uh oh! I got caught

Yesterday morning when I tried to cross Lake Kivu from Bukavu to Goma, the immigration officials at the port found out that I didn't have a Congolese visa. My passport was confiscated and I was taken to the local office of
Ministère de l'Intérieur where I was made pay $183 for a full one-month tourist visa. $183 for a visa!! Bloody hell! They also put a 7-day transit visa on my passport, which supposedly made my yesterday's illegal entry legal, because they back dated it. They told me that they wanted to be lenient with me and didn't charge me for this transit visa which would normally be $50. Of course along the process, a few dollars of mine were thrown into a couple of officials' pockets so that they could "buy some credit for their mobile phones".

And I was back at the port in time to catch the ferry to Goma.