Burkina Faso, Ghana
Week 9 - Jan. 6th - 12th
Day 57 - day in OuagadougouDay 58 - Ouagadougou to Burkina Faso/Ghana border
Day 59 - border to Tamale to bush-camp outside Mole Game Reserve
Day 60 - day in/around Mole Game Reserve
Day 61 - bush-camp to Kintampo to Boabeng-Fiema Monkey Sanctuary
Day 62 - Boabeng-Fiema Monkey Sanctuary to Kumasi
Day 63 - Kumasi to Big Milly's Backyard
Week 10 - Jan. 13th - 19th
Day 64 - day at Big Milly's BackyardDay 65 - day at Big Milly's Backyard
Day 66 - Big Milly's Backyard to Cape Coast
Day 67 - Cape Coast to Kakuma NP to Elmina to Brenu Beach
Day 68 - day at Brenu Beach
Day 69 - day at Brenu Beach
Day 70 - Brenu Beach to Big Milly's Backyard
I've always hated rain. Being from Britain I've had enough of the bloody stuff to last me a lifetime. I can handle weather extremes like violent thunderstorms, they're wonderful, but rain alone is never much fun in Britain because it's always cold and miserable and it's so bloody ordinary that it's just depressing. When you're in the tropics however, rain is utterly lovely. The weather that we had whilst on the coast of Ghana was lovely, not least of all due to the fact that it's really really hot here and any attempt to cool down is most welcome. But try telling that to my African Trails co-travelers as they stared at me like I was a madman as I danced around wearing only shorts under a torrential downpour whilst they huddled, fully clothed, under cover of the waterproof tarpaulin that they'd erected to shelter themselves from the downpour! In their defense however I should point out that I was dancing around with the coordination and skill of a person who had been doused in petrol and set alight. But it was so much fun!The rain storm in question we had seen coming a long way off. We had just found a hotel to camp next to near the town of Cape Coast and were setting up. Many of us had chosen to upgrade to a dorm room since it cost an utterly paltry fee, less than a euro if I recall correctly. The cook team were setting up when we noticed a colossal dark cloud of death slowly making its way towards the sky right above our heads. When the thunder started we all knew it was time to prepare. Everyone else made sure that the fly-sheets were over their tents, that they were wearing waterproofs and that they were standing somewhere under cover. I on the other hand made sure that I had stripped down to my shorts and that the only things upon my person were a waterproof camera in one hand and a beer in the other. As the downpour started I was the only one out in the open. Hotel staff occasionally darted from cover to cover with their hands over their heads but other than that it was just me and the torrential rain. Wonderful!
African Visas: The most fickle, random entities in the existence of the universe
Come week 9 we were still in Ouagadougou. We weren't supposed to be but the process of applying for our Ghanaian visas didn't exactly go as planned. Of course we should have expected this since visas in Africa never do go as planned. Unless you expect them NOT to in which case they do. Except sometimes the fates anticipate your attempt at reverse psychology so that you don't even have the satisfaction of being correct when you say 'I bet this gets all fucked up and nothing goes right'. Chaos theory was most likely introduced by the embassy staff of the various countries of the African continent, if a butterfly flaps its wings in Azerbaijan then the lazy bastards at the Ghanaian embassy in Ouagoudougou will deliberately fail to complete your visa application in time despite the fact that they sodding well TOLD you they would! I can't prove this of course since I don't possess the ability to observe the wing movements of butterflies in mid-west Asia but I still swear it's true!
The previous attempts at acquiring visas had actually gone as expected, though some of them were not without their flaws. Most notably I wanted somebody to explain to me why Scottish people are granted Nigerian visas for half the price of the English when all UK citizens hold the same damn passport and there is no way of proving it! Even more bizarre was the fact that Italy and Brazil were charged the most extortionate fees. I can understand why the English have to pay almost three times more than many other countries, after all who are Nigerians likely to hate than their former colonial oppressors. And as for the Americans being charged a similar amount, well the world is still pissed off about the Bush years. But Italians have to fork out even more and the Brazilians most of all, about 150 Euros! Maybe it's a football thing!The staff of the OK Inn were probably surprised, and also a little perturbed, to see our big dirty truck pull back into the parking lot once again. We had planned to pick up the visas and then make our way to the Border, getting ready to cross over into Ghana the next morning. Delays in the visa processing forced us to wait another day and the next morning we picked up our passports and left the city. We reached the Burkina Faso/Ghana border in the evening and bush-camped near the border post. Once we had entered the country the next morning (day 59) we were delighted to be in an English speaking country as well as one with a simpler-to-manage currency. In the previous CFA countries one Euro was worth about 650 CFA making it a pain to compute prices (well, a pain for us brain addled, sweaty, tired overlanders anyway). In Ghana the cedi was pretty much worth half a euro so that was much simpler to calculate. Not only that but everything was much cheaper. After shopping for supplies in Tamale we approached the Mole Game Reserve and camped on its outskirts, preparing to enter the next morning.
Africa Rule No. 536b: Don't EVER piss off baboons
The Mole Game reserve was home to a number of interesting species that we got to see as our armed guide took us around the park. The highlight was finding one of the many wild elephants that roamed the area, though we did spot some other animals including birds as well as some primates from a distance. Once we returned to the visitor's centre we spotted a family of baboons going through the trashcans nearby. That was when Phil almost had his flesh torn off by the whole lot of them. He wanted a photo of himself standing near the alpha male of the group, a huge specimen that was at the time rooting through the pile of rubbish it had thrown down from the bins. Phil figured that if he got too close it would growl at him or something to that effect. Moments before I took the photo, the beast sprang into action. Growling voraciously, the huge alpha male launched himself towards Phil gnashing his teeth and probably with the intention of ripping out his jugular with his claws and fangs. The entire group, which must have numbered at least fifteen, instinctively rushed to join in the assault and soon Phil, myself and Sarah, who was merely an innocent bystander, were running like the wind, scattering like roaches. During the process Phil managed to unceremoniously and cruelly shove Sarah out of the way, sending us running into each other before we finally all realised that the baboons had given up the chase and that the rest of our group were falling about guffawing and snickering at our rather comical antics.
After leaving the park we stopped for a late lunch in nearby Damongo, though the real reason for our stop was to go to the local hospital to find out whether or not Summer had malaria. Fortunately she didn't although a case of dysentery probably wasn't all that much more agreeable. The footy fans went off to watch a game in the pub whilst the rest of us ate and drank beers. We bush-camped outside the game reserve and then drove south towards our next stop, a rather scenic waterfall near the town of Kintampo where we were able to take a shower under the refreshing cascading falls. After several hours at the falls we continued on to our next stop: the Boabeng-Fiema Monkey Sanctuary. Too late to look around, we set up camp outside the guest rooms, though I upgraded to a room with a ceiling fan (bliss!) since it cost about 50p to do so! The next morning we were shown around the area. Boabeng-Fiema is a small village where the monkeys who live in the surrounding forest are protected as they live together with the villagers. Researchers often study the monkeys as well as curious tourists. We were able to buy bananas from the locals and hand feed them. Some of the less brave ones would slowly approach our outstretched hands and snatch them away whereas the more bold ones would confidently stride up and pluck them fearlessly from us without hesitation. After running out of bananas we returned to the truck and continued on our merry way to the town of Kumasi. Upon arriving in the town we drove around the outskirts of the town's main market which was about as crowded and chaotic as you can get. I hadn't seen crowds like this outside of an open air festival or a new year street party! And yet this market was a daily occurrence for the people of Kumasi! We found a place to set up camp, a church yard near the market and pitched our tents.
The next day we left at midday but not after exploring the market that we had seen from the truck the day before. It was just as crazy as we had all expected. The majority of the market seemed to have been built like a permanent shanty-town around what appeared to be a disused train-yard. The market stalls were haphazardly strewn alongside the disused rail tracks for hundreds of yards in each direction. We walked along the train-tracks past the endless rows of stalls, overwhelmed by the quite extraordinary number of people around us, the sounds, sights and smells of the entire affair. When we returned to the truck at around midday we were ready to depart once again and this time we were off towards the coast, a place we had bidden our farewells to quite some time ago in Nouakchott, Mauritania to be precise. We stopped at a place called Big Milly's which was a popular beach resort that came highly recommended by Lonely Planet and which was apparently popular with previous overlanders. I can't imagine why, it was a rather mediocre place with a not too scenic beach and far too many touts and hawkers roaming on the lawless beach nearby. We were reunited with the Oasis overlanders which was a nice surprise however. We were forced to spend a few days at Big Milly's in order to obtain further visas for the road ahead. I took the time to go into town and watch Avatar at the local cinema, quite a treat I must admit and strangely appropriate that I got to see the movie in Africa (if you've see it you'll know why!). After a few days we headed off to further explore the coastline of Ghana, heading west towards a place called Cape Coast where several historic slave forts were located.Atrocities, Torture and Slavery Museums: Now with laugh track and comedy music
No one could ever imagine that slavery would have been a barrel of laughs. A person would have to posses the intelligence of an unusually poorly educated brick to not realise that the experience of being a slave would have rated quite low in the enjoyability factor. But try telling that to the addlepated, dim witted, pea brained walking American stereotype that accompanied us around the slavery museum in Cape Coast. Now I'm not an America basher, I love America and I've almost always invariably found Americans to be a wonderful bunch, provided you don't count cruise ship passengers of course (this should go without saying since most cruise ship passengers are dreadful people no matter what country they're from). But I'll say that the old lady who joined the slavery tour certainly wasn't doing the American stereotype any favours (ie. the stereotype of the dumb fucking tourist that everybody else hates because she won't keep her poorly educated mouth shut).
So what was her problem? Well lets establish something first. Slavery wasn't just awful. It was so utterly horrendously ghastly that it defies description. Victims were packed into horrible filthy dungeons in conditions that would make even the worst battery farming seem like paradise in comparison. Knee deep in shit, they would languish there for months at a time. When being packed like sardines (quite literally) into the ships, any slaves that were too weak to work were killed. Those that committed the quite 'henious' crime of merely trying to escape were left to starve to death in an even more horrible and cramped dungeon. Needless to say, the American woman's constant complaints to herself of 'oh this is so depressing!' or 'he should tell a few jokes or something!' were grating on my nerves as well as the rest of the group. I don't know what this irritating cretin was expecting our guide to do or say, one can only assume some things: 'Hey how about a joke? How many malnourished crippled slave children does it take to change a light bulb?' or perhaps 'Hey you should meet my friend who does the song and dance number at the end of the tours of Auschwitz!'. At any rate we were all shaking our heads by the end, partly upon reflection of the unimaginable horrors that transpired here centuries ago and partly because of our goldfish brained Yankee 'friend'. We left the slave fort and made our way to a nearby hotel where some of us upgraded to dorm rooms for a paltry fee. This was also the night of the aforementioned downpour that had me dancing around like a numpty in the refreshingly cool rain.The next morning we drove a short distance to nearby Kakuma National Park where we took part in a rather thrilling canopy walk between the highest trees of the rainforest. Most of us enjoyed the walk although Kev had apparently bitten off more than he could chew, after all he's scared of heights and found that the walk was a little bit higher than he had previously anticipated! Still in was an entertaining walk nonetheless for all concerned. We continued on our way and soon found ourselves at a delightful beach named Brenu Beach, a beautiful place that was everything we had all wished Big Milly's had been: scenic, tranquil, relaxing and a wonderful place to spend the next few days. One of the chores to do was a truck clean, we had to empty every last item off of the truck and scrub the whole thing clean, easier said than done! Even with 25+ people all working hard it still took several hours. After a couple more nights at Brenu Beach we had to return east to Accra in order to pick up our new arrivals to the truck, as well as drop off our first leaver: Craig, who had only signed up for a few months. Unfortunately it did mean returning to Big Milly's for a night which, after the tranquil splendour of Brenu was a big of a drag. Still, we were much refreshed after our time at Brenu Beach and were ready to head east, bidding farewell to Ghana and beginning the next stage of our African Adventure.
crowded Kumasi market
riding the waves at Brenu Beach
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