Most of the countrysidein the north is dry with small scrubby bushes as the large trees have been felled for charcoal. The villages are not as permanent as those outside Accra and near Kumasi. There are several mosques in the small villages as this is the Muslim part of the country.
We arrived in the dark and had to try about four guest houses before we found one with rooms available. It was pretty cheap and we had to share a bathroom and toilet that was pretty grotty. The shower had no light and the water poured out of a pipe. The toilet had no lock and the men peed all over the floor so it stunk. The room had a fan but the foam mattress on the beds caused us to sweat a lot so it was not a comfortable stay but we were tired from the heat and long journey and didn't want to continue paying the taxi driver to take us from place to place in the dark.
We were able to walk to a nice restaurant nearby the hotel and one of the local boys showed us a dark, dusty short cut through the local school and police family housing area. We are impressed with how friendly and helpful the Ghanaians are and the boy never expected anything for his 'service'! That is not the usual way in Africa.
We read that the town was getting new electricity transmission lines so the power was off most of the day. As it was so hot, 42 C with a low of 27 C at night, we decided to move into a mid range hotel with a generator. The hotel was once the flashest in Tamale but the room was small and a strange curved shape. We were able to spend some time reading postings from the Lonely Planet forum site so we could plan the next step of our trip. John also found the football channel and caught up his favourites teams matches.
We read that last year there were 250,000+ cases of malaria in the country and in Accra cases of cholera are on the rise. There are mainy open drains in the city, as there are all through Ghana.
On the way back from a restaurant one night, in the dark, John pointed out something across the road. When I looked up, I didn't see the drain in front of me and promptly stepped into it. As I felt my elbow crunching across the little pieces of shingle all I could think of was all the bugs from the chicken, goat, and sheep poo infecting me. The men use the drains as a urinal and the stalls with cooking facilities empty their waste water and scraps into them. All the stall holders nearby came rushing saying 'sorry, sorry'. I grazed my left shin, skinned my right elbow and bruised half way around my right thigh just above my knee. I was lucky the drain was dry at the time and not the common black-festering rubbish-filled drains that are everywhere. Back at the hotel I was able to get cleaned up, get some ice for the bruising, and treat my wounds with iodine. On our last trip, I slipped on ice in Regensburg, Germany and cracked my ribs!
Tamale is a popular stop for travellers as they head to Mole National Park or make their way to Burkino Faso. With only a 30 day visa for Ghana, we will go to Mole Park and enter Burkino Faso at a later date from Benin.
We had to get some money from the ATM in Tamale as there was nowhere to get cash in Mole National Park. The first machine we used didn't dispense any money and when we told the security guard at the bank he reassured us we would not be debited money from our account and advised us to try a different machine. The most common bank we use is Barclays.
We managed to contact a tour company with an air conditioned van to pick us up from our hotel and take us to Mole NP to see 'elephants as big as buses' according to our guide book.
