My first trip to Africa: Guinea-Bissau

I went to Africa for the first time in November 2009.

Back then, I was working as a financial auditor (CPA) in a consulting firm and one of the managers called me to say he had a very interesting project for me in a small country 4 hours away.

I immediately thought: "What an amazing idea!"; and started thinking what country could that be.

I live in Portugal, so there were many possibilities of 4 hours away countries. Could it be Norway? Sweden? Germany? 

I hadn't been to any of those, so it would be a great trip and an excellent opportunity to work in some of the biggest companies in Europe with all my expenses paid!

However, the only way to know was to ask in which country was this project in. And so I did.

The answer, however, was a little disappointing: Guinea-Bissau.

Who would say it was going to be a trip to a country I would love and make me think about how the world works.

 My initial disappointment was easily overcome, after all it still was a trip to somewhere I had never been to, with all my expenses paid. I could also not forget the fact that November is cold in Portugal, but in Guinea Bissau it was summer-like-hot.

The day of my flight arrived soon and I flew out of Lisbon to Guinea-Bissau in a TAP flight around 9PM. The flight took, as promised, approximately 4 hours and I landed in Bissau (the capital) at about 1AM. There was no time zone math, since both Lisbon and Bissau are in the same time zone (GMT+0) and the outisde temperature...... 30 ºC (around 90 ºF) at 1 AM!!!

No jet lag? warm weather? I was starting to like this country already!

The first impact when the aircraft landed in the airport runway was the heat. I was "assaulted" by a very humid heat wave and a strong smell of trees. It seemed like I had just landed in the middle of the Jungle.

It was, however, very quite without any strong lights, which gave me immediately a peaceful sensation.

We had to wait inside the aircraft until an airport bus arrived to take us from the aircraft into the airport building. The funny thing was the fact of this being a very short walk (for sure no more than 50 meters). Some other passengers just ignored the bus and walked right into the airport, which was actually faster than going on the bus.

My first thought when I saw the airport was: "I will be hours inside this airport until I get my passport stamped".

I couldn't be more wrong.

The line was big, but since it was only one aircraft, and the airport was surprisingly well organized, I had my passport stamped in no time. Also, every passenger got their bags! 

I must say I wasn't expecting this to go this well.

In fact, the airport website is a very good source of information for whoever is planning to travel to Guinea-Bissau. The only downside is that it is only in Portuguese or in French.

With my passport stamped and my bag with me, I was ready to go to the hotel and sleep. Good thing my company had booked a car to take us from the airport to the hotel.

What a luxury! I got concerned as soon as I looked outside and saw hundreds of people waiting for someone to take them home or trying to get a taxi. Fortunately I wasn't going to have to wait, I just needed to go to the parking lot where the car was waiting for us.

This sentiment was short lived. We got to the parking lot, but it only had taxis.

They forgot to pick us up!!

Now what?

Well... we just went to the taxi line like everyone else.

We rode comfortably to the hotel in a taxi with fury leopard seat covers!!!

Not sure why, but even thought it was still very warm, the leopard seat covers were actually very comfortable - maybe I was just very tired...

The challenges, however, weren't over yet: the taxi wanted payment in local currency, which is CFA Franc (XOF), but we only had Euros (EUR) and our hopes of have them accepted were rapidly gone. 

The hotel resolved this calmly - they paid for it and we paid back to the hotel later with the hotel invoice payment.

In general, this ended up being a very calm trip. We did the audit project and still had time to walk around Bissau and get to know this unique country.

I was amazed with the "ordered chaos" there was. Everything seemed confusing to me (local rules, shopping, driving, etc.), but this city seemed to work well this way.

It did take me some time to adapt to the reality of the country, specially to the fact of this being a very poor country.

However, people were very welcoming and the food was excellent, specially the traditional pork skewers.

It was a life changing trip to me, since it made me see a reality that I would probably never see if it wasn't for this audit project. Most of the people seemed happy even though they didn't have a lot and this is a life lesson to everyone.

I will, one day, go back to Guinea-Bissau to see their views, eat their food, go to their fantastic beaches and talk to their people. An experience to remember!