour before your shuttle is set to go back in the morning, which was perfect for me. I got up, sorted the little bit of things that I’d taken out of my bag, and popped downstairs for a little WiFi time again before heading back onto the shuttle.

We zipped back to the airport in about the same amount of time, which was perfect since we had left about 20 minutes late from Panorama due to tardy guests. Luckily, security was easy on the way back in since I only had my carry-ons, and I was at my gate before the flight prior to mine had even taken off.

ADD is pretty boring for a large-scale international airport, but I wandered around for a while and then hung out in a lounge chair (yes, they have lounge chairs, which I think is the best part of the airport, imo) until I could pass security and head to my gate.

Boarding again was fine, except for the fact that apparently they had given my seat to someone else. Don’t ask, I have no idea. When my ticket was scanned to enter the plane, the gate agent changed my seat on the spot, with a pen. Yeaaah. Luckily there was another window available, so it wasn’t a huge deal but still… strange.

My ADD flight did have a pretty strange problem though – when I booked, the United website failed to mention a stop in Mombasa, and had a completely incorrect flight time. Instead of arriving at 11:30am as my eticket stated, I didn’t actually arrive in Kilimanjaro until 2:05pm…

Upon arrival at JRO, the signage to obtain a Tanzanian visa on arrival was excellent. There are three steps – at station 1, you pay and are given a receipt. At station 2, your passport is scanned, you take a picture, and you’re given the visa. At station 3, you go through the typical immigration procedure of scanning and stamping. All in all, I’d say it took about 15 minutes to complete.

My bag was already waiting for me when I exited immigration, which I was SO thankful for – there are so many horror stories of lost luggage en-route to JRO, so I had no idea whether I’d have a bag or not. Luckily, I did! Hoping my luck would hold, I exited the airport, praying that my transfer to my hostel was still waiting for me, even though at this point I was THREE HOURS behind schedule.

I walked out the doors and smiled – there was a guide holding the sign for Waka Waka Hostel. My adventure into Tanzania was starting out pretty darn well!