Ghana be...fun

Where we are going there won’t be roads!

I haven’t gone back to misquoting movies at the start of each blog entry but this really did seem like a suitable way in which to start an entry about a long and somewhat bumpy trip on a motorbike all the way from Accra to Mole National Park in the North of Ghana.

Saturday started well and the road to Kumasi was looking good… or at least to start with.  Having headed out north to Koforidua a week or so before I had a vague inkling about what was to come.  If I had engaged any sort of common sense, or indeed had an ounce of sense of any kind when it comes to direction I would have been prepared for the missing chunk of road.  Unfortunately I have neither common sense nor sense of direction; and the nice smooth red line on the map did not equate with the spinal shock and bruised posterior I had suffered whilst on a bus heading back into Accra the previous week.  I therefore discovered that not only was the road still under construction in certain places, but that it takes about 45 minutes to cover 40 miles of sand, mud and bomb sized craters when sitting on the back of a motorbike.  This was about as uncomfortable as sliding down 5 flights of stairs when wearing only one’s pyjamas. Having been in trouble numerous times as a child for doing this I can say with a fair amount of authority the resulting friction burns from sliding back and forth on denim also feel uncomfortably similar.

It was with great relief and happiness that I saw the sign to Linda Dor service and rest area and stopping for a quick break was an option.  A quick Fandango later and I was good to get back on the bike and start heading north again… I ummed and ahhhed for a bit about whether or not I wanted to brave the restrooms- public restrooms have never been a preferred option, but given the fact we had covered so few miles I really felt it would be a good move.  So, I queued up outside to pay for my toilet paper (it came pre folded and cost 20 pesewa) and then I was allowed inside.  I was actually quite stunned by the size of the room and the number of stalls, there were two long rows of immaculately kept stalls and only two people using the facilities.  Despite the fact there was a sign in the parking lot quite explicitly saying, “It is forbidden to urinate here” it turns out at least three people thought the sign did not apply to them, and even that they could use it as a target, or a balance pole.  Turns it was there loss as this was possibly the best-equipped restroom I have encountered since arriving in Ghana.  The doors to the cubicles may have been without a closing mechanism but that is why you take a bag with you, right?  To prop the door closed?  Better than that tho were the automatic, motion sensitive soap dispensers, complete with soap, AND the automatic, motion sensitive paper towel dispenser complete with paper towels, and functioning power.  It was truly worth the entire trip just for this.  20 pesewa well spent, and I would be happy to give more.

I would like to say that I will not be recounting any more restroom stories for the remainder of the blog, but that would be blatantly untrue, and just not funny.  The other one involved a garage with an impeccable clean restroom- it would put anything but Buckee’s to shame!  It had a roster on the wall for cleaning duties, it had soap, towels, and tissue no running water and a goat that came charging at me head down as soon as I opened the door!  Short tussle with the goat later- you’ll see me roping cattle at the rodeo yet- and the restroom was mine!

The rest of the roads toward Kumasi and beyond were indeed paved, if not with gold, then a more modern equivalent- tarmac and it was indeed full on 24K tarmac at that.  It was a long, flat black ribbon of it stretching all the way ahead of us… or at least until we were about 40 miles from our destination, and then it changed into sand, mud, ridges, gravel and potholes.  It was truly the most uncomfortable, bone jarring, brain shacking experience I have ever had the misfortunate to encounter.

Luckily for my back the adventure was about to take a more interesting turn, for no sooner was the National Park in sight and unpacking, relaxing and looking at some wildlife seeming a distinct possibly the lightning started to flash, the thunder started to rumble and the clouds gathered, heavy and dark.  This was no flash in the pan storm either… it was a full on all night and into the next morning job.  Which meant that the sand, the mud and the gravel had all turned into clay, mud and gouges of missing road.  There was no way the bike was coming down that track.

So, at 6:30am, in the rain and with the distant echoes of thunder still ringing in the air it was time to find someone with an 4 x 4 flatbed to transport the bike 40 miles cross country and back to the tarmac… five men, a broken windshield, a bent tailgate, broken roll bars and five hours later we arrived back on a tarmacked road! 

There was so much more to this adventure- but I’m just not sure it can be done justice here- the video (to follow) might be much better at telling the story than me!

I have also missed out- the randomness of road name in Kumasi, the most amazing Indian meal I have eaten in a long time, the beauty of the Black Volta, the 13^th Century Mosques, the amazing Ashanti Gold Mining towns, an the medieval feeling of some of the “forgotten” villages… but this was truly an African Adventure worthy of its own book- not reflections in a blog.