I have moved to Chile!

To keep informed on my stories from South America, please look at my new blog, dances with llamas.

I may add one or two final pieces here about The Gambia…but most new stuff will now appear on the new blog.

At last! Sorry for the delay. Here is the final chapter telling the story of our West-African overland trip. This bit has stories and pictures from Ghana.

You might also be interested to have a look at these School Rules that come from a notice in the headteacher’s office of a Banjul junior school.

It has been a while. Sorry for the delay. But here, at last, are the tales and photographs from Weeks 2 and 3 of our overland in West Africa. This new section describes our adventures in Burkina Faso and Togo.

I have been back in the UK for just over a week. It has been good to see friends and family. Thank you to all who have welcomed me, and offered me food and/or a bed.

I have started writing about the long journey Louise and I made from Gambia to Ghana. To read these accounts and see some photographs, please click on West Africa Overland.

I’m back.

Actually its a week since we arrived home in the UK – I should have told you earlier, but life became somehow busy. On Wednesday of last week we made our way to Accra and spent the afternoon at the side of the swimming pool of a plush hotel (and were told off for doing so) before making our way to the airport for our flight to London.

As we descended towards Gatwick the pilot announced that we would be held for a while whilst technicians de-iced the runway, so we circled for a while over Kent. And then a for a while longer. And then some more. Until we heard that Gatwick was still closed with no imminent prospect of opening because some numpty had put the wrong chemicals on the runway. So we diverted to Stansted and landed there for a while. That would have been fine if they had us allowed off the plane or fed us, but no, that was too much to hope for. And then when Gatwick re-opened our plane was not able to leave because our crew had exceeded their hours. It is hard work, you see, snoozing in the cockpit whilst the passengers become increasingly irate. So a replacement crew was sent for, and they had to drive to Standsted. From Gatwick.

So it was six hours later that we made a 22-minue flight across London, complete with full safety announcements of course. And late Thursday afternoon Louise and I slipped through passport control, cleared customs (who did not discover our imported inflatable pink plastic horse), and became British again.

I intend to write a little more about our trip, to add to the sketchy details you have had so far, and to post some photographs here too. Over the next few days. Watch this space. In the meantime, have a great weekend, and don’t get too stressed about Christmas. Sit down, relax and drink green tea.

We are still in Ghana. We did not spend a night up a tree – we were denied that possibility! But we have visited Axim and Elmina, and now intend to spend slow and easy days on the coast, before flying to Gatwick next Wednesday night.

Tomorrow Ghana holds its Presidential election. We have seen colourful and boisterous gatherings of the two main parties in many towns that we have visited. In some places the atmosphere has been approaching a frenzy, so I hope that the polling day will pass peacefully.

Today is overcast and muggy. I would be glad of clearer skies; I need to work on my tan before I come home, to prove that I have been in Africa for two years!

So we made it!

We have arrived at our destination, kind of. We crossed via a mountain route from Togo to Ghana, in the back of a Landrover and on a very bumpy road. And we had an entertaining time with the Togolese officials at the border. The road descended into Ho, in the Volta region of Ghana. We made a courtesy call to Mawuli School, and spent a night in the village of Amedzofe, the highest point of human habitation in the country.

En route to Accra we made an over night stop in Atimpoku in order to paddle on the Volta, and to view the Akosombo Dam and the largest man-made lake in the world.

Now we have travelled West from Accra and are resting in Cape Coast. Today we visited a fascinating slave fort and museum. Tomorrow night we intend to sleep up a tree in Kakum National Park.

Our bus from Ouagadougou rolled through the day and through the night, depositing us in Accra early last Saturday morning. We enjoyed it so much that we immediately crossed the city to take another bus, this time to Lomé in Togo. The border officials were a little lively on the Togolaise side! After a short stay there we are now in Kaplimé in the mountains of Western Togo, and plan to cross back into Ghana tomorrow to visit the area around Ho.

Justin and Louise have arrived in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. We had to delay here a couple of days in order to acquire Visas for entry into Ghana. We now have the Visas (my passport is rapidly running out of pages) and a ticket for a bus that departs tomorrow morning, bound for Accra.

I am writing this from an internet cafe in the centre of Ouagadougou to the sound of African drumming from outside.

another quick update…

We travelled yesterday from Mali to Burkina Faso and have arrived in Bobo-Dioulasso in the south-west of this country. We spent our final days in Mali walking on La Falaise de Bandiagara, an escarpment dotted with Dogon villages.

Tomorrow we will take a bus to the capital Ouagadougou to purchase visas for Ghana, and plan to travel to Accra this weekend.