Here’s what I’ve learnt so far:
1. You need a visa to go to Canada, it’s not a particularly easy website to navigate but if you remain cool it is possible even with a bad internet connection in the middle of the mountains in the Kingdom of Lesotho.
2. Once you have applied for this visa your only option is to wait, there is no way of finding out when or where once the Canadian EMbassy has it
3. Visas should be applied for ages in advance… this was an epic fail on my part but hey – Lesotho.
4. Getting the visa the week before you go is too tight, my heart is not young enough for that sort of stress anymore.
PS: It ain’t cheap a Canadian Visa is going to cost you R1000 (if you are South African), a few hundred for a hand to hand courier (if you aren’t in Pretoria) and a VSF fee of R300ish which is NOT stipulated on the letter they send you when they request your passport, to speed up the process I suggest paying them before you send them your passport and include a proof of payment. Otherwise they won’t release the passport until you pay them which they will only tell you to do once the Canadian Embassy has processed the visa. Eish.
