Cocoa and Mango (but no Bovril!)

We've been living the lazy life recently. Five days at Green Turtle Lodge doing pretty much nothing other than eating, sleeping and having dips in the sea to keep cool. Hannah did brave a couple of morning runs, now we're on the coast the temperature is in the low 30's and much more bearable. We had a stroll to the village at the end of the beach one morning, a really lovely walk until we got nearer the village. Rural Ghanaians don't view beaches in quite the same way we do, they put them to a more traditional use - a public toilet. This made the area of the beach nearer the village a bit of a minefield and a pretty smelly one at that. A percentage of the profit from Green Turtle goes into a village fund and turtle conservation in the area. The lodge also employs people from the village keeping relations very good.

Eventually crowbarring ourselves away from Green Turtle we headed for Kakum National Park, one of the few areas of natural forest left in Ghana. There is a canopy walkway there which we thought would be interesting, although it would involve me facing up to my fear of heights! We spent the night in the national park and got up at 5am to do a forest walk, apparently the best time to do it. The walk was pleasant enough, although we got the impression that our guide, Fred, was more used to doing school trips. The canopy walkway was more impressive, particularly in the early morning light with the mist over the trees.

Next stop, Accra, mainly to track down the Nigerian Embassy to sort out our visas. We wandered into one of the western style supermarkets that exist in this part of the world, full of ludicrously priced imported goods. Very excited to see the Bovril we've been craving since our jar from home ran out in Senegal; slightly less excited to realise that the price was over £10 per jar. Decided our cravings weren't quite that extreme. (At least we weren't after Nescafe Gold Blend which was going for £25 a jar - bearing in mind too that Ghana is a coffee-growing country!) Also managed to track down a smoothie bar - asking for directions to the smooTHie bar didn't seem to work, it's smooTie apparently!

We picked up the Nigerian visas, all surprisingly hassle free. Then on to the hills on the outskirts of Accra, to Aburi, a town where the locals go at weekends and holidays to escape the heat. Pulling up outside the botanical gardens, a guy wandered over to the car and pointing at the ground said "Your diesel tank, come and have a look". Sure enough, diesel was pouring out of the bottom of the car - annoying enough anyway, but doubly annoying having just refuelled! I rapidly crawled under the car to try and stem the flow, and eventually managed to track the problem down to pump that transfers fuel from the auxiliary tank to the main tank. After about 20 minutes of battling and some Ghanaian guy saying "God will provide" over and over again we eventually got it back together. The Ghanaian guy then asked for payment for "waiting for us". He didn't get his money and we gave up on the idea of the botanical gardens as I looked and smelt like the diesel equivalent of the swamp monster!

Resuming our mission the next day we had a stroll round the gardens. They were pleasant and diverse, a wide variety of trees and some crazy, and very agile animal that looked like a cross between a squirrel and a chipmunk. Lots of birds and butterflies including a stunning sunbird.

Another interesting stop off was a cocoa farm. Cocoa was imported to Ghana from Fernando Po in 1876 by Tetteh Quarshie. This was the farm he set up, first bearing fruit in 1879 with two of the original plants are still standing today. Ghana first exported cocoa in 1891, Within 20 years it had become the worlds biggest exporter. Today it still stands in second place. Hannah and I both really enjoyed the brief tour, unlike a field in the UK, a cocoa farm has a variety of plants all having a purpose. There was plantain, yams, chillies, vines and avocado all grown together for maximum efficiency and productivity. We picked a ripe pod and opened it up, taking a beans and sucking on the white flesh round them. Surprisingly, it tasted really sweet, a bit like mango. We were then shown how the beans were fermented and dried and given the finished product to taste, the very familiar taste of cocoa, although not as bitter as we'd expected. We then purchased some Ghanaian chocolate at the end - they should stick to growing rather than manufacturing.

The fruit in Ghana has been amazing (except the oranges, they should leave those to Morocco). We have however been having a few issues. A couple of weeks ago Hannah decided she wanted tomatoes, so seeing a road side stall selling them she went to get some. Unfortunately she got more than she bargained for, and ended up with a whole carrier bag full (made even more unfortunate by the fact that I don't even like tomatoes!) The women selling fruit generally don't speak much English, and it seems less hassle to just take what you're given for the sake of a few pence rather than trying to explain you don't want to buy in bulk. I had the same problem with mangoes, we now have 16 to get though. Good value for a pound, but they're all quite ripe and need eating very soon!

The following morning we decided to drive up to "Mountain Paradise Lodge" near Biakpa, attracted by the promise of good food and home roasted local coffee for breakfast. The lodge was in a stunning location overlooking Mount Gemi. An Anglo-Ghanaian couple turned up and showed us the joy of sucking on cashew fruit, yes, there is a fruit as well as a nut. The nut hangs off the bottom of the fruit, it unfortunately can't be eaten without being dried and roasted. The fruit had a strange, sweet flavour, but despite being very juicy it makes your mouth feel extremely dry.

The next morning after our coffee (they should stick to growing rather than manufacturing) we set off for a walk laid out by the lodge through the neighbouring forest. It was a very 'fruitful' walk, lots of avocados, mangoes, cashews, bananas and cocoa, although the real stars of the show were the insects. Countless species all over the place, the most stunning were the butterflies, unfortunately never staying still for long enough to have a good look. The most shocking were the ants, we got out first close up view of one of Africa's most venomous snakes, a green mamba (or maybe a boomslang, we're not experts), it had been killed and was slowing be dissected by an army of red ants. The walk was incredibly steep in places, there had been ropes put in place to help us up and down. It certainly wasn't a gentle stroll and our walking boots had their first proper outing in a while. On our return to the lodge we were approached by a man named 'Believer', he showed me a beautiful bamboo necklace he'd made, I had a look and gave it back to him. "Don't you like it?" he asked. I said I did, but I didn't want to buy it. "I'm not selling it, I'm giving it to you". I felt slightly embarrassed having rejected it initially, but having been approached by several hundred people trying to sell us necklaces over the last few months, the last thing I expected was a gift! So I'm now the proud owner of a bamboo necklace.

Being a world cup qualifying weekend we decided to try and squeeze in some football. With England playing on the Saturday and 'The Black Stars', the Ghanaian team playing on the Sunday we figured we should try to squeeze in both games. The watching of the England game didn't go as we'd hoped. We found a bar but it turned out Togo were playing Cameroon at the same time. As we were virtually on the Togo border, and these borders were drawn up with no correlation to African tribes, there are a lot of tribal links between eastern Ghana and Togo. This was almost their home team, to the extent that the Togo medical staff were all Ghanaian. So we settled down to watch that, a lot of smiles at the end with Togo going against the odds and winning 1-0.

Back to the beach

Strangely enough, visa collection went as expected! We then set off to get our Ghana visas. While trying to track down the embassy, we were turning left across a stream of traffic (they drive on the right here) when a couple of girls on a moped decided it would be a sensible idea to overtake us. I jammed on the brakes but it was slightly too late and they clipped the front corner of the car, losing control of the bike and skidding along the road. We were relieved to see both of them get up straight away and hobble over to the side of the road. Fortunately no serious injuries, just a few scrapes and grazes. We whipped out the first aid kit and got to work cleaning them up and dressing their wounds with a huge crowd looking over us - everybody loves "white man's medicine" over here.

One of the key pieces of advice for driving in Africa is that as a foreigner, any road accident you're involved in is your fault, no matter what the situation. As these things can quite easily get out of hand, we decided to play it safe, and offer a bit of cash to get the bike fixed and be on our way. Unfortunately neither of the girls owned the bike, so they wanted to wait for the owner to turn up to discuss what happens next. A guy who spoke a little English got talking to me when he saw me getting out some money to give them, suggesting I gave them half the amount, and offering to argue our case and do all the talking for us for a couple of pounds. Considering the potential sensitivity of the situation and language problems I decided this was a good idea. It was an hour or so before the owner turned up, and our man got to work. 5 minutes later it was all sorted as previously agreed. He then jumped in the car with us to direct us to the embassy which saved us any more stress!

We collected our Ghanaian visas the next morning and headed for the border. We took the road to Leo rather than Po based on Foreign Office advice, and all went smoothly entering Ghana in the early afternoon. Unfortunately Tumu wasn't quite as large as expected. We were in desperate need of fuel as we had been trying not to fill up until we reached Ghana. Diesel is half the price here, about 46p/l instead of the 91p/l we were paying in Burkina. Unfortunately we had no money to buy fuel, and no one wanted to change money for us. We eventually managed to track down a man who was willing to give us an exceptionally bad exchange rate, but we didn't have much choice so had to accept.

Ghana has been quite a dramatic change. With other countries there have been a few changes as we've crossed the border, but with Ghana, virtually everything has changed. Most obviously and noticeably for us, we can now speak English and generally be understood. Although not always, and the problems we still have with communication do make us feel slightly better about struggling so much with French! Secondly, Christianity has struck with a vengeance. Although Burkina Faso was 50% Christian, it wasn't that obvious, but the second we crossed the border the world started to revolve around God. Most amusingly, Ghanaians like to prefix their business name with a religious slogan. We've seen the likes of 'God is in Control Chop Bar', 'If God say Yes Insecticide and Chemical shop' and non religious ones such as 'No Food for Lazy Man Cafe'. The local dialects had subtle changes previously, but this is the first time the word for white man has changed from 'Toubab' to 'Obruni', and it's shouted at us by adults as well as children. The people also look different, wider faces. And despite the women doing most of the carrying in pervious countries they always looked delicately built, where as in Ghana a lot of the women seem quite butch, that combined with the fashion for shaved heads over here I'd say a little scary too! The other major change has been the weather, we've left the 40 degree heat of the semi desert and headed into the proper tropics. The oppressive heat replaced by oppressive humidity. The savannah giving way to our first glimpses of rainforest, although true rainforest is now fairly sparse in Ghana due to logging activity, there were some fairly spectacular sections through the hills near Kumasi. Roads are now lined with divine mangoes, bananas and pineapples; there is now a real abundance of fruit everywhere which our bodies are thanking us for.

The religion thing carries on over to cars, with various psalm numbers plastered on lorries, and phrases like 'Trust in God'. Unfortunately I think a few too many of the drivers have put a little too much trust in God and not enough in their driving skills. The combination of poor drivers, heavier traffic than we've had previously and good roads that enable high speeds has created a lethal cocktail. This is the first country we've hit that seems to have the 'biggest vehicle has right of way' rule on rural roads. Lorries and buses have no qualms about overtaking into oncoming traffic forcing other cars off the road. Bus drivers, carrying large numbers of passengers you would think might have some concern for others and their passengers, but while we'll slow down at the 50kph signs through towns and villages, they'll just swerve round us and career on through at 100+kph. In the last few days we must have seen the results of 15 or more serious accidents, several involving buses. We're just relieved we have our own transport and therefore the ability to drive defensively, rather than put our lives in the hands of someone with no common sense or driving skills. I do wonder why people feel the need to drive so fast on a continent where they're never in a hurry to do anything else.

We decided to head for the coast, so have been following the road south. There were waterfalls on route, and us being us, we decided it'd be rude to not stop by and have a look. The waterfalls weren't quite as expected. Some of the local lads had decided to take down a generator, computer and sound system, so the music was blaring and there was a party in full swing, with kids of all ages prancing and dancing around under the falls. I suppose it was a Saturday, and it's a nicer spot than any of my hang outs as a kid! On top of that we'd also timed the trip to coincide with a school visit, so that swelled the numbers even more.

We wandered down to the falls, had a paddle and took the obligatory photos. Hannah got talking to a kid called Martin, probably in his mid teens. He kept asking for our address and to have his photo taken with us. 'I just want a white friend, I've never had one before' was a line that made us smile. There was a school photographer down by the falls and we went to have our photo taken with Martin, which was fine. Then every other boy in the school decided they wanted their photo with us, so they queued up, and one by one we got through most of the school. The poor photographer had a film camera too, so he's just going to have to get about 30 photos of Hannah and me developed.

We headed off to find a camping spot for the night, a few miles down the road there was a pop, followed by the sound of a rapidly deflating tyre. We stopped the car, and the tyre was completely flat in a matter of seconds. Upon inspection there was a huge hole punched right through the tread. We got to work changing the tyre to the rumbles of an approaching tropical storm. We managed to get the tyre changed and on our way before the rains hit, but we were now running very short of time to find a camping spot, and in the thick forest is was no easy task getting off the road. We eventually gave up and headed for a hotel and a night in a real bed.

The following day we continued south, (in our beautifully clean car, which had mysteriously been washed for us overnight) aiming to hit the coast that afternoon. We stopped at some stalls to get some bread for breakfast. Upon the announcement that we just wanted bread and not fruit the fruit sellers were a little distraught. One woman, Ya, I think her name was, took us to the bread shop. She declared the fact that I was her friend, immediately another fruit seller jumped to the front of the crowd and pointed at Hannah saying 'And you're my friend'. So now the white friends had been declared we could get on with what we were doing. Bread purchased, we were then physically escorted to the fruit stalls, and ordered to buy oranges and 6 pineapples. What on earth we'd do with 6 pineapples I have no idea. We eventually escaped with our lives, one pineapple and a bag of oranges.

After 8 hours of driving we reached the Atlantic and Green Turtle Lodge with plans to settle there for a couple of days. We were approached by a man who announced, “Hello Hannah, hello Will, I’m Ian” which seemed slightly strange given that we hadn’t actually introduced ourselves. After a few seconds Hannah twigged, 'As in Trombone Ian'. Ian was a guy (travelling with his trombone) that had contacted us before our departure as he was leaving at a similar time, and a similar route so we'd be assuming we'd bump into him somewhere. We had a good chat and catch up on the last few months. Exchanging stories of the humour and hassles of African overland travel.

So, I'm sitting writing this at our camping spot under a coconut palm on a beach in Ghana; there are tracks in the sand from turtles laying eggs last night and the sun is battling to break through the moisture laden skies. The equator lies just 500km to the south as the crow flies, but we have to head east for a few thousand km before we can head south again when we reach Cameroon, eventually crossing the Equator in Gabon.

Minding the Elephants

The collection of our visas didn't go quite as planned. We turned up at the collection point just after 3pm, as we thought had been requested. I guess there was a misunderstanding as it was closed for the day. With it being a Friday it was therefore closed for the weekend, in an unfortunate twist Monday and Tuesday also happen to be bank holidays. We now had four days to kill, and our original plan was to go to Parc National du W. This is a national park that extends across 3 countries, Benin, Niger and Burkina Faso. We believe there is no border control within the park itself, but decided it wasn't worth driving 500km only to be told we couldn't get in without a passport. We decided to travel to the Nazinga Game Reserve within Burkina itself instead.

We drove down to the edge of the reserve setting up camp on the outskirts to give us a full day inside the following day. We were rapidly swamped by tiny annoying flies. Two boys turned up and sprung to the rescue, lighting a fire and throwing on green foliage to create plenty of smoke. This seemed to get rid of most of them. The boys left as the sun set and we settled in for the evening. Now, our evenings in the bush usually follow a familiar pattern of Hannah hearing a noise and saying "what's that?", and the evening went as usual.

"What's that?"
"A donkey"
"What's that?"
"Some people talking"
"What's that?"
"A dog barking"
"What's that?"
"Sounds like someone felling a tree" - I thought this was slightly strange as there had been no saw or axe noise, and it was dark. Thinking it wouldn't worry Hannah I left it at that. (note from Hannah - please don't think I'm actually gullible enough to believe the felling trees line though!)

We sat there in silence as the sound of cracking branches and falling trees grew gradually closer. It was starting to sound within 100m heading straight towards us. Time to admit I was getting a little concerned too. The noise grew closer and closer, now less that 50m away.
"Ok, get in the car" - I've never seen Hannah move so fast. I grabbed the torch and shone it in the direction of the noise and shouted (Bonjour - just in case it spoke French?!). Elephants have very poor vision, especially at night and the last thing I wanted was it walking into our camp and being startled by our presence. There was silence, just the red glow of an eye reflecting the torch light through the trees about 30m away, staring at me. Ten seconds or so passed before the cracking of branches started again, this time moving away from the car. We decided to spend the rest of the evening in the tent!

We entered the park the following morning, initially wondering where all the elephants had gone. We then had our first daylight encounter with a herd crossing the road in front of us. It's moments like this that make you realise how far you've actually driven. From the sub zero temperatures of Europe to the 40 degree heat of North West Africa with elephants in the road. We sat a safe distance while they crossed, they then stopped to feed just over the other side of the road. We crawled along slowly a matter of metres from them. Them watching us, us watching them.

We carried on along the 35km stretch of road to the camp where we would be spending the night with several more encounters on route. We then arrived to a waterhole full of elephants, the adults having a drink and the teens all splashing around and playing in the water. We spent the day crawling along the roads of the park, seeing a few other species, mainly various antelope, although in this kind of heat most animals are in hiding during the day. The wildlife viewing in the woodland isn't nearly as easy as on the open savannah of southern and eastern Africa.

We returned to Ouagadougou the next day, spotting a great looking short cut on the map of the park we thought we'd take that. Several hours later, while following a boy on a bike down footpaths through the wood, squeezing between trees we decided the shortcut wasn't such a great idea. We'll learn one day. We'd picked up the boy in a village we'd stumbled across where the road just seemed to just end, he was a great help in re-finding the road.

So, back in Ouagadougou, another day of rest today before collecting visas tomorrow. There are several things to note about Ouagadougou. The number of things the locals carry on mopeds, and even bikes is incredible. We saw one man carring about 30-40 live chickens, all just tied by their legs hanging off the bike. Huge stacks of wood or hay, piles of goats strapped on. The other amazing thing is these people on bikes, and there are massive numbers of them, cycling round in the middle of the day when the temperature is 40+. Hannah and I struggle to walk from the car to the pool, let along cycle across town, yet there are probably more bikes here than Amsterdam!

Timbuktu to Ouagadougou - what a mouthful!

We're in Ouagadougou - where?! The capital of Burkina Faso - where?! Ok, so it's probably not the best known country. Landlocked between the expanse of desert to the north and the coastal countries to the south it's often overlooked. Being resource starved and one of the poorest countries in the world it doesn't pack the punch of many of its neighbours, but we're certainly enjoying it so far. We've timed our visit well. 'Ouaga', as it's affectionately known is the capital of African cinema and the home of Africa's largest film festival taking place this week.

We had another hassle free crossing into Burkina Faso, although it still took 4 hours, partly because there was no border at the border, We had a 50km drive between towns either side. The only indication of us entering Burkina was a slight change in the colour of the road, we then had to register ourselves in the first big town on the other side.

After spending a while feeling lost and confused driving round Ouaga we decided to brave the 'OK Inn', a name we'd been laughing about earlier in the day, but we could easily find it as it was on the GPS. We drove through a slightly dodgy looking lorry park into the immaculately groomed car park of the hotel. Upon entering reception and seeing the rooms costing £50 per night we asked if we could camp. 'Oui', was the response. The car park was better than many camp sites we'd stayed in, so we were happy. We then asked how much expecting it to be pricy. 'Gratuit, free', was the response. So we're now sitting outside by the hotel pool, drinking draft beer and about to order dinner. We even have decent showers and real flushing toilets. (Only had holes in the ground for a while). Probably our best campsite yet, and all for free. Lovin' it!

The evening we arrived in Timbuktu we were introduced to a guide who had taken a Scot under his wing. He was planning to head to Dogon country, and we thought we could save money by teaming up. So we met Caspar, and rejected the guide's extortionate price deciding the three of us should go it alone. We agreed to meet him on the south bank of the ferry two days later.

We had an enjoyable day in Timbuktu. Having beaten off many so called guides, we were eventually landed with two school kids who had the day off and seemed to just want to practice their English. They insisted in guiding us for free, and I couldn't come up with a good way of getting rid of them. We spent most of the day with them, settling down for tea with some Turegs for a while, before buying them a drink at the end of the day to say thanks.

Upon arrival at the ferry there was a car stuck trying to get off - a familiar story by now. Due to the water being so low at this time of year there was a very steep slope to climb, and this fully loaded car was struggling. As we were the only other vehicle around they asked for our assistance. No problem I thought, we'll just winch him up. So out came the winch. Unfortunately his battery was flat so he couldn't assist by driving up the slope, so we were just dragging this vehicle. This proved too much for the winch which broke free from its mountings with a loud bang. We then got out the recovery straps and tried to drag it out, eventually succeeding after about an hour with a round of applause from most of the village. Back to Timbuktu for us to get the winch fixed. Three hours later and £40 poorer we returned to the ferry hoping for a free ride across for the assistance we'd provided earlier. They had different idea, as there were no other cars waiting to cross now they wanted to charge us the cost for the entire ferry, and then double as it was now after 7pm! So after some arguing we got them down to the daytime cost, but they wouldn't go any lower than that.

We spent the night on the south bank of the river with some very loud frogs, waiting for Caspar the following morning. He eventually turned up 4 hours late, African transport, by which time we'd adopted a village load of children. Although entertaining for a while, as the games of catch started to get a bit tired, and yet more children were appearing, the arguing, fighting and tears started. Hannah eventually resorted to showing them photos from home that her parents had given us. This caused much amusement and shut them up for a while.

Due to the later than expected start we camped a hundred or so kilometres from Timbuktu before heading to Dogon Country the next day. We decided to take the short cut, taking the less major, but direct route. Unfortunately one wrong turn and we were 500m up on the cliffs on a 'walking and donkey track'. Our car driving through these Dogon villages far from the tourist area caused much excitement. We had children chasing us the whole way through villages, hanging off the back of the car, lots of shouting and excitement. 8 hours later we still hadn't made it to our destination so we settled down for another night.

We set off early the following morning to find breakfast and guides. The first village we hit there was a woman cooking at the side of the road so we stopped to get some food. She had unfortunately just run out, but as ever, there just so happened to be a 'guide' in the village. Every man in Mali will claim to be a guide, but we sat down for a discussion anyway. Solomon claimed to be the man with the knowledge, but he didn't speak English, so he dragged in his friend Calib, but Calib couldn't speak Dogon so we needed both of them. While discussing the logistics it seemed all they could offer us for breakfast (apart from millet beer, which they gave us at about 8.30am) was chicken, so we agreed to that. A whole chicken eventually turned up, feathers and all. The woman of the house plucked and cooked the bird, serving it up in a big communal bowl that we all dived into with our hands, discarding the bones on the floor. Caspar was the one lucky enough to get the chicken's head. About 4 hours after we originally arrived in the village we eventually left, well fed and with guides in tow.

It became apparent on the way to our first village that the guides didn't know the area at all, when they had to ask directions several times on the way. This carried on for the next few days, with them asking directions and having to employ other guides to show us the way. Still, they were nice guys and we got on well. Did a little walking and lots of sitting around, eating traditional food (always with hands - not easy when it's spaghetti) and drink - we asked for some millet beer, which materialised about 5 hours later - a 5 litre jerry can which kept us busy for the evening. Dogon Country itself is well worth a visit (although perhaps with guides who are able to explain what things are). The Dogon are an ethnic group in this area of Mali who have been sensible enough to choose an area of stunning scenery to make their home. Lots of very attractive villages are dotted around an escarpment which overlooks a vast expanse of savannah. Added to this is the intrigue of the mysterious Tellem people, a pygmy race who apparently inhabited this area in the distant past. Their waist-height houses are built into the cliff, often half way up, which fuels the legend that they could fly.

So, now in Ouagdougou. Put in our applications for the Visa Entente yesterday (Maybe someone should tell the embassies in Bamako it does really exist), which covers several of the West African countries, so hopefully that should be ready to pick up this afternoon. We decided we liked the police in Ouagadougou, after we went to the wrong police station to extend our Burkina Visa/get the Visa Entente, they helped us out by giving us a police escort across town to the right place, allowing us through the roads closed for the Fespaco Film Festival and refusing to take a tip at the end. This all changed however, on return to our hotel, via a roundabout which we've since discovered is a regular trap for European vehicles. We were pulled over for apparently going through a red light. On hindsight, maybe we did, but the lights were of the variety used for pedestrians at home, i.e. tiny and about four feet up a post, off the road and facing in a different direction. Our main issue was that the policeman who pulled us over was on the other side of the roundabout with no view of our lights. So yet again we were defending our case to African policemen. Documents were taken and we were told to come back tomorrow to collect them and pay the fine. Funnily enough, the documents came back to us pronto when we insisted on going to court and the camera came out for us to take phographic evidence of where we were, although we were still told to return tomorrow - a face-saving strategy I feel. Both they, and we knew that we wouldn't turn up - although it did mean we had to find a new, much more convoluted route into town to avoid the roundabout!