Bus

Hamale bus station

Once you’ve experienced Ghana’s main attractions, there’s really only one thing left to do: travel the entire length of the country in one day. That’s 665km in a cramped, rickety bus. With unforgiving wooden seats and a crotchety driver.

Late in the afternoon, Hannah and I had crossed into Ghana from Burkina Faso at Hamale, a small town in the far northwest. Our plan was to get a tro tro to Wa, the nearest large town, then continue to Accra the next day on a comfortable VIP bus – complete with comfy seats, Nigerian films on TV and perhaps even a preacher on board.

But the border guard who stamped our passports told us that the last transport had gone for the day; we would have to catch the Metro Mass bus to Kumasi at 4.00am in the morning. Metro Mass is Ghana’s state-funded, poorly managed transport network, with antique, overcrowded vehicles. It was not an attractive option, but the only one available.

The Hamale Hilton

Our next task was to find somewhere to stay until 4.00am. Hamale is chaotic, like many border towns, but it’s a remote crossing with few tourists – hence a lack of tourist-friendly outlets. The town’s only hotel offers dingy rooms around a bare concrete courtyard. The mattress had an ominous brown sheen and the bathroom comprised a tap in the courtyard and a foul-smelling long-drop toilet. It was far from inviting, but as with the transport, there were no other options.

No other options for cosseted Westerners at least. Rising early, we walked to bus station. Clearly most travellers wait at the station, rather than paying 30 cedis for a hotel room (this would more than double the bus fare); some were still asleep, wrapped up in blankets to keep out the cool night air, while others crowded around a TV showing a spy movie. Simple our hotel may have been, but it was a luxury few could afford.

Only 21 hours to go...

I bought a fried egg sandwich from a father-and-son team who were feeding the waiting crowds. The boy, no more than 10 years old, looked exhausted as he brought over my breakfast, his eyes half-closed and steps slow. I wondered if he had been working all night, and if he would be going to school in a few hours. Despite the economic progress, Ghana is still a poor country, especially in the far north, and many children have to work to help out the family business.

Ghanaians don’t travel light, and it took over an hour to cram all the bags into the bus’s storage decks. The driver shouted directions at his young ‘mate’ (or conductor) before eventually we took our seats. As the driver revved the engine, the mate tied the door shut with a piece of twine. Clearly this was a bus that had seen better days.

And so began the journey. The bus skidded and bumped along the dirt road to Wa. We waited for two hours in Wa for no apparent reason. Passengers shouted impatiently at the mate when they wanted to get off; the driver then shouted at him for making the bus stop too many times. The sun cooked the inside of the bus and my t-shirt began to melt into my skin. The wooden seat got harder with every tedious mile.

The bus stopped and everyone got out for a piss beside the road: men beside the bus, women behind the trees. We got back on and continued through the endless scrub forest of the Ashanti region. By this stage the driver was at the point of killing his poor mate, and I would have probably joined in, just for something to break the tedium. Eventually the bus entered the suburbs of Kumasi; relief was tempered by the thought that we were still at least five hours from home.

Nearly 22 hours after leaving Hamale, we reach the capital. I was exhausted, foul-tempered and even fouler-smelling. It was an unforgettable journey, despite nothing happening. And one that I never want to repeat, although it did create an unusual feeling – I was pleased to be back in Accra.

Home sweet home

Hawkers

What connects mobile phone credit, 500 ml sachets of purified water, and a framed hologram of Christ on the cross? Answer – they can all be bought on the streets of Accra. Along with bush meat. And fried plantain chips. And huge maps of Ghana. And Chinese-made neck massagers. And sliced papaya. And self-help books, bottles of fresh coconut water, new windscreen wiper blades, frozen yoghurts…

The capital’s street traders, known as ‘hawkers’, sell these myriad items at every set of traffic lights and traffic jam that slows cars down long enough for a transaction. Sometimes only just long enough; a hawker running alongside a car, one hand collecting change through the window, is a common sight.

Chasing cars isn’t the only hazard the hawkers face. They must dodge quickly out of the way when the traffic starts moving: not easy with an overflowing basket of oranges balanced on your head. And spending 12 hours a day amid the city’s vehicle fumes can’t be healthy.

Several women, men and children trade at the end of my road in the suburb of East Legon. While buying phone credit one morning, I asked the seller, John Abatey, how much he earns. “I get four cedis (about £1.30) for every 100 cedis of credit I sell. Most days, I sell around 500 cedis.”

My surprise at such a meagre living must have shown, as he quickly explained that this was a good living. “The water sellers earn much less,” he told me proudly. Water sells for 10 pesawas per sachet (around £0.03), with a seller making 1 or 2 pesewas per sale. Buying one always leaves me with mixed feelings: the empty sachets are one of the mains culprits in Accra’s wave of plastic pollution, but there’s no denying that they are instantly refreshing on a scorching day.

How much longer John and co. can stay there remains to be seen. The Accra Municipal Authority is stepping up efforts to clear the streets of hawkers. Their stated aim is to clear the streets to reduce congestion; the suspicion among the hawkers is that the authorities see them as an untidy blot in a rapidly modernizing city.

If they do disappear, I will miss them. Not least because of the convenience they offer: I know I don’t have far to walk whenever I need phone credit. Or some grilled maize. Or a box of Man Utd tissues. Or a carved wooden mask, a dead rat, a school lunchbox, a slice of watermelon, a game of Scrabble…

Hippos

A hippo

Weichau hippo sanctuary feels a long way from anywhere. We rattled along the bumpy, potholed road from Mole National Park for four hours before reaching the sanctuary’s visitor centre. Jo, our guide, showed us inside while KK, our driver, surveyed his mud-splattered car with the look of a man who regretted spending an hour washing it that morning. After paying the entrance fee, I asked Jo where the hippos were. ‘We have to drive; it’s another 22km along a dirt road’. KK didn’t look like he wanted to see hippos anymore; I was beginning to wonder myself.

We headed towards the Black Volta River, past the small communities who together created the sanctuary. I should have admired this remarkable community-based ecotourism project; instead I wondered when it was lunchtime and if it was too late to head for a hotel in Wa.

A young hippo

A dugout canoe was waiting on the river, which flows along the border between Ghana and Burkina Faso. We climbed in and were paddled upstream. And just five minutes later, we saw them. A bloat of hippos, submerged in the centre of the river. They rose one by one to snort out air, nudge each other or, on several occasions, fart loudly.

We pulled into the undergrowth on the Burkinabe side of the river and watched them. There’s something enthrallingly special about being 20 metres from wild hippos – about as close as I’d want to be. As each head appeared slowly, it was hard to shake the feeling they were keeping an eye on us, checking that we were keeping our distance.

The hippos have been protected since 1999, when the local communities created the sanctuary to generate a bit more tourism revenue in this quiet corner of Ghana. The scheme has been a success: visitor numbers have increased steadily and so, more importantly, have hippo numbers.

Our canoe

Numbers may get a further boost shortly. The hippos in Bui National Park, further along the Black Volta, are under threat from the new hydropower dam. Weichau sanctuary and Ghanaian wildlife groups hope they will move upstream. They will have to make their own way, though; no one has yet offered to move these giant, grumpy beasts. There are also doubts whether the land around Weichau could support more hippos. There’s plenty of space in the water – the problems will arise when they come on land to graze, threatening local crops.

Hidden in the shade, with the two young hippos now jumping on each other, it would have been easy to stay for longer. But tummies were rumbling; I illegally entered Burkina Faso for a quick piss, and we headed back to Weichau, leaving the hippos to enjoy their serene sanctuary.

*****

Ghana does tropical storms like few other countries, and the one during our night camping near the river was a classic. The lightning was so bright that the cockerels started crowing at 3.00am, thinking it was morning. We had to move our tent in the middle of the night to avoid a drenching.

Next morning, our charcoal burner was too wet too cook breakfast on, so we headed into Weichau village to eat. Jo took us to Yussif’s Tea Spot, whose motto is ‘Call in for all kinds of beverages’. As long as it’s Lipton Yellow Label tea. Still, at least Yussif acknowledged how lacking in flavour this shameful British brand is and put two bags into my plastic mug.

Mmm, Lipton!

Four of our six eggs had survived the storm and were soon being turned into an omelette. The tins of Heinz baked beans caused a problem, however. After explaining to Yussif that they didn’t go in the omelette, he then tried to fry them. It took a bit of discussion – Yussif was mute, so Hannah and I first had to explain to Jo how to cook beans, and he then signed this to Yussif. The expression on Jo’s face when he ate them was similar to my first fufu experience – people actually like this stuff? – but he ate them all, and Yussif’s fine breakfast restored our spirits after a wet night.

Mmm, beans!

Sipping my syrupy tea, I revised my opinion from the previous day. Weichau is a wonderful place and the local people deserve huge credit for their project. It’s well worth visiting – just don’t expect the journey there to be easy. And maybe leave the beans behind.

Dam

Akosombo Dam

The Akosombo Dam is Ghana’s equivalent of Big Ben. The country’s signature monument, a world-famous sight that every visitor wants to see. And when you get there, you look at it, take a photo, and … well, that’s about it.

You can’t walk on the Akosombo Dam without prior arrangement with the owners (and ‘prior arrangement’ is a loosely understood concept in Ghana). You can’t even get that close – the best viewing point is the balcony of the Volta Hotel, several hundred metres away.

And again

And yet, like Big Ben, it is still worth the effort to see it – to marvel at its size and wonder whether it really is just the pile of rocks and mud it appears to be. There’s no information boards, no museum and no guide, so these questions remain unanswered until you can get home and google them.

The region has other plus points as well, making a trip out here worthwhile. Chief among them is the Aylos Bay Hotel, perched on the bank of the Akosombo River. Hannah and I, with Manu and Flo, visiting friends from Germany, had arrived the night before after a hellish tro-tro journey from Kpando – thunderstorms, potholes, darkness and a maniacal driver are not a good mix. 

Atimpoku Bridge

The hotel’s lazy charms were the perfect remedy after such a journey. The highlight is the riverside dining area, especially the pontoons that float on the river. You cannot see the dam from here, but the impressive bridge at Atimpoku is visible. 

We immediately made our way there and our nerves were soon restored as we sank beers and enjoyed the good quality Ghanaian food (the best palaver sauce I have had here). It takes time to arrive – service here is as slow as most places – but for once the lethargy is in keeping with the surroundings.

Aylos Bay

Two bats called to each other in a tree nearby, a high-pitched squeak they repeated for two hours. The only other sounds were the oars of the occasional pirogue splashing into the water, and of course frogs and cicadas – the soundtrack to any night in Ghana. Certainly no interruptions from the staff; when I walked up to the bar to order more drinks, they had long since gone and the bar was closed.

 

Our visit to Akosombo could be summarised as an attraction you can’t visit, and a hotel with staff who would rather you didn’t bother them. It would be mean-spirited to conclude it was a typical Ghanaian experience. It would also miss the point; Ghana does understated better than anywhere, and in places as peaceful as Aylos Bay, that’s no bad thing at all. The dam was merely the cherry on a very sleepy cake.

Brunch

Year two

Friends who have spent time living overseas say that the second year in a different country is easier. Your new home city is no longer a mystery; the weather and seasonal changes don’t catch you off guard; you have an existing circle of new friends and generally know what to expect.

And so it proved. Stepping off the plane at Kotoka International Airport, the tropical air smelt instantly familiar: warm and damp, with a faint tinge of burning plastic. Porters in bright yellow jackets sat stood about on the runway, smiling broadly and doing nothing.

In the terminal, every wall was plastered with adverts for phone networks, each with their own distinctive colours and boasting that their coverage is the cheapest, the best value, Ghana’s most popular, the most reliable – an instant reminder that in this country, the mobile is king.

At the immigration desks, the queues shuffled forward at a torturous pace, the young men behind the glass screens in absolutely no hurry as they mulled over each bit of paperwork. By contrast, it took less than five minutes back in Ghana to be asked for our first ‘dash’, or bribe; the lady organising the lines asked us if we wanted to join the now-empty delegates line, “for some small compensation”. We declined; it was a little too soon to resign ourselves to the fact that almost every task requires a backhander.

We passed the sign politely advising visiting “paedophiles and sexual deviants” to “take their business somewhere else”. A surprisingly quick trip through customs – the officials were too busy negotiating the ‘extra duty’ on other people’s goods to bother with us – and into the chaos of the arrivals hall.

A generic Ghana photo

Taxi drivers swarm around new arrivals, preying on their bewilderment to get overinflated fares. Prior knowledge proved useful this time; ignore all calls, hold on to your bags, and keep walking to the official taxi rank outside. (The one time we did get hooked by one of the hawkers, his engine caught fire less than three minutes from the airport). One ridiculous price later – there’s only so much you can haggle, despite experience – and we arrived at our newly built flat in East Legon.

None of the jobs that needed doing had been completed in the preceding six weeks. The door still stuck, the washing machine was still unconnected, the toilet seat broken. Eric, the caretaker, assured us they would all be done. “Soon, soon, I am just waiting on a few things.”

Akwaaba. Welcome back to Ghana.

Taxis

It’s rare to walk more than a few metres in Accra without hearing a toot of the horn, followed by the questioning upturned hand from the window and the familiar call: “Where are you going?”

Taxis are everywhere in the city, and obronis are their preferred (i.e. inflated) fare. Drivers can spot you a mile off, and it’s not uncommon for one whizzing past to slam on the brakes and reverse – at full speed, dodging potholes and pedestrians – back towards you.

If you don’t want a taxi, the next bit is a test of nerve; like James Bond bidding for a Faberge egg, even the slightest eyebrow movement or flick of a hand is treated as interest. A clear shake of the head usually works, but it needs to be definite, as these guys are persistent; even when you are stepping out of a taxi at your destination, another driver going past will still give it a try, just in case you are spending the day in different taxis, just for the fun of it.

If you do need one, then next comes the negotiation. As a general rule, taxi drivers don’t know where anything is, but always know how much it costs to get there. To haggle, knock off around 40% of the quoted price; they will usually then agree to split the difference. And then off you go into the traffic jams of Accra.

It all sounds like a bit of a hassle, but in a country where customer service is mostly a vacant stare in response any request for assistance, the idea that someone wants to help you is quite welcome. They may drive too fast, ignore traffic signals, and happily fleece white people, but when it comes to providing a friendly service, Accra’s taxi drivers stand out.

Tro tros

Heading for the Accra Mall , the flashy vanity project of John Kuffour, one of Ghana’s former presidents, Hannah and I decide to travel by tro tro – the cranky old minibuses that serve as Accra’s informal bus network.

The key to hailing a tro tro is to recognise the hand gestures made by the driver’s mate. Hand rotating in a circle means ‘Nkrumah Circle’, a point in the air means ‘Accra’ and the city circle, and three fingers pointing upwards means ‘37’. At first we were bemused, especially as most seemed to fly past. A fellow passenger helped us out, and hailed the next one passing. Apparently you have to shout and step out in front to show you want to get on.

Tro tros are hot, cramped, uncomfortable and invariably decrepit, and the random bits of rusty metal sticking out easily rip clothes (three dresses and counting for Hannah so far), but they are fun. Hawkers come up to the window at traffic lights, selling fried plantain and sachets of water, and the speed at which they dodge traffic beats any fairground ride for thrills. Shaken but happy, we arrived at ‘37’ to change for the service to Accra mall.

The buses only leave when full*, so we enjoyed the buzz of the informal market that surrounds the waiting vehicles. We bought fresh coconuts – deliciously refreshing and another unmissable Ghanaian experience – and took our seats while hawkers offered an amazing array of goods. Worm tablets (complete with graphic pictures), boiled eggs, handkerchiefs, papaya, meat pies, maps of Ghana, plantain, self-help books … you may be bounced about, but you won’t go hungry or thirsty (or get sweaty or wormy) on a tro tro.

* A Cameroonian friend visiting the UK got a shock when his train to Sheffield left on time, despite not being full. "The trains, they all leave when they say they will. Amazing!"