Abidjan & beyond

Back to the coast ...

2008-01-04T10:07:00.000+01:00

We headed out early in the morning at around 6.00am, it was light and I hoped that the previous night's zem driver wouldn't forget our arrangement to pick us up with a friend of his. Thanks to him I had left 10,600CFA at the bus station with the guardien ... I was worried that I'd never see the money or the tickets the guardien had promised to purchase for me. Arriving at the bus station on foot, I was thrilled to find that he'd got the final two tickets for the Lome bound bus. We hung around for a bit with Dani watching TV in the corner of the bus station whilst I managed to buy the most foulest coffee I think I've ever had in Africa!

We unfortunately had the back seats but on yet another great Rakieta service. The first few hours of the seven hour drive south were stunning. Pulling into Atakpame, we stopped for a short while to refresh, buy food and get drinks. I rang the Ghana Embassy in Lome to ask them whether we could put in for visas in the morning (Friday) and receive them the same day; some brusque woman told me it wasn't possible, it would take 48hrs therefore we would be stuck in Lome until Monday and the cost had risen to 12,000CFA.

Finally we pulled into Lome & I asked a man what the 'going rate' was for a taxi to Aveposo as Gianni had told me that 'Chez Alice' was a cheap and cheerful option to stay at. The man turned out to be a priest heading south for a conference; we all piled into a taxi together and dropped him off at a seminary before heading out to Aveposo.

Chez Alice was a fantastic option, we got a room for 3,500CFA on the edge of a courtyard garden with monkeys, dogs & cats running around. Dumping our packs outside the kitchen we met Alice who remembered Gianni immediately! We sat in the most gorgeous open air salon having a drink as the humidity of Lome was really getting to us. Dani decided to go & get her pack from the kitchen & move it to the room, as a joke, I said she could bring mine through too ...

We wandered down to the beach, beautiful but looked incredibly dangerous for swimming in, although we spotted what looked like rocks about 400m out, we later found out what they were ...

Heading back in, we met a Slovenian couple who had just landed; their first time in Africa they were trying to get to Nigeria but hadn't yet got visas organised. Having dinner together Dani told them of our trip so far, possibly went too far as they were looking more & more worried as she went on & on!!

Been-in Benin

2008-01-03T10:19:00.000+01:00

Dani & I woke and decided what to do next. It was strange being alone without Maddy, we'd all made decisions in the past and now there was just the two of us again. We got a lift into town and went back to Tanguieta bus station with the guy who'd given us a lift offering to drive us down to Natitingou when he'd loaded his van.

Dani & I sat under a mango tree for the best part of 2hrs chatting to two old men, their friend turned up and he was also going south to Natitingou and offered us a lift. We went back to the bus station and after a bit of grief from the first driver we got our packs unloaded.

Natitingou was a strange town. It was about 3km long with a few streets on either side of the main road. We went to Le Vieux Chevalier and ended up in a cell like room with no natural light for 5,500. We went out in search of an internet cafe, we were in 'zem'-land - no taxis in towns everything is done on scooters/zems so I had to hire two for us. Zem is a Beninois word coming from the term zemigden signifying 'emmene moi vite' (get me there quickly). In Togo the word changed to 'zed'. But being New Years Day, none of the internet cafes were open. So we went for a wander around town having disposed of our zem drivers and came across a lovely stone built church! Eventually we ended up in a cafe where we both felt uncomfortable and got another zem each back up the hill to the auberge. Dani took to reading the bible left in the room, she'd had some interesting conversations with Maddy about Islam & Christianity & apparently told Maddy she was going to read both the Bible & the Quran. I sat outside in the courtyard watching TV with the staff & endless friends that were popping in. We decided that we should leave Natitingou in the morning and head over the border to Togo, sadly we had only spent less than 48hrs in Benin.

We crossed the border in the morning from Natitingou in Northern Benin, we ended up hiring a whole taxi or else we knew it was going to be a long wait so from a price of 25,000CFA we got it down to 10,000CFA and happily left Natitingou.It was the most wonderful border crossing this morning through the spectacular Tamberna Valley with the Tata Somba houses which look like miniature fortresses ... got to Boukoumbe and immediately found a taxi to take us to Nadoba the other side of the border. But then we realised that the driver had gone past the gendarmerie (where I'd asked him to stop) we should have had our passports stamped so we had to get zems to go back 2km to see them! The Peugeot 504 came down the road to find us - technically a seven seater; there was D and I in the front with her leg beside the accelerator pedal on one side and my bum on the handbrake with another guy beside me; so 4 in the front, another 12 were in the two back rows plus all the stuff they were taking to market in Nadoba the other side of the border sitting on the roof a tight squeeze for 7km!

We got to Nadoba with most of the village staring at us, apparently foreigners don't often come that close to that bit of the border! It was market day and very busy, we found another taxi heading for Kande and sat under a tree with some kids watching us, waiting for our taxi to be ready. We wandered into the market and bought a few presents before getting squashed into our taxi. We headed off to Kande about 30km away in another squashed taxi to get our passports stamped for Togo as the immigration guy at Nadoba didn't want to do it. However we were passing through the Tata Somba area of Togo and about 5km from Kande we were stopped by the police and I was asked to get out of the taxi. The 'heated' conversation went a bit like this:

'You have come from Nadoba'
'No, I came from Natitingou via Boukoumbe'
'You have to pay 1,500CFA'
'Why?'
'You have seen our country'
'No, I have a visa, you are not immigration, I don't need to pay anything'
'But you have seen our country, you have seen the Tata Somba villages'
'No, I have been sleeping, I didn't see anything, I came from Natitingou in Benin'
'You can go when you pay 1,500CFA each for you & your friend'
'I slept, I'm tired, I am not paying anything, I came from Benin, this is a road'
'You must pay'
'I must pay for what? Driving along a road, tired? I didn't see anything'
'OK, you can go'

I was spitting feathers by the time I got back to the taxi. Furious that there was yet another tax & more hassle to go through .. but I'd made it out of his police post without paying a penny!

We got to Kande, eventually I persuaded the driver to take us to the police there after leaving our packs at a cafe. He dropped us on in the heat about 2km away, the police were very nice, stamped our passports and told us the shortcut to get back to the main road & our packs. We found a minibus heading south to Kara. We had a bit of a mutiny on the minibus, meant to hold about 12, the driver stopped all the time to pick up more & more passengers and we quickly grew to 20 with kids sitting on everyone's laps. Finally we all ranted at him and he told one family to get out.

Arriving in Kara, we got a 'zem' (Togo word for a zed) there weren't any taxis in towns everything is done on scooters/zems so I had to hire two for us again. I threatened the driver of Dani's zem with cold blooded murder if he drove too fast before we set off it was interesting as it was the first time we were on zems with all our stuff, packs went over the handlebars whilst we clambered on behind the drivers ... Dani had full authority to twist the drivers ear if he didn't respond to 'doucement' - but they were really good ...

Looking around for a hotel, we didn't find much, they were all very dodgy looking but finally we picked one; the restaurant guy at lunchtime assured us that the 3rd one we chose wouldn't turn into a brothel at night and was very respectable!!! We couldn't find much to do in or around Kara and decided to head south, I wanted to go to the cocoa & coffee growing region of Kpalime but Dani was dying to see the sea again. Her boredom showed when she started taking photos of the interesting tablecloth!!!

Heading south again ...

2007-12-31T21:50:00.000+01:00

We eventually reached Fada N'Gourma at 8pm or so, in the dark I could just make out La Belle Etoile, the auberge we were meant to be staying at. However the bus driver refused to let us off as our packs were buried on the roof under a motorbike. He continued into town another 2km away and we waited for our packs to come off the roof.

Looking around in the dark, there didn't seem to be much in the way of transport, not a taxi tout in sight ... I started chatting to some guy who had been on the bus with us who told me he worked for an NGO. He rang a friend for me who rang someone with a vehicle and so a taxi was organised; after a 20minute wait we finally jumped into a 'vehicle' which was probably held together with glue; however I got the drivers number for the return journey the following morning (or rather his brother's number) and thanked him.

La Belle Etoile was fantastic, a great little auberge but unfortunately the kitchen was shut as the owner was away, on my return to Ghana I discovered the owner was a friend of Olivier & Danielle's! We wandered up to a petrol station where there was a Togolese run restaurant and got some dinner, and bought a few drinks in the flash shop on the forecourt! Maddy & I sat up for a while watching a praying mantis, chatting & listening to someone in another room snore incredibly loudly!

We awoke the next morning to see a Swiss family who'd arrived in their own vehicle and were incredibly snooty towards us and a Toureg from Niger who turned out to be a guide with his own vehicle. Lovely guy, we had a long conversation over breakfast together about the problems in Niger around Agadez & Arlit, the region he's from. He offered to drive us back into town so we could continue onto the border of Benin.

Arriving at the bus station we discovered that there weren't any buses that went over the border. We wandered up to the gare routiere and eventually found a minibus heading our way. To enable us to have a seat together the driver yelled at all the passengers (mostly female) in the bus to get out and rearrange themselves, it was a little embarassing! Our minibus reminded us of the previous nights taxi; held together with string & glue; once on the road all we could smell was petrol. I was very concerned that we'd catch fire and sitting in the back row there wouldn't be an easy escape route through the entrance door . So for 3hrs we drove with the back door being held open by yours truly - my arm ached!!! Several times we stopped to refill the leaking petrol tank ... once we were in a village and bought some small melons which when we opened them were full of mushy juice & pips, very little flesh inside.

We finally got to Nadiagou, the border post for Burkina. To our relief we were ushered out of the minibus into another newer one! Dani & I got the front seats & Maddy was rather squashed in the back. I went off to find food & water, there wasn't much around but plenty of fuel & wine!!!

We sat in it for what seemed like hours until we set off again with lots of faces peering in at the three of us. The driver finally got us star but only 300m to immigration before another 16km down to Porga & Benin's immigration post on an excellent road. Finally we were in Benin, however, I developed the most horrendous headache which I was convinced was the sun & hoped that it wasn't malaria ...

We were fortunate at Porga, probably the nicest border post I've come across in W.Africa. The Immigration Police were incredibly friendly, it was the first border post I've been to where they want their photo taken with people. Unfortunately with the headache I was sitting on the step holding my head in my hands drinking warm water & swallowing aspirins! The minibus had gone on into the village and we discovered our driver & passengers in a bar. But the bar didn't have anything to drink despite crates of beers along the walls. Dani needed to 'go' I asked where the bathroom was & was told to go 'a la brousse' so we ventured out. She looked around & changed her mind deciding to hang on for a while. Eventually we got going again and I was suprised how green this side of the border was in comparison to the area around Nadiagou. Another hour or so down the road and we were in Tanguieta, by this stage Dani was in pain and raced straight for the 'conveniences' which as I suspected were dreadful ... coming out we were asked for 150CFA, I laughed at him and eventually gave 50CFA!

We'd decided on the way that between my headache, Dani's pains and the fact that the journey up to the edge of the Parc National de la Pendjari at Batia (we were aiming to stay in the Campement Relais de Tanougou) would be a lot of negoiation to find a 'cheap' transport option that we'd stay in Tanguieta. Whilst Dani & I were away in the bus station, Maddy had organised the packs & found a man who offered to take us to Hotel Le Baobab, for free. I immediately saw something wasn't right here, to be driven up to a hotel (we didn't know the price) for free - there had to be a catch. No, the guy was honest (hoping to take us up to the Park later ..) and took us to Le Baobab. We had a look around and I suspected it was well out of our normal price range, but our very smart room with one single & one double bed & en-suite bathroom in a 'case' was all for 10,000CFA - it was a bargain! We swiftly moved in & then went back outside for a few drinks before finding out what was happening that night for New Years Eve's festivities!

The place seemed almost full. We were the only non-French there, the owner had arranged a party in the garden for all of us at 6,000CFA each and we saw the New Year's in, in a bit of a sombre fashion ... I've never been with a group of people who were so sombre, especially considering they were French! The following morning, Maddy got up at the crack of dawn to join a French guy who I'd been chatting to the night before who'd offered her a lift down to Cotonou .. she had to leave early to get her flight from Accra home ...

Ouagadougou

2007-12-29T09:11:00.002+01:00

We left Banfora early in the morning and got into Ouagadougou around lunch time with a short snack stop in Boromo. We were all very impressed with the service on the Rakieta bus; clean, air-conditioned, videos & great drivers. It was like something in Europe ...

Arriving in Ouaga we got a taxi down to the Catholic Mission, it was a bit of a mission finding it but finally the taxi pulled up outside a gate and a guardian eventually came to open it, we found ourselves on a street to the side of the Cathedral. I went through wanting to find out if there was any room for us and left Maddy to pay the taxi, which in hindsight was a stupid move. She didn't have the correct change for the taxi and had a lot of touts around her, one of which paid for the taxi. Understandably she was rather upset.
We walked into the park like ground and went to find one of the 'sisters' being a Catholic Mission it accepts ladies and the occasional man - they told us they were full; we thought that our tattered dusty apperance possibly put them off, they sent us to the 'brothers' who gave us a dingy room for 6,000CFA and as soon as we came out of the gate we were pounced on by a group of 5 guys one of which had paid for our taxi. However they were incredibly aggressive and refused to take no for an answer or Maddys attempt at F*** O**; only when I said similarly in French did they step back ... it was very threatening and not letting us pass them was getting a little worrying - one of those situations when I had yell, but not something I like doing in Africa where things are usually done peacefully.

Dani took us a great restaurant that we'd passed earlier in the taxi (she'd really found her feet!!) and we realised it had rooms: so taking their guardien for protection Maddy and I crept back to the brothers passed our gang of boys and managed to get our packs out of the room and creep back to an ecstatic Danika who was waiting at Le Samaritain for us with lunch ordered!!! We had a room for about 14,000CFA basically a small suite with only air-con in the room. I'm not good with air-con so offered to take the little living room with a mattress on the floor and putting up my mossie net made for some interesting gymnastics between the 3 of us! Maddy & Dani shared the bed, but as it was I was up most of the night freezing! Later that night my friend Issaka I'd met 2 years previously when we were both backstage at a Johnny Clegg concert turned up to see us. He invited us all for lunch the following day!

So, on Sunday I went out early to go in search of bus tickets to Fada N'Gourma ... after getting several taxis around town I eventually ended up back at a Rakieta depot and then promptly bumped into the Germans we'd met at Diebougou bus station who were spending their last day shopping. On my return we all went off to the bronze artisans shops not too far from the auberge and again we met the Germans! We had Sunday lunch with Issaka and his family; he heads up the Burkina Chamber of Commerce. I finally met his wife Angelique and 3 kids, he took us all to a great restaurant in Ouaga - Le Foret where we had far too much food before heading off on another cracking Rakieta bus from a depot next to the Libyan cultural centre to Fada N'Gourma. I can't say enough about Burkina's transport system ...

However, I think Dani ate too much at lunch and slept most of the way to Fada N'Gourma on the bus ...

Banfora

2007-12-28T11:49:00.000+01:00

We spent a wonderful day in the Banfora region. Getting a private car was well out of our price range at 20,000CFA for the day and I was planning to get bikes to go around but Maddy wasn't having any of it and kindly offered to pay for a car & driver, in the form of Ima.

Ima had a fairly relaxed day. He drove us through the sugar cane plantations, up to the Domes of Fabedougou and then onto Karfiguela Falls where we jumped out and spent several hours in the sun, swimming, picnicking and escaping the dust of the Harmattan.

We then continued on through a number of villages and then onto Lac de Tengrela, in order to find some hippos. Dani & Maddy went out in a boat but only saw a few from a distance and those were more or less submerged apparently.

Our final evening we treated Dani to McDonalds; we knew there was a McDonalds restaurant in town but didn't let on that there weren't any hamburgers & chips ... the food was excellent however!

Diebougou & beyond ...

2007-12-27T09:56:00.008+01:00

We arrived at 'Le Relais de Diebougou' a nice enough hotel, managed to get a room with a double bed & a mattress was brought in for Maddy after a fair bit of negotiation. We had a few drinks with our minibus driver & his friends and the hotel cooked us a great meal.

The following morning it was decided to unfortunately miss the Lobi region via Gaoua as our driver had said it would take 8 hours to go from Gaoua to Banfora. We decided to catch a bus to Bobo Dioulasso and see the mosque. We walked the kilometre to the bus station, bought tickets and settled down for breakfast in a shack with coffee & omelettes. Some 'nutter' was there entertaining us all when another bus to Ouagadougou turned up with a German couple on board; they came over to join us for breakfast and were busy chatting to us when their bus started to leave! Luckily they caught it! Our bus came and again there wasn't any room to sit down so it was standing room only but Dani got lucky with a lovely Burkinabe lady who offered to let her sit on her knees!

We rolled into Bobo a few hours later in time for lunch and got a taxi across town to the mosque, as soon as we got out we were pounced on by touts - the most annoying & frustrating part of travelling in Africa. Ignoring them we walked across a square and found a small restaurant, ordered lunch and chilled out deciding to take it in turns to see the mosque. I received a text message on my phone which had us all in shock; JB was in Abidjan having buried his father the previous day, I'd sent him a text from us all and the one received said that he now had to bury his brother; the one that had malaria and we thought he was on the mend, the kid wasn't 14 but 9 years old!

Dani & I went off to the mosque, as soon as we arrived we were met by a guy just getting off his scooter claiming to be an official guide and wanting 1,000CFA; I ignored him but he went on & on, so I decided to speak Japanese to him asking him if he could speak Swedish. Completely perturbed by this white woman & child who didn't speak English, French or German (he tried all) he left us in peace! Hallelujah!!!

Maddy went off to see the mosque alone & received similar hassle and we all decided it was time to get a bus to Banfora which we hoped would be quieter and we wouldn't receive as much hassle. The bus station was minutes from the restaurant, we bought tickets and found ourselves in Banfora by 5pm or so. We picked Hotel de la Comoe from one of our guide books and turned up to find a gorgeous courtyard garden and a room for 7,500CFA for the three of us. However the room had two single beds, so I got the short straw this time and had a mattress on the floor which made things a little cramped.

Over the border to Burkina Faso

2007-12-26T09:15:00.008+01:00

We left Mole Motel and got to Larabanga; the nearest village to the park. We wanted to see the mosque but the villagers were adamant that we had to pay to even go near it ... fed up with so much hassle early in the morning we went back to the 'bus stop' to wait for our bus to Wa. I found a cafe nearby to get a coffee for myself & Maddy whilst she & Dani got the cream crackers & vegemite out for breakfast.

The bus arrived, full, we were offered standing room only and managed to arrange ourselves on the back step. Further along the road a witch doctor jumped on board telling us of a stone which was a miracle cure for scorpion bites, a string which would prevent pregnancy ... he did well, had us all in stitches & seemed to sell a lot ...

Eventually we arrived in Wa. We wanted to cross the border to Gaoua, Burkina Faso a little further north in Lawra over the river so needed to find someone to stamp our passports but being Boxing Day, immigration was closed. We also needed some food, drink & money ... but it was all proving a bit of a problem, so asking a pharmacy that was open to change money the owner sent his son with us to another pharmacy that would do a black market exchange. We settled ourselves in the tro-tro station and got some food & drink and I went of to ask around about transport/immigration options. I discovered that our only real option was to get a tro-tro up to Hamale, the border town in the very north-west corner of Ghana.

Getting on another packed tro-tro we 'sensibly' paid for 4 seats to give us a little more room, it was a long 80km and 2.5hrs on dusty roads to Hamale, Maddy & I had the task of unbraiding Dani's hair en route! We finally pulled up at a police post to discover the driver didn't have a licence and the police needed a bribe to let him continue into town. As soon as we got out we had some guy offer to show us where the border was, we wandered down to it with him and went through the ridiculous formality of showing our yellow fever card - something I've never come across when leaving a country! Our passports stamped we were outside the immigration office when another guy showed up claiming to be Burkinabe and would organise transport the other side. I smelt a rat, his French wasn't very fluent and he was determined to stick with us saying we'd get a lift with his brother. We trudged the 500m between the two borders with Dani saying 'I think I'm going to like Burkina more' and Maddy & I hoping she was right and that we'd all enjoy it more than Ghana.

Burkina's formalities were a lot more relaxed with a lot of welcomes from the immigration officers, it was already 4pm. We spotted a shop nearby and I discovered that the owners were Mauritanian .. we had a chat bought some warm drinks and waited for our guy to return from his 'brothers house'. He told me that I would have to go to his brothers house to negotiate the fare; I refused, asking the brother to come to us if he wanted any business. He turned up and demanded 40,000CFA to get us to Diebougou 60km away. We were getting a lot of aggression from the Ghanaian 'brother' and finally they walked away. I found out where the gare routiere was and left Maddy & Dani with the Mauritanians and our packs to find out if we could get a taxi ... or else it was back to immigration & sleeping on their floor for the night!

On my return I was stunned to find the 'brothers' back, harassing the Mauritanians for telling me where the gare routiere was; they were incredibly aggressive and it finished with the Ghanaian brother getting on the back of a scooter screaming 'I'll burn your shop down'. Watching a herd of cows go past, we wondered what to do when M.Sala turned up, I'd talked to him at the gare routiere and he offered us a minibus and driver for 18,000CFA eventually ... we were on our way in Burkina ...

Christmas Elephants

2007-12-25T08:24:00.005+01:00

Christmas Eve we woke up in Tamale in a super king sized bed. Dani had the middle spot and a good nights sleep whilst Maddy & I were on either edge both battling during the night to stay on the bed as Dani did her best to hog it all!

We went off shopping in Tamale, Dani & I trying to find somewhere for breakfast, which wasn't easy - I was either blind or Tamale seriously lacks somewhere for a coffee in the centre of town! We wandered around the market, sent e-mails home whilst Maddy organised our bus tickets to Mole National Park, she managed to get the final 3 seats! We eventually got back to the hotel to pick up our packs and headed back to the bus station to be greeted with chaos. The Mole bus was (as we'd heard was normal) 4hrs late, we waited in the sun for what seemed like forever before it finally pulled into the bus station.

Yet again the journey was fraught; a Ghanian man who didnt have a reserved seat decided to sit on Dani - all hell broke loose and 2 Danes on board with us also tried to help out, she found it all rather amusing; I was fuming!!!

Arriving at Mole Motel in Mole National Park I was thrilled that something had gone right. I'd rung from France in November to reserve a room, something I never normally do; preferring to do my own thing rather than being time pressured by reservations. However this year was a bit different and for a 12yr old from New Zealand to see elephants for Christmas would be a bit special! We were given our room key only to find warthogs blocking the way to the room which made it all the more real for Dani ... We had a meal with our new found friends Aksel & Marie, the Danes before heading back to the room to finish the whisky Maddy had brought with her & the gin I'd bought in Casablanca airport. I was madly wrapping Christmas presents on the veranda outside our room whilst Dani was sleeping probably convinced that we'd forgotten it was Christmas & that she wouldn't get any presents!

We awoke in our hospital ward like room, enormous with an en-suite bathroom but no running water at 6am to go out on a bush walk at 6.30am. Dani woke with a flashing Christmas hat on her head, a stocking full of wrapped presents at the end of her bed & the day started well.

Joining Aksel & Marie (who were staying in their tent!) we wandered over to the park office and met DK our guide and started the walk being told not to drop any litter. Fair enough! So the first place he took us to was outside the staff quarters which had a lot of warthogs, baboons & monkeys all drifting through the staff rubbish dump, full of tins, plastic and other environmentally unfriendly objects.

We didn't see that much wildlife with our guide, DK bushbuck, crocodiles, kob antelope, baboons, monkeys & warthog and after almost 2hrs walking we headed back up the hill to the Motel which overlooks the watering hole below. I decided that Christmas Day was laundry day; the water was back on for a time so I was filling buckets so I'd have a bit to do the clothes in when we heard knocking on our door & someone screaming 'there's elephants'. Everyone rushed to the viewing point over the waterhole and sure enough there was an elephant. DK returned and
took everyone down to the watering hole, Dani got within 30m of her Christmas elephant! I was standing at the top of the hill watching them all when I spotted 3 more come out of the bush ...

We spent the afternoon by the pool, having lunch, being proposed to by a Chinese construction worker and watching other guests being attacked by a few thieving monkeys!!!

Long, long road trip ...

2007-12-24T07:53:00.000+01:00

Leaving www.busuainn.com at the crack of dawn we had a taxi organised to take us directly to Takoradi tro-tro station for 13 cedis and from there picked up a 'Benz bus' (Mercedes Benz minibus) to Kumasi. Our intention was to get to Tamale for the night so that we could stayed in Mole National Park for Christmas.

We sat in the minibus for 5hours to Kumasi, it was a long Sunday and listening to political speeches the whole way was incredibly boring hearing voices drone on and on!

Arriving in Kumasi we took a taxi to the other side of town to the Tamale tro-tro station to find another Benz bus that had 3 seats left. I was concerned that if we didn't take them up on the final 3 seats we'd be stuck in Kumasi for a while; but we decided that 30minutes sitting on the side of the street, getting some sustenance before getting back into a crammed tin box was preferable. I do my best not to travel at night; the best way to find yourself in an African hospital or worse due to the amount of accidents on the road.

Eventually the second Benz bus filled up and yet another argument started over the cost of our luggage with the driver wanting the same price for our packs as we'd paid for our seats ... I refused to give in and finally got the 'normal' price! On this part of the journey we met some lovely Ghanaians who helped us out, including one who decided to pay for the use of the loo & to buy more food for the journey, refused to be repaid; it was great to see there were some friendly Ghanaians!

It was a long dusty road from Kumasi with endless roadworks heading north, the dust covered us all. We finally pulled into Tamale at 9pm and wandered off to find somewhere to stay for the night.

We headed straight to the Al Hassan Hotel. I had my doubts when I asked the nightwatchmen at the National Bank of Ghana next door about the place; smirks on their faces. Passing a lamp post complete with a drunk woman dancing around it, my fears heightened. We walked in the door & it was spick & span .. polite guys on the desk .. Maddy & Dani went off to see the room and Maddy told me to get the phone out immediately as we'd better start ringing around. Dani's nose was screwed up as the room had smelt so bad ... we organised another place and got out to get a taxi. Only then did I tell Dani that she'd been to her first African brothel!!! We ended up at a great place the other side of town called Las Hotel, our room felt like it was underground but it was 'clean enough', had a TV in the room and a great chinese restaurant on the roof, so we had a good meal the night we arrived!

Akwaaba???

2007-12-23T16:55:00.005+01:00

Ghana, has been put to the bottom of my list of 'must return to ...' in fact I don't think it even makes the list ...

The country is money obsessed. The new money system in Ghana SO confusing, it was changed in July and essentially they knocked off four 0's to try to copy the US dollar apparently .... They ask for 15,000cedis for instance but in fact they want 1.5C of the new system ... about a euro.

The following morning I went into Takoradi; now knowing the correct prices for a taxi up to Agona Junction and a tro-tro to Takoradi I didn't have too much bother on the way there. Exchanging euros for cedi's in a bureau de change, buying a SIM card, doing a spot of last minute Christmas stocking presents; I then wandered into an internet cafe to send an e-mail out to say that we were safe & sound in Ghana (but not particularly happy). I was amazed to see the guy next to me on a PC was 'creating' credit card numbers and putting them into some website ... and seemed to be doing well at buying stuff!! In all my travelling in Africa I've seen some scams, but Ghana seemed to thrive on scamming in any way shape or form ...

I wandered up to the STC bus station to see if I could buy tickets to Tamale or maybe Kumasi for the following day. All sold out! I made my way back to the tro-tro station and got one back to Agona Junction hoping to join Maddy & Dani for lunch (they'd been on the beach all morning!). At Agona I met two Ghanaian ladies also wanting to get down to Busua to see friends but we couldn't find the driver for the Busua taxi; it turned out the car had been parked there for weeks. However neither could we find a taxi willing to take us to Busua for the correct rate .. eventually after 45minutes in the sun one rolled in and we pounced on it; only to find 3 other ladies had spotted it too. I jumped into the front seat whilst 5 rather large Ghanaian ladies shoe-horned themselves into 3 rear seats - I felt a bit guilty but compared with CI or Guinea, there wasn't any 'courtesy' in Ghana; however I did pay for my two new friends fares!

That night I had news from JB in Cote d'Ivoire. His brother was a lot better, he drugged him up with Lariam as I'd said ... but his father died. He rang me and asked if we'd be back in CI for 26th December for the funeral. It was terrible, he spent so much time with us and everyday I kept saying to him we'd manage & he should go off to see his father at the clinic. We were all shocked to hear the news ..

Finally we're travelling!

2007-12-21T15:40:00.002+01:00

I was thrilled to be on the road. It reminded me of Gianni's remonishons the previous year 'we're not doing the 'Tour d'Afrique' ... but I was so happy to be travelling again and able to move on despite JB's place being so idyllic!

We got to Assinie Mafia for 4,000CFA in a dodgy old car. We had been suprised by the relatively new cars on the road in Abidjan but out of town the cars weren't so polished, but nothing as bad as I'd seen in Guinea!.

Sadly as soon as we got out we got hassle, the first we'd received so far. Brushing it off, we got a table for the three of us to sit at with our packs beside us whilst waiting for the pinasse to be ready. The 'captain' (never to be seen again) told us it would be a while, so after a few drinks and an omelette each and endless hassle from a couple of 'Bob's' (our nickname /codename for anyone who's a constant pain in the posterior) we were called down to the pontoon to board the pinasse.

A short but stunning crossing for 250CFA to Quartier France where we wound our way through the village huts to find a fleet of pick-ups waiting for us all. Most of the Ivoirians had a lot of luggage with them and were having to argue the toss about the 'excess' to pay to the driver. We successfully got our 3 packs on for a total of 500CFA after a bit of negotiation.

On board our pick-up we managed to get 3 seats together along one bench. Dani between Maddy & I, luckily Maddy was nearest the front of the pick-up but I had two more beside me, which made it a bit of a squash with 5 of us on one side, 5 opposite us including a gorgeous little girl and her father and a ton of luggage between us all. We drove off through the village and down a very bumpy sandy track along the coast, it has to be one of the most gorgeous drives I've done, reminded me of Zanzibar's coast but better in some respects.

We got to a police barrage and trouble started, we met the nastiest, drunkiest, vilest gendarme I've ever encountered in W.Africa. He was completely drunk on palm wine and in his drunken state was disgusting to say the least. He told us all that he was a customs officier, he wanted Dani to stay behind with him and that she was a strong looking girl who would be perfect as his wife in 2 years time (after looking at her passport). I had Gianni's little Franco-Italian phrase going around in my head 'n'est pas un bon comportomento' ..

The 6 guys in the back did their best to protect us and told him to back off, I told Maddy & Dani to stay in the pick up as he wanted me out with the bags .. and the stupid, stupid idiot that I am, I spoke in French to him. However, the guys in the back with refused to let me out and dealt with the gendarme - by this time his French was just a lot of nonsense coming out of his mouth at bullet rate. He let us go and I almost sighed with relief as we thought we were on our way. No, the damn engine wouldn't start ... we were again told by the gendarme to get out and push, the guys told us to sit tight and jumped out and really put their backs into it and managed to get us 200m down the track when the motor finally coughed into life.

Another kilometer away was the border, we all climbed out of the back and into a hut on the beach. I refused to speak French, these guys were 'friendlier', sober but obviously after something. I was asked for 1,000CFA each for our exit stamps, I tried to battle it out in pigeon French, I refuse on principle to pay any bribes but Danika had been rattled by the gendarme and Maddy pointed out it might be 'easier' to pay up this time, so I backed down and paid the damn guys - who were very polite to give them their due!! The customs guy another 1km on was a sweetie and wished us luck (we didn't realise we would still need it!!)

Ghana - Akwaaba or so they say - we didn't get much of a welcome to Ghana, country of smiles??? Got to the immigration post, told to sit and they wrote out our entry cards, for almost 1hr we became the subject of a training exercise. First of all they said Danika couldn't enter as Maddy had a multiple entry visa and we didn't. I soon sorted that out ... they must have written the entry cards out backwards it took forever, I was getting more and more annoyed when a soldier came in and told me to leave and sort out customs who were chuckling about their incapable colleagues with me.

Finally we got away, I was still annoyed with immigration and Maddy was annoyed with me for being so annoyed ... but my concern was that we would have missed all the transport away from there as our 'previous' travelling companions from the pick-up would have headed off by now. We walked part of the 1.5km down to the tro-tro station to get a tro-tro (minibus) out of there, but someone stopped and offered us a lift, we then found payment was expected at the end well over the going rate!!!

Sure enough when we got to the tro-tro (minibus) station at Newtown there wasn't a seat in sight for the three of us, one was full and about to leave and two others were standing empty with not another passenger in sight! An hour in the tro tro station with tickets for Jewi-Wharf, I asked the guy to give us our Takoradi bus ticket money, we were all tired & hot, I was going to catch the next taxi that was on a return from the border. He refused. Eventually a tro-tro arrived and it was agreed to take us up to Half Assinie and got the change back. The road this side of the border was initially sand, but a lot wider and better graded than the narrow track on the CI side!

At Half Assinie, we were the victims of a scam. We bought 5 seats for the 3 of us to get the tro-tro moving immediately, then a woman turned up so a ticket was bought back. We got in and had 3 seats and not 4, the 4th was in the front but lo & behold a guy jumped in 200m from the tro-tro station. I asked the driver where our 4th seat was, he wasn't responsible and we drove back to the station. Massive argument between Maddy & ticket selling scam lady with Dani & I ready to go back to the border and Cote D'Ivoire. After 15mins of some serious agression scam lady gave us back our money for the 4th seat ... drama, drama!

Finally in the hot & squashed conditions in the back of the tro-tro with a driver who'd obviously missed his vocation as a Formula 1 driver, we reached Agona Junction. It was already 8pm or so and we got out at the roundabout, on the side of which there was an open air cinema with most of the village it seemed watching a film in earnest!

After more frustrating negotiations we got a taxi to Busua for 4 cedis ... we subsequently found it was well over the going rate, as each seat is 0.5oc ... Maddy took the front seat and half way there found herself hanging on for dear life as her door swung open on a bend ... we did crack a joke despite our tiredness - would we get a discount if we'd lost her???!!

Arriving at www.busuainn.com was like coming home; greeted by Danielle & Olivier, a French couple who'd been living & working in Ghana for the past two years. We were exhausted, it was 9pm and we'd been travelling for 10hrs .. Danielle put a lovely meal on the table in front of us, we had a chat and fell into our beds!

A little closer to the border ...

2007-12-21T05:50:00.000+01:00

Arriving in Assinie we thought we'd gone to heaven!

It was dark but you got the feeling of the place immediately & it was beautiful! JB took us through a gap in a wall to his place. Further down the same plot was a larger 'building', I was sorting out packs beside his house while Maddy & Dani went off with him and I cries of pure joy coming out. I joined them and found that we had the most gorgeous but run down large beach shack to stay in. There weren't any locks on the doors, the floor was almost rotten, there wasn't any water but there was some electricity and for us it was perfect. A few old very narrow wooden beach loungers were there which we sorted out to give us three beds; Dani strung up my cord so that we could attach our mossie nets and with our sleeping quarters perfect we went out to join JB for dinner.

We walked up the beach with JB giving me a history of who's house belonged to who in the CI government and Maddy giving Dani a lesson in astrology. We got to the village and had dinner in a small cafe which any European or African Health & Safety board would have demolished, but the food was excellent, clean and didn't give us any problems! JB took us onto a bar with a Ghanaian lady owner, who advised us the best way to get to Ghana the following day - to get a car at low tide and drive along the beach ... problem was that low tide was around 9am and Dani wasn't giving up the chance of a morning swim in the ocean for anything!

Heading back to the beach shack with a couple of 'Drogba's' - an Ivoirienne term used for a litre of Solibra beer, we sat on the beach with the tide coming in around our feet, before finally collapsing into bed (or rather onto hard wooden sunloungers!)

I woke at 5am, due to my body groaning from the hardness of the sunloungers and not being able to get comfortable most of the night. The sound of the ocean and wind were penetrating through the room, realising that the mossie coils were almost finished, I decided to go for a wander with the camera and was met with the most lovely mist outside. Maddy & Dani were still snoring under their mossie nets.

A few hours later they finally got up and we went out onto the beach with Dani finding endless coconuts for JB to crack open for her, some nourishment for breakfast!
An hour or so on the beach and a quick swim later we packed up ready to head off again. The tide had turned and it was too late to find a vehicle to take us along the beach to the border. We would now have to go to Assinie Mafia by taxi and pick up the pinasse from there to cross the lagoon then another bush taxi up to the border. From what we'd heard the night before we should have made Agona Junction just east of Takoradi in 3hrs ... but luck wasn't on our side.

As we were leaving, JB got a call from his family in Abidjan to say that his younger brother wasn't well, they thought it was a mild case of malaria but seemed to have become more serious. Still not happy with what we'd done to repay his kindness and not sure how to repay him, I took out the anti-malarials that Maddy had brought for me from Dubai and told him how to dose up his brother in his fight against malaria.

We got a taxi together up to the canal bridge where JB jumped out to go to Abidjan and we continued onto Assinie Mafia. On the way there we met our first (of many) police posts, I got out ready for a ton of questioning but when they discovered we were on our way to Ghana we got a laugh and they let us continue on. Whether they knew the kind of journey we were in for or not, I'm not sure, possibly it was because very few tourists/non-Ivoirienne use this route to get over the border ...

Abidjan & visa hunting ....

2007-12-20T18:22:00.011+01:00

We were meant to have caught up with Mme Auguy in Abidjan but it was a busy few days apart from Tabaski on 19th.

Thanks to Nicolas offering his spare room where we camped out for a few nights which meant we were able to go visa hunting in earnest without having any accomodation worries. JB refused to leave our sides. He was so good to us, it worried me as his father was in hospital but he wanted to make sure that we were OK before heading off to see him.

First thing on Monday we went off to the Ghanaian Embassy for a visa we sat in a room in the Embassy before being thrown out whilst filling in 4 identical pages for each of us ... tedious is not a word I'd use! Dani tried to fill in one page of hers but I couldn't run the risk of her making a mistake so did all 8 pages alone and handed it all over to them with 15,000CFA for each single entry visa. With a bit of pleading we managed to get them to promise it to be ready for Tuesday morning so that we could run up to the Benin Embassy by 10am Tuesday to get our passports back Tuesday at 2pm as Maddy was flying into join us at 3.30pm from Dubai (some people are intelligent when booking flights!)

We walked up to the Benin Embassy about a 1km away and got our paperwork so that I could be ready for the following day and jumped in a taxi to head back towards Nicolas' flat. We spent 2 hours in a taxi from Les Deux Plateau down to Marcory Zone 4, traffic was horrendous, smog & pollution even worse! We had lunch at a friendly maquis (restaurant) the St Christophe opposite the most enormous supermarket I've ever seen in sub-Saharan Africa - Prima (the prices were horrific too!). Followed by little doughnuts from the ladies outside!

The following day, we went through the same rigmarole, getting a taxi back across town to Les Deux Plateau, grabbing our passports and walking as quick as we could to the Benin Embassy to hand them in again. Whilst in the queue, I was asked by the man behind me what visa papers I had, I explained the VTE (visa touristique d'entente) as he'd never heard of it but agreed for 25,000CFA it made sense to have a visa covering 5 countries. I'd done a lot of research into getting one and found that Burkina had turned down my request for one whilst Togo + Niger seemed to be on a weeks holiday due to Tabaski. Thanking me for my explanation we went our separate ways. JB wanted to meet up with his friend Moussa while we had 4 hours to kill, Moussa is a tennis coach at a club nearby. Walking back down the main road, we heard a horn and someone waving at me ... it was the man from the queue at the Embassy. He told us all to hop in and asked where we were going and instructed his driver to drop us there! Typical of the kind of hospitality we were met with in Cote d'Ivoire. Moussa took us off the main road into a muddy market type area, we had an omlette sandwich & coffee (Dani reckoned it was the tastiest she's ever had!) and we sat in a bar for a while before having an early lunch, Dani had asked where she could get her hair braided. Moussa walked us back up to almost opposite the Embassy and got one of the girls who were offering to braid on the side of the road to go into his club and braid her hair in the garden! She was on a bit of a mission as we had to be back at the Embassy by 2pm in order to get across town to the airport.

Finally Dani's hair was braided, we had our visas and we were on our way to the airport to collect Maddy. Getting to the airport was horrendous, the Tabaski sheep market was taking place just at the intersection of the main road out of Abidjan and the airport; our 4 lanes became 6 with our taxi and thousands of others spilling over into the oncoming traffic - thats where the dark glasses came on and I pretended not to notice!!! Dani was busy inspecting her new braids we had had done outside the Benin Embassy - her hair had a pink tinge to it!

We found poor Maddy waiting patiently outside the airport; we were an hour or so late. I jumped out of the taxi, who then shot off as he was being screamed at not to park in front of the airport. Knowing he wouldn't go far as he hadn't been paid the four of us wandered out of the airport area and saw him waiting for us at a garage. But lo & behold, a gendarme had spotted him too & decided to try to fine him for picking up passengers illegally in the airport area.

I jumped in and told the gendarme he'd done nothing wrong, we'd been in the taxi all along, I got some supicious looks from the gendarme & luckily he let him go. We got Maddy back to the flat, where our room became a little smaller with one more person & pack! We took her up to Patrick's maquis (restaurant) St Christophe for dinner and chilled out back at Nicolas' flat.

The following day was Tabaski, that night JB & I were talking on the balcony of Nicolas' flat and some firecrackers went off, JB ducked, shook and then stood back up looking a bit sheepish. The effects of the war are still etched on everyone's minds! The block opposite Nicolas modern expat flat was once Orange Telecom but completely destroyed in 99 and stands as testimony. Nicolas himself was evacuated in 2004!

Tabaski was spent incredibly lazily, the morning we watched the neighbours 3 sheep that had been grazing happily for the last few days having their throats slit ... with a lot of laughter and smiles all round . The whole afternoon was spent in the pool that's part of Nicolas apartment block. Then Maddy & I bravely found our way around Nicolas' kitchen to cook dinner as a small way of saying a big thank you to him.

We went back into visa mode the following morning, the four of us got a cab up to Les Deux Plateau, JB jumped out and left us to sort out the visas alone promising to catch up with us later in the day. We got to the Ghana Embassy early, Maddy had her papers ready that I'd picked up earlier in the week and our visa lady hadn't arrived yet ... when she did arrive she was astonished to see Dani with braided hair, holding the door open for her, we got quite a reception! Promising to have Maddy's visa ready in a few hours we headed off to find breakfast and an internet cafe. Breakfast was back in our market area and then I found by chance a small internet cafe with 3 PC's ... it was at the rear of a Lebanese restaurant. The PC's were useless, only one worked properly and as I was typing an e-mail three cooks came racing into the room - chasing a mouse out of the kitchen. I wasn't too worried, mice are OK, rats are not. Satisfied that it had vanished they left us; but I soon heard scuttling around my feet and jumped up screaming out of the front of the restaurant much to the amusement of Maddy & Dani!!! The cooks came back in, Maddy confirmed it was a rat and I shivered & shook outside until they killed it, my e-mail was finished incredibly quickly after that little episode!

Desperate to be back on the road, we caught up with JB, had lunch together then he & I went off to find a bank and we experienced some interesting racism. As we approached the door talking together they opened it and closed it immediately afterwards. I looked back at them & JB and motioned that he was with me. He was eventually let inside and explained that they'd told him he couldn't enter. Coming out I gave the guards a bit of a mouthful, I still don't quite understand what they thought was going on!

We were all fed up with city life; the traffic was terrible, the smog was suffocating but Abidjan has a lot going for it - very well thought out in terms of infrastructure but its lost such a lot since the coup detat and subsequent war. We waited for JB at Nicolas' flat whilst he went off to see his father in hospital (who died a few days later from stomach ulcers & other complications aged 53). We all got a taxi to Treichville bus station and caught the bus to Bonoua, a taxi down to Samo and another very wet taxi to Assinie, we later discovered that this taxi had just done the Ghana border 'run' along the beach at low tide!

Grand Bassam

2007-12-16T22:41:00.000+01:00

Waking a few hours after going to bed, Dani & I wandered outside where we met Ami, Marvin's maid. She prepared breakfast for us and we watched a few enormous lizards and then I headed back to bed. She came with me and locked us in the room whilst I slept for another hour.

A little later Marvin came down and we had a 'normal' conversation, ie. I was awake - he suggested we all go out for lunch in town. We got back in the car with our packs in the boot and headed into town, crossing the bridge over the lagoon to the old part of Bassam. A lovely restaurant on the waters edge where a wedding was being held, we ate a great lunch, Dani had her first taste of 'fufu' which in CI is plantain and not yam. He then decided that we should see some of Bassam, so visited quite a few hotels along the beach, the old area of town which was the French quarter in colonial times and then off to Bonoua a town about 20kms away.

Heading back to Bassam, we stopped briefly to buy pineapples and Dani relented & tried one having sworn blind in France she hated them. Realising they were delicious, Marvin treated her and bought 12 of them ... he took us & the pineapples back to his hotel www.marvinhotel.bravehost.net

We had an early night after supper, still feeling the effects of travelling through the night. A bombshell was dropped on me; Dani told me she didn't like it there, wanted to leave and return to France. She felt the staring was all too much and one of the kids on the side of the road when we'd bought the pineapple had tried to touch her arm ... I had a bit of explaining to do but she went to bed still feeling uncomfortable with being white in Africa.

The following morning we went out in search of a taxi to take us to the orphanage www.emsf.org
and the first taxi took us to the other side of town near where we'd had lunch the previous day. After asking the guys in charge I discovered I was at the wrong place, it was the National Orphanage and not the one I'd made enquiries about prior to leaving France. Getting our 20kg haul of clothes & shoes into a second taxi with sketchy directions to the one we wanted, we finally (with a bit of encouragement to get the driver to go down some rough tracks) found it and were amazed it was only several hundred metres from Marvin's home!
We spent an hour or so at the orphanage, meeting the kids & Eric who was in charge as Mme Auguy had waited for us the previous day, so we felt rather guilty! We were invited to their Christmas play but it was too close to Christmas and would interfere with our travel plans, so we promised to return in January. Eric and some of the children saw us down to the main road which we crossed and went to a little maquis (bar) for lunch, having cooked it several times in France, she finally agreed that she loved alooko or fried plantain! Going back into town, we organised a SIM card, sent an e-mail home and generally wandered about.

Later in the afternoon we heard from JB, someone I'd been in touch with for a few weeks, a long story but basically a friend of a friend. JB's a Burkinabe, born & brought up in Cote d'Ivoire he works in Assinie. He arrived at the hotel and introduced himself and had Nicolas waiting outside. I'd heard about Nicolas, a French guy who would probably prefer to surf for a living but actually does work in cocoa! We were offered a lift to Abidjan by Nicolas & JB announced that we were going to stay with Peter, a journalist in Abidjan.

We arrived at Nicolas' apartment in Zone 4, lovely building - typical expat block, very smart with good security. We took our packs up to his flat to wait for Peter; the heavens opened, a storm really brewed up and the road beneath us was flooded. Peter had been caught in traffic, broken down several times and having never been to Nicolas' place he wasn't going to attempt in the current weather conditions - I don't blame him!

So Nicolas offered to drive us there and once in the car with the packs back in the boot ready to go to eat and then to Peter's place, he came up with Plan B, why not stay with him! We were thrilled!

Cote d'Ivoire

2007-12-15T21:59:00.000+01:00

Arriving at 4.30am in the morning at any airport does not fill me with joy.

Arriving at an airport that is fiercely protected by 100's of French troops following a war that finished a few months earlier, worried me.

Arriving at an airport at 4.30am, in a country that's just ended a war, with a 12yr old girl in tow, terrified me!

We got there. We got off the plane and walked down the stairs towards immigration and a man comes up to me wanting a handshake saying our names - WTF?!?!?! Suddenly the lack of sleep didn't seem to come into play, the fact that I looked a complete sight, probably something resembling a martian with my hair trying to look like something from the 70's really didn't worry me. What the hell was going on???

I had made a few calls prior to leaving; I'd decided that seeing as we were arriving early on a Saturday morning there wasn't much point staying in Abidjan, it would make far more sense to stay out of town on the beach. I picked Bassam, a town 40mins away on the beach used by a lot of people from Abidjan at the weekend to escape the city. I found a cheap hotel; Marvin Hotel and spent days trying to track down it's telephone number. Finally I rang and got hold of a guy who worked (note the past tense on that - he's been sacked since for stealing) there called Olivier. Olivier was full of promises to pick us up from the airport. However, on the phone from France, I got the feeling Olivier was one of Africa's many touts and asked several times to speak to the BOSS! Finally I got hold of the boss, who wasn't M. Kone but M. Marvin. He agreed to pick us up from the airport and get us to Bassam, which is a feat in itself as Abidjan has a curfew from 10pm and getting out of Abidjan is impossible by any form of transport.

So, this hand belonged to Marvin. Who introduced himself, I was confused, worried & concerned for Dani who hadn't slept all that much on the flight despite using my shoulder, stomach & arm as a pillow, keeping me awake in the process! We all made our way to the immigration booth, got our bags and wandered through the crowds of taxi touts (although some were sleeping on the floor). The airport is magnificent, I was expecting another Dakar/Dar Es Salaam/Nairobi etc affair, complete madness in a concrete box, Abidjan is very plush in comparison!

Marvin steered us outside to a waiting taxi. The fact that he had managed to get to the airport meant that he had got through the police barrage before 10pm, he was expecting our flight at 2am, it was now approaching 5am - but he looked a lot better than we felt without sleep! We hopped into the taxi, our codeword was exchanged which meant that Dani was feeling OK about the situation and the taxi drove us a few kilometres to the police barrage. Jumping out we got our luggage and walked about a kilometre to the end of the police barrage (soldiers fast asleep) listening to the early morning prayer call from a nearby mosque, the sea at the shoreline a few metres away and coping with the temperature which must have been in the high 20's whilst wearing clothes for the cold of France and the relative temperate climes of Casablanca.

On the other side of the police barrage, he'd parked his car. Luckily it was still there, we climbed in and were told that the hotel was full but not to worry, we'd be staying at his house! Twenty minutes later we were in Bassam and at his house. Lovely place and Dani suddenly woke up when she saw the pool, we sat down, had a drink a short chat and went to bed; we had struck lucky ... it had all passed without a hiccup and Marvin was proving to be very kind to us both.

Hitting the road again ...

2007-12-14T23:26:00.000+01:00

Or should I say the skies?! Leaving home in -5 we hit fog on our way to the airport. All went smoothly and we got into the terminal building to meet 250odd French Foreign Legion soldiers who were milling about waiting for their flight to Corsica for training.
Our flight was delayed thanks to Royal Air Babouche (Maroc) sitting for 2hrs at the gate with one nervous but excited 12yr old was a little tiresome but finally we saw it in the fog, disembarking passengers and finally we got on board! A Moroccan guy put his bag in the overhead locker and with it brought down the lighting strip, he couldn't put it back up, neither could the cabin crew who then went off and got a plaster to hold it into place!

Our arrival in Casablanca was fairly straightforward and luckily 20degrees! Checking that our transit status was OK, we headed through to immigration and out the other side to the station. A massive queue at the ticket office, lots of pushing & shoving and Dani was wide eyed with all the goings on. I heard the train arrive, no closer to the ticket office and decided to jump on the train minus a ticket. Somehow we found our way into 1st class and met 2 lovely Moroccan men who said we'd done the best thing as getting a ticket before the train left would have been impossible. Arriving at Casa Voyageurs station, we went out, got hassled by petit taxi drivers who wanted 30-40Dh for a fare to the Hassan II Mosque, we continued on and walked across the square to find a taxi who would put his meter on and arriving at the mosque we paid 8Dh for the fare!!!

Dani's first time in Africa, she was stunned by the mosque, the people and the mad tendancies of driving. We caught another taxi up to the Grand Marche and found a restaurant to eat in, she tried the a la menthe but preferred coke. A couple of pastilla & brochettes later we paid the bill and went for a walk before finding another taxi to take us back to the station and the train for the airport.

Our taxi already had one lady in it who was quite happy to share with us, within minutes we hit a man on a bicycle - well, he rode his bike into our taxi. He came and yelled at the driver, heated Arabic was exchanged and we drove off with the 4 of us laughing, the next lights were red, and our cyclist caught up with us, still yelling and then like on a suicide mission rode his bike across the traffic - we almost cried with laughter! We drove past him again at speed, smiled and waved goodbye whilst he was still yelling obscenities at our driver!!!

Getting back to the airport we went back through immigration who took forever to put someone on the desk and met up with a half French/Ivoirian family who'd been on our flight from Toulouse. Again our flight was delayed, we went off to the bathroom and I got out all our euros in cash gave Dani a third of them, then we both sat in cubicles stuffing them in our various hiding places. Leaving the bathrooms the gate area was empty. Panic hit - the flight had gone???? The gate number was still the same on the board but the delayed message had gone. I found a member of staff who assured me it hadn't gone but was at Gate 28 which then had me running around the airport trying to find 28, which was obscured downstairs. We waited another hour there and finally got on board.

Another hour or so on board, we were still on the tarmac everyone was in high spirits but a little annoyed that we'd not left. Finally a Lebanese lady with her 5 children got on board and caused chaos moving everyone out of their seats as she wasn't happy with her seat numbers. We roared down the runway with everyone clapping thrilled to have finally left at 11.40pm, 2.5hrs late!

Don't feel ready

2007-12-13T11:06:00.000+01:00

I don't think I am ready. Woke up with a horrible hangover (thanks to drinking some red wine which I won't be doing for a while!) after dinner with a neighbour last night.

Whether we will make the airport in 24hrs time intact with all my clothes, I'm not sure. Very silly mistake last night, really should have known better than to live it up 36hrs prior to departure! Ho hum .....

A week's countdown

2007-12-07T10:55:00.000+01:00

We've got a week to go before leaving. I'm not sleeping, waking at 6am and getting online to work, daydream of Africa & feeling exhausted by 6pm but not actually managing to go to bed until midnight. I think this could be called stress!

Thanks to a contact in Assinie that Nico from http://thirdratetropics.blogspot.com who passed on the name of someone who has been incredibly kind & helpful. Landing at 2am anywhere in the world doesn't fill me with joy. Landing in Abidjan at that hour is probably the most ridiculous piece of airline scheduling I know! But beggars can't be choosers!

However, our wonderful contact, JB a Burkinabe, is due to send me a number by text of a small auberge who apparently does a pick-up service to the airport. Again, with the power of the net, this auberge's name was given to me by Olivier, a Frenchman who owns http://www.busuainn.com & lives in Busua, Ghana. We hope to see him & stay with him & his wife at Busua Inn during the trip.

With the amount of clothes that have yet again kindly been donated by Deirdre & Yvonne, childrens clothes & shoes that their children have grown out of; we have a ton of weight to carry. I've been trying to find somewhere in CI or neighbouring countries to drop this stuff off. By complete chance I came across 'Enfance Meurtrie Sans Frontières' http://www.emsf.org on the net the other day. Ringing it's Montpellier based Founder & President, Pasteur Claude - I discovered that they are in need of all this material & Madame Auguy (orphanage director) will be waiting for our arrival in Bassam ... so luckily (& selfishly) we don't have too far to carry all the donations!

We're just about ready!

2007-12-04T22:35:00.000+01:00

It's been a busy few weeks ... planning & preparing, we've got a little over a week to go & the 'priorities' are in place. I have never been so worried about a trip as this one, taking a child to a country just out of war isn't something I'd normally do!

However, everyone on routard.com assures me that its all fine & as I well know, children in Africa are well looked after. We're not going to Iraq after all!

So, the major hunt has been for drugs; of the clinical kind. We both have Lariam ready to start tomorrow. Together with the necessary dunking of her clothes & our mossie nets in premethin, we should have enough drugs to last us for a 12 month trip! Antibiotics, anti-histamines, anti-everything else are all packed up & ready to go.

Whether or not I remember to take stuff for me, such as clothes, shoes & something to wear bushwalking in northern Ghana is another matter but Dan has it all! Including a new backpack as we decided a suitcase was going to be a little on the difficult side for her!!!

Today I had a meeting with her history/geography teacher, a lovely man called M.Duriaux & I was thrilled to find someone else with my passion for Francophone Africa. He's lived & taught in a number of countries and gave me an outline of what he wants on our return for a school project. Someone went to bed earlier saying 'I thought this was meant to be a holiday'!!!!

Nothing ever goes right when planning Africa ...

2007-11-13T18:31:00.000+01:00

I know too well that I can't plan trips to Africa. Not even in Europe; it always starts off in an African fashion.

Yesterday plunged me into further chaos. I went to pay for Dan's ticket & pick mine up. All went well, I handed over the cheque & my travel agent got the tickets out, the lady who's usually there, Dominique, is wonderful but no I had to have the 'boss' who has yet to learn that to make a computer work, you must turn it on!

So I went through the tickets with him, and queried why my ticket was still showing a return time from Casablanca of 08.10 when I'd already been told that the airline had moved me to a later 16.35 time (meaning another long wait on the way home). He went through Dan's ticket and showed me the time of 16.35 for the return. I pointed out that the two tickets didn't match & we were returning on different flights .. and under no circumstances was I leaving a 12yr old in Casablanca alone for 8hrs or so.

He promised all would be fine; I asked for a new printout, he told me to get it done in Casablanca on arrival. Knowing full well the chaos that pervades anything official being done in Morocco I gave up with him as I knew he wouldn't be able to print anything out and went home.

Ringing the airline, I was on hold for a full 15minutes before speaking to some man that now promises me that we are on the same flight and has our seats booked all the way through to Abidjan and will be sending a new ticket through to my agents.

Progress at last!

First Hurdle

2007-11-01T09:54:00.000+01:00

We went to the Consulat of the Cote d'Ivoire in Marseille yesterday!

We've got our visas, & are thrilled. 'Madame' a lovely lady from the Antilles eventually issued them an hour and a half after we arrived. Despite my phone calls to the consulate to check what was needed she threw a couple of spanners in the works.

A few months ago a 'letter of invitation' was needed; they've done away with this thank goodness but asked for an address. I gave her an address of someone I know through someone else who lives in Abidjan & works in cocoa. It didn't work, I didn't have the post box number; wasn't thinking quickly enough to tell her any old number! So I said to put us down as staying in one of the chain hotels ... she looked a bit dubious and wrote it in!

She's marked Dani as travelling with her 'mother' with a little comment about 'not waking the sleeping man in Paris'. She didn't want to see all the parental letters I had from her mother to allow her to come on this trip with me!

We had our yellow fever certificates, all well & good, but she hadn't mentioned that we need our tickets; Dani's isn't' paid for so I don't have it anyway. After a bit of pleading she let me ring my travel agent who duly faxed the details through ... without even looking at it she told me I should hang onto the piece of paper & always have my ticket on me ...?!!? What was that lesson all about???

Gassing ...

2007-11-01T09:49:00.000+01:00

I had some bad news the other day. Gianni who I met hitchiking at a police post in Dakhla, on the way down to Mauritania http://saharan-xmas.blogspot.com and we travelled together last year in Guinea, Guinea Bissau & Senegal http://deeper-in2-west-africa.blogspot.com
was in his truck a week ago doing his normal route between Italy & Spain when he pulled up in an autoroute layby near Montpellier. Whilst asleep he had someone spray gas into his cab and forced entry.

This is 'normal' practice in the summer months especially against tourists in caravans/campervans but I've never heard of it with a truck.

Waking up a little woozy, he found 600euros in cash missing & his credit cards gone. They'd used the credit card before he managed to stop it.

We both laughed & pointed out that Africa was less dangerous than the autoroutes of Europe!

Unfortunately he's not coming to the Cote d'Ivoire; nothing to do with this attack but he's got a lot of work on. A real shame!

2007-09-10T15:14:00.001+02:00

Still 3 months and 4 days away from departure but already the excitement of getting back to Africa is building up. Having to organise a visa prior to departure for the Cote d'Ivoire, constantly thinking of the 12yr old who'll be tagging along with me & whether Gianni, my Italian travel partner will make his mind up about joining are all keeping me occupied!

The route 'should' be from Abidjan to Ghana where we'll pass Morree to go & see KingaFreespirits' foundation created by her mother Krystyna who I'm trying to assist http://www.fundacjafreespirit.pl/eng/index0_eng.html

From there we're looking at going north to Banfora in Burkina Faso to keep someone's geography teacher happy - it's in this year's text book, then to Boromo where there's meant to be a great auberge and onto Bobo Dioualasso then a short night in Ouagadougou before catching a bus to Niamey, Niger. From Niamey we should be able to get a pirogue downriver for 36hrs or so; it's a commercial run that many boatmen take and the idea is to get us to the border of Benin. If the train is running from Parakou to Cotonou we'll go south by that but there's some news that it stopped running for good back in April 2007.

Back through Togo & Ghana - hoping to take in a bit of slave history to make this a little more educational than just a 'jaunt' across W.Africa, we'll go back past Abidjan for a few days of R&R in San Pedro near the border with Liberia.

It's a shame, as the original plan had been to go through Liberia and back into my favourite African country; Guinea. Since I left last year the situation with Conte, the dictatorial president haven't been good & I was lucky to leave when I did. I wanted to go back there ... but it'll have to wait until the end of 2008 when I hope to drive down there ... in'shallah

A few months to go ...

2007-09-10T14:52:00.000+02:00