From Mole National Park we caught a minivan back to Tamale where we joined Marcel and Anita from Netherlands at their hotel. They recommended a clean quiet tidy place that had a generator and we all checked in and then went to Sparkles restaurant for dinner and a few drinks. Marcel and Anita travel twice a year for 3 weeks, which is all they can get off from their small guest house. They were keen collectors of hats, fans, candles and pottery, something we can't do when travelling for such a long time.
The next morning we headed to Accra on a big bus and checked into a hotel we had stayed at before. The owner of the hotel has a daughter in New Zealand so she called her and we had a quick chat. The daughter and her husband used to work in London but got transferred to Auckland where they work as pharmacists. Maybe we can catch up with them when we return home.
At our favourite restaurant, The White Bell, we met a couple of Swedish guys that had also been at Mole NP so we chatted to them.
We had left our tent at the Methodist guest house that we had stayed at previously and when John picked it up they told us they had a vacancy for two nights so we checked in there. The place is so bright and clean and was preferable to where we were.
We had to get back to Accra to get visas for Togo, Benin, and Burkino Faso. This took us three days, as each embassy is open from 8am to 10am to fill in forms, pay and deposit the passports and then we had to return at 2pm to pick them up so it was impossible to do more than one visa per day. The visas were pretty expensive as well, even though we would not spend more than a week in each country.
We had to catch taxis about the city each time we went out and even if the driver set the rate he would always push for a little extra. We have got used to the city and its ways now as we have been in and out a few times. We have enjoyed eating breakfast on the street where we have 'egg bread'. The egg is mixed with onion, grated carrot and tomato then fried like an omelet. A huge chunk of bread is cut up and the egg sandwiched in it and then it is pressed with a wooden press and browned in oil in a pan.
I was able to get back online and to catch up on the blog that I was not able to do when we left Accra. We also discovered that the ATM transaction that didn't dispense money HAD taken money from our account so we had to fill in forms at the Barclays Bank and start the process to get the money returned! This will likely take a few months.
Had a lot of time to do some reading up on the countries ahead and to finish the books we have started.
