The week from hell up north: Part I

Kevin and I met at the STC bus station, me running late and having awoken with a cold that was to last the entire week. Our bus to Tamale was supposed to have air-conditioning but when we arrived at the station, they returned some of our money because apparently no air-con bus was available. This was going to be a bit sucky for the 13-hour trip ahead of us, but what can you do. They did manage to shove a lot of things on the bus with us as usual - including a photocopier sitting next to the driver.

About half-way to Tamale, thick storm clouds started covering the sky, and then the rain started. Kevin and I were slightly worried because we knew that rain in Ghana is bad news - the roads are slippery, everyone keeps speeding and overtaking in their usual insane manner and noone turns on their headlights for fear of using their petrol. Sure enough, 2 minutes later I look up to see a massive truck headed straight for our windscreen. The truck and our bus swerved out of the way, with our bus pushing the taxi it had been trying to overtake off the road. Our bus pulled over for awhile so that the driver and the taxi driver could scream at each other, and then we continued on. Meanwhile Kevin and I were still trying to gulp our hearts out of our throats… We honestly thought we could have died in that one and decided that, since it was also almost getting dark, staying on the bus wasn’t worth the risk. We got off at the next little town, Kintampo.

We stayed at a hotel which happened to be right across the road from the STC bus station, and it only cost 65000cedis for a double room - about $8.90. Sitting in the reception area of the hotel, drinking a beer, was the chief of Kintampo! We were so pleased when we found out that we’d met a chief in Ghana. He saw us pay half each for the room and told Kevin that it wasn’t right and he should’ve paid for the whole thing. We told him it was okay, we were just friends and we were paying half each. ‘We don’t do that…’ with a shake of the head was the response from the chief. He told Kevin that he had better be paying for my dinner then. Hilarious!

In the morning we got a tro-tro the rest of the way to Tamale, the first of 2 times I actually felt safe in transit during this week of hell. A guy nearby was trying to charge us money to sit in the front seat, then tried to charge me money to put my backpack in the back. Later on we figured out that the guy had nothing to do with the tro at all! Luckily by that time we were well-seasoned travellers so we hadn’t paid him any money. In Tamale we got tickets for our next bus which would take us straight to Mole National Park, ate lunch and met a bunch of other obronis obviously headed in the same direction.

It came time to board the bus and all the Ghanaians, having no sense of queuing or order, shoved into the bus door. One woman behind us was yelling at us to get out of the way so she could get through, meanwhile we’re all packed like sardines against the bus side being pushed in every direction, one of the other obronis dropped her bag of sachet water all over the ground because of the shoving and another woman started stealing it! Kevin told her it was our friend’s water so she should stop stealing it and the woman went ballistic, saying we would have to pay her for the water! It was so frustrating. When we eventually got on the bus, Kevin and I were told we were standing. We had paid good money for standing room only on a 6-hour bus trip along a dirt road? Great. We ended up getting seats anyway, Kevin next to a girl he’d met somewhere along the way, and me next to 2 Dutch girls, Irene and Marie, who had a spare seat because Irene had an infected mosquito bite on her foot and had to keep it elevated. We made it Mole at about 8pm, got a triple room which we shared with Rula, an American chick, ate a fabulous dinner with alcohol that we definitely deserved and then went to bed.

In the morning, we all woke early for the 6:30am safari walk. I had only brought thongs with me and so I had to wear these massive black boots. The safari was pretty cool - we saw a bunch of deer-like animals and then at the end we chilled out near the elephants’ watering hole for awhile watching elephants bathe. By the end though, I had about 15 blisters on my feet. Luckily, Rula had some disinfectant cream with her which probably saved me from the same fate as Irene from the bus. For the rest of the day, we ate lunch and dinner and slept a lot. We were all pretty damned tired and it was great to just chill out, watching the monkeys outside our hotel room window.

Our plan from Mole NP was to make our way to Wa, the capital of the Upper-West region of Ghana. To do this, we woke up early again and walked the 6km to Larabanga a small town probably not worth much of a mention. Irene and Marie were there having caught a 4am bus from Mole (we were too tired to wake up that early). Now all we had to do was wait for the bus that would come through Larabanga on it’s way from Tamale to Wa. Kevin, Rula and I grabbed some breakfast at a small place (egg and bread, staple breakfast). The bus did come through, but it was full - something we weren’t quite prepared for, since it only comes once a day! We ended up sitting on some rickety benches with people staring at us for a couple of hours. We bargained a deal with a taxi man, so the 5 of us would each pay 150,000 each (way more than we should have paid, but we were desperate) and then he came back and demanded an extra 10,000 from each of us for FOOD! Food costs way less than 50,000 for sure in Ghana, and it’s not like he couldn’t afford it with the 750,000 we were about to give him! We broke off the deal and were trying to sort something else out when a tro-tro came, headed for Wa. Relieved, we jumped in.

We got as far as Bole (about half of the way) when we were told to get out - turned out the tro-tro wasn’t going to Wa after all! We were so mad because we’d paid a good amount of money thinking we were making it all the way to Wa. A cool Ghanaian dude in the tro with us helped us out by getting the current driver to give the next driver some of our money so we didn’t have to pay again. Next tro-tro - we were going along and the tyre popped! Luckily we had just slowed down to let some cattle cross the road as it could have been a nasty crash if we were going faster. We did make it to Wa in the end.

1. Some of the road heading up north. See the photocopier at the bottom there?
2. Kevin and me looking slightly frazzled
3. The rain coming down just before our crash
4. Kevin on the balcony of our hotel in Kintampo
5. A small village on the way to Tamale
6. Mole NP
7. The view from our room
8. And again
9. And again.. How cool is this place?
10. Me in my phat boots
11. Me, Rula and Kevin on our safari walk
12. Elephant!
13. This is what it would look like if I stood next to a lake with elephants in it. Hang on a second..
14. Irene and Marie, chillin out in Larabanga
15. The road from Larabanga
16. Us, excited to be leaving
17. These legs came down from the roof about half-way through the journey
18. Our popped tyre