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!
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