On the go in Ghana

Great dirt roads!

The border at Hamele was also not busy but everyone had to be present at immigration to fill the forms. The customs people did the Carnets and the health people insisted on seeing the vaccination cards. But it was all done within less than an hour and they were off south on a very bad dirt road that would last for the rest of the day and part of the next day.

Camp food

It was getting late and the final decision was to bush-camp. They guys went to ask a village chief for a place to stay and they were shown an old quarry. It had rained here too and there were puddles just about everywhere. She was to prepare food that evening and she felt that making food has never been such an ordeal as in camp.

Lightning had started in the distance and they barely had time to get into the car before the rain came down. It was not a pleasant evening and she barely slept that night. The next morning was miserable when they prepared to leave. They wanted to thank the chief for his hospitality and went to see him but he was not there.

It was not until they reached Nadowle, a town just before Wa that the road was tarred and better. Until then it was a bad dirt road, tarred only in the towns and dirt again out of town. By then they had passed a few roadblocks, both customs and police. Here the police do not hesitate: at the first road block in Ghana they were asked for bread, when they said they did not even have the local money to buy bread, that they only had CFA’s they were told that the police would want to see the CFA. She dug out a few coins to show them.

At the second road-block where they were stopped, the one policeman asked if they were not ‘topping salary’, she understood immediately. But Coen did not quite catch and asked again and again, until the policemen just waved us on. A few days later they were stopped at another road-block. They thought they were flagged down because they were speeding but the guy’s ‘speed gun’ was switched off. At first he wanted some water and she agreed to share some of their water with him if he had a bottle.

Then he went on to give them a lecture about how it is illegal to drive a right hand drive vehicle in Ghana, that they needed a special permit to do so. Coen told him that they were on their way to Accra to get one. He was, by then, hanging on to the driver’s licence and kept on with that line. Then he downright asked if they could not give him some Cedis. There, Coen told him ‘then you will arrest me for bribery’ and was he flapping to explain that it was not that but a contribution. Nothing was given in the end and we slowly edged out of the situation.

In Morocco it was café’s and snacks (short for snack bar – even if they did not serve food there!) in every corner; in Mauritania these were rather scarce. In Senegal you do find restaurants and patisseries in many parts of Dakar, less in the countryside. In Mali there are restaurants, patisseries, boulangeries, bars and cafés but in Burkina Faso you start seeing more ‘maquis’ which seem to serve the same purpose. And as you drive into Ghana you see ‘drinking spots’.

As many writers before me have written, they are big on religion in Ghana – their own version and interpretation of it most likely. There are churches and seminaries all over the place, mosques are more frequent in the north but they are all over the country too. In the most decrepit place, if you find a good, well painted building, it is highly likely a church. In the cities they take some rather gigantic proportions. And then you see God’s Help Drinking Spot or The Will of God Drinking Spot and they use God’s name and Jesus’ as well to name their business. We even passed a building called ‘Anointed House’! Go figure how this country is in the state it is these days.

Market traffic

And so, they travelled on to Kumasi. The road was good in most parts, with some big potholes from place to place and 50km/hour limits in the towns along the main roads – and there are many of those. The decision was to spend the night in the Presbyterian Guest House and proceed from there. It was raining when they got to the edge of the town.

Hans had put the coordinates on his GPS but that was playing up and the traffic was building up as they got into town. It was Eid in Ghana that day. The GPS gave them a run around and somehow Hans was resisting the idea of just asking a taxi to get us there. He then said all the cars should turn into one road up from the market street and then we fell in the midst of the Eid festival. There were thousands of people in that road, very loud music and a major traffic jam.

Finally, he got someone to clear the road in front of the cars and guide us. This person did not speak a word of English and eventually they had to stop by the Catholic church and ask a muslim passer-by to explain to him where we wanted to go. When we got to the Presbyterian church it started raining. It was downright pouring when we entered the premises of the guesthouse. 

Luckily the security was able to dispense rooms. They took a room, she found something for Coen to eat, they showered and went to bed. It was a pleasant enough room with a fan but there were mosquitoes too.

It was still overcast the next day and they decided to head for the coast. The others were heading to Accra because Hans wanted to have his car serviced. They had breakfast at the guesthouse and got into conversation with a German lady who was there. They told her where they were heading. She was heading for the coast too.

Going for Gold ….. Coast.

They went to get connected at the MTN office on their way out of town, took a small road and finally reached the main road south. This was a tarred road, for a few kilometres, they were working on this road and travelling was a bit slow but after that only passing through towns was slow and they made it to Cape Coast at around 14h00.

Elmina 'Castle'

Cape Coast is a big town. It also has one of Ghana’s biggest universities on an immense campus. We went on with this road, due west to Elmina where they wanted to stay at Stumble Inn, a place they heard of. She was driving at this point. The road into Elmina town was narrow and full of people. The market was on full swing. The fishing boats were in the little ‘harbour’ there and it was quite a sight along with the ‘castle’ at the peak of the cape there.

Stumble Inn

Engaging onto a rather bad dirt road, they stumbled in. It was still cloudy and it had drizzled a few times on the way so they decided that they would not set up camp but rather take a room (no bungalows were available that day). This was a spacious affair with a large bed and a smaller one complete with mosquito net. Toilets and showers were in an outer building, clean and adequate. But since it was drizzling and there was quite a wind from the sea, everything had this ‘moite’ feeling to it – a dampness that was inherent to the place at that period.

Gold Coast

The Dutch couple who run the place are very nice and helpful people. They had started asking around if diving was possible in the area after Coen had told them that they were interested in diving. The wind was blowing a bit when they got there and the sea was rough. It calmed down a bit and later the breeze made for a comfortable evening. By then the German lady they met in Kumasi had joined them. Since many of the places along the road were either busy or beyond her budget, she thought she’d stumble in as well.

Lobster dinner

For dinner that first night they had freshly caught lobsters, grilled to perfection, served with rice and garlic butter. It was excellent. The lobsters were a bit small, the girl said, so she served some beef stew with yam chips as well. They made an excellent repast.

They found some books on a shelf there and spent much of their time reading. The next day, they decided to go into Cape Coast to draw some money and see about getting some parts for the car. They did an oil change at the Shell garage on the main road and then went to town.

Side road vendor selling reed rat

They call this town the old capital. The roads in the town are narrow and most of them have become one-way streets. Getting to an international bank was a bit of a mission and when they got there, there was a carnival going on. Again, lots of people, loud music and traffic jam. But she managed to draw some money. The teller was not giving more than 200 (about R1000).

They thought they could go to the teller on campus. That campus is a town in itself but road signs were scarce. After asking for directions a few times, they found the Barclays ATM’s that were not working that day!!

Tire repair

So they went back to the Inn, passing the street vendors and Elmina town. They stopped there to have a tire repaired. Where Q-tyre had left the valves in, the tube was thinning and losing air.

They spent a quiet afternoon reading and resting. That evening, they had a meal from this excellent kitchen again, with yam chips. The next morning, they had breakfast, packed the car and were on their way west to look for the diving place they were told about.