Ghana! A Travel Journal of Ghana and West Africa

CBW decided to make all this last week on camp a holiday until July 31st so I decided to take off early on my quick tour of West Africa (I think they did it to try and get rid of us early so we would stop making a stink about the whole car affair- which is still unresolved). Mom and dad, you'll be happy to know that another volunteer, Malcom decided to come with me so I wont be alone.

Right now we're in this small provicial feeling town of Bologatanga, about 50km from the Burkina Faso border. The ride up here was a 15 hour bus trip from hell on an old full sized bus crammed with as many people as humanly possible, and then some. They even jerry-rigged extra fold-down seats into the asles just to make sure we wouldn't be too comfy on the ride. It wouldn't have been so bad if the roads weren't fashioned after a cattle guard. The driver seemed to think that if he went faster over the rough parts it would make it better...my butt begs to differ. So tomorrow marks the last day in Ghana for a while. We're not exactly sure where we're headed, but for now aiming for Timbuctou, though, not suprisingly, its supposed to be a bit pain to get to.

For now I'm lookign foward to seeing Burkina, a country that I didn't even knew existed until last year. The guide book's introduction description, however, is far from encouraging:

"Few countries are as unlucky as Burkina Faso. It is a despratly, and famously poor, with an almost total lack of raw materials or natural resources. And although it shares its landlocked predicament with Niger and Mali, unlike them it lacks direct access to the important trans-Saharan routes."

Alothough I'm going to miss Ghana and espeically the people, I am looking forward to the Burkinabe cuisine, which like Togolese, reaps the benifits of being a former french colony. I'm not a big fan of the chop shop's fufu, bantu or goat soaps that seem to be the norm Ghanaian street food. Plus, when roaches and other unidentified critters are running all over the table and plates, as was the case at the last chop shop, it really does little for my appetite.

But for now, as my time is running out and this keyboard is pissing me off, I think we are going to retire to our $2 hotel room (which is really nice acutally) and enjoy a good nights sleep before dealing with the hassle of tomorrows border crossing (always seems to be a pain in the ass in most african countries) and bush taxi haggling (in french at that). With luck we will make it to the captial, Ouagadougou (try saying that one 3 times fast) by tomorrow night.

miss everyone and hope everythings going great to you all