Made it back safely to Niger for all of you who were worried/concerned/mildly interested. It was a long haul from Kumasi in Ghana back to Niamey, especially as we didn't overnight in Ouagadougou like we should have. Instead we took a bus from Kumasi and had to wait for four hours in Bolgatanga on the Ghana border because the crossing isn't open at 2 am. We got into Ouaga around noon and were assured by a bush taxi driver we could get to Niamey that night. So we went, but around 5 pm, he stopped in a random little town, told us we needed a military escort from Fada N'Gourma that had already left. Evidently there are bandits on the road west of Fada, and escorts only run at specific times. So he left us in the small town and told us to wait for a bus. Really great guy in the end...except that we waited until midnight (over six hours) for a bus to come along. It was the Abijan to Niamey direct, and, interestingly, it's been running nonstop for 4000 years. It was packed to the gills with people and luggage, and we ended up displacing a few people to sit on the floor. Most of the Zarmas I know go to look for money in Côte d'Ivoire (where you'll find Abijan, the main coastal city, for you Geography majors), so the only people going from Abijan to Niamey are a bunch of poor Zarmas returning in time for rainy season. The bus went about an hour down the road to Fada, where we had to get out and wait until 6 am (about four hours total) until we could get the military escort. One would think with a two hour lead, we would get into Niamey earlier than any buses direct from Ouaga, and we might have, if we hadn't had to wait for three hours at the border to pass through customs. I think that was longer than all the combined wait we had at all the customs depots in our entire trip, and our bus even greased the wheels to the tune of about 75,000 cfa ($150) to the customs agents. I refused to pay this bribe, but evidently it's pretty common at the Ouaga/Niamey road customs depot. By the time we'd gotten back to Niamey we'd been on the road a total of 46 hours. That was almost two days without a shower, without any real meals, and almost no real sleep, so needless to say we were pretty glad to get home.
But why start at the end when I can start in the middle? I haven't said anything about Ghana, and that was, after all, a big chunk of our trip. Last time I updated, we were in Hohoe, in the Eastern Region, and we were finishing up the hiking/nature part of our trip. Mary wasn't feeling well in Hohoe, so Jyoti and I went out on our own to Mt. Afadjato and Wli Falls. Mt. Afadjato is Ghana's highest peak at 885m. There's actually a higher point nearby, but because of the relation of its base to its peak, I guess whatever that one is named isn't actually considered a mountain. The hike was tough, taking about two hours, with a rock scramble/climb near the peak, but once we were at the top, the view was beautiful. In one direction, we could see out over the mountains back into Togo, and in the other, we could see all the way to Lake Volta. We had a picnic on the top and ended up back in Hohoe that night. The next day, we went out to Wli Falls. These were nice, but I preferred Akloa Falls in Togo. The Wli Falls are much better set up for tourists, with bridges across streams, wide, well-kept trails, and even trash cans. Trash cans! Irkoy beeri. We should have taken the longer hike up to the top of the falls, but we didn't have the time as we were late leaving Hohoe. It was a beautiful day for hiking, and the falls were lovely, but the coolest thing about the area around the falls is the bat population. There were literally thousands of bats hanging off the cliff during the middle of the day with a few flapping through the mists from the falls whenever they decided they needed to change position.
On the 7th of May, we left Hohoe for Accra at the ungodly hour of 4 am. It actually turned out a little better because it allowed us the full day in Accra, and let me tell you, Accra demands a full day, or in our case three. We were blown away by this city. Compared to anything else we've seen in West Africa, it's like a fully developed, Westernized city. The streets are clean and paved, there's barely any trash on the streets as a result of pretty tough litter laws (litter laws!), and everywhere you look there are modern buildings and brand new cars.
We stayed in Labone, which is where the Peace Corps Volunteers can get a discount on certain hotels. Labone is within walking distance of Osu, where all the ex-pats dine and shop and generally try to avoid the people whose country they inhabit. I'm being a little harsh, but I've developed a generally low opinion of ex-pats. Why live in a country if you just want to shop, eat, dance, and play in areas that look exactly like America or Europe? The main ex-pat supermarket looked like a European chain, where you could get Western perks like Pop-tarts (!), salami, energy drinks, and high-end chocolates like Cadbury and Toblerone. Everything is overpriced because these places, and restaurants and such like them, cater to tastes and desires of places literally a world away. Anyway, we didn't take too much advantage of these places as they were out of our price range. Mary and I went to a trivia night with some Ghana Volunteers at a Champs Sports bar. I don't think there was even one Ghanaian in that restaurant. It looked exactly like a sports bar you'd find in an American mall. It was kind of unsettling. The third day we were there we went to an Irish pub in Osu, and, again, it was like being a world away from Africa.
Our second day in Accra we decided to take a break from the city at the Aburi Botanical Gardens, about an hour outside Accra in the surrounding hills. The gardens were a British invention and house a ton of species from all over West Africa in a classic British hill station set up. Old colonial houses and manicured lawns are the order of the day, but it was more interesting than a traditional botanical garden because it was filled with oddities such as the strangler ficus, a parasitic tree that grows around, envelops, and eventually kills other trees. The one we saw was over one hundred years old. It enveloped its host around 1937, and so, now that the tree is dead and has rotted away over the years, it's left the strangler ficus with a hollow trunk, like a cylindrical tube stretching into the sky.
Our last day in Accra, we decided to hit the markets, and went to the capital's main shopping centre (no, not the mall, eventhough there is one. Yes, a MALL in Africa). Makola Market takes up several city blocks of Accra, but because we went on a Saturday, it stretched out even further on all sides with people hawking fish, fruit, vegetables, shoes, watches, and basically anything else you could ever want. I'm convinced if you searched long enough between the pig's feet and the used electronics, you'd find the Holy Grail. We moved on from there to the National Cultural Centre, where they aggressively sell crafts of every sort from drums to batik, kente to carvings. I think most tourists get taken for a ride, but I found that it is possible to get a few good deals as all the shopkeepers sell remarkably similar things, and they've got to make a living. I don't think I paid more than half their original stated price for anything they sold.
Alright, I need some lunch, so I'll post again later, but while I'm thinking about it, I've got to go on a discourse about Ghanaian food and drink. That night, after the market, we went to an Irish pub where they had Castle Milk Stout on tap. This has now become one of my favorite beers. It's way better than Guiness (at least any Guiness I've had since being in the UK), and, like everything else in Ghana, it's cheap. The beers alone were reason to come to Ghana. From Star to Castle Milk Stout, Stone's to Gulder, every single beer I tasted in Ghana was better than any single beer I'd ever had in Niger. The food consisted of staples like yam and cassava, but their sauces and sides are the tastiest I'd had in a long time. From red red (a spicy bean dish) to palaver sauce (spinach and spices), everything goes well with a side of roast chicken, and it can all be found on the street for less than $3. I'm kind of worried to go back to Nigerien hawru tomorrow night.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Monday, May 4, 2009
Gone to Togo
Alright, been a little while since my last update. The towns we stayed in in Togo had bad Internet and French keyboards. I don't know which one is worse. I'm in Ghana now, back in the realm of English keyboards, so I can update everyone on my trip.
In my last post, I was in Natitingou just about to travel into Somba/Bétammaribé country. We met up with two guys named Evan and Josh who are traveling around West Africa. The started in Mauritania and flew to Cameroon and have basically been going from Peace Corps Volunteer to Peace Corps Volunteer, doing some service work and generally hanging out with people in their villages in Mauritania, Cameroon, and Benin. We went out to Boukoumbé, a village about an hour west of Natitingou down a dirt road through the mountains. Being with some guys who've been crashing at Peace Corps houses, what did we do? We crashed at a Peace Corps house! We met up with a Volunteer in the area, though I can't give her name or post because of Peace Corps security reasons. She got us in touch to sleep in a Somba house out in the bush. Let me just say, this was one of the coolest things I've ever done. It was about a two hour hike through the mountains, and because the rains have already come to Benin (still over a month away in Niger), everything was green and beautiful. The best way to describe the landscape would be to describe the Shire from Lord of the Rings. These great mountains and rolling hills hide mini-castles dotted throughout fields of corn and yam. Because we're so used to castles built on the scale of large European fortresses, it seemed like the fortresses surrounded by gigantic baobob trees should have housed numerous little people ready to defend their Lilliputian homes. Pictures will go up on facebook when I've returned to Niger. There's really not a good way to describe them that will do justice to our sleeping conditions that night.
The Bétammaribé people build their compounds in the middle of their fields, so there's no "town" per se, and because the children so rarely see white people, they really wanted to play. Evan, Mary, and I were happy to oblige. We danced, wrestled, and fired slingshots at imaginary enemies in the fields. We ended the day climbing a giant baobob and watching the sun set before eating dinner with a local family and sleeping on top of our own little fortress.
The next day, we hiked back to Boukoumbé and met the local Volunteer and another from Togo for market day. The market in Boukoumbé rotates every four days. This confused those of us from Niger who are used to weekly markets until we realized the true meeting point wasn't the market, but the tchouk bar. Tchoukou is the local Beninese millet/sorghum beer, and, like tea in Niger and other Muslim countries, it is the drink of choice for sitting and socializing. The market rotates every four days because it takes three full days to prepare the tchouk. The women pound the millet and water the first day. It's cooked and fermented over the course of the second and third days, and then it is served up in both dark and light varieties at the market on the fourth day. It's not too potent, but over the course of an afternoon in a hot, humid market place, just drinking bowls and bowls of it, it'll pick you up and put you on your ass.
We had originally planned to head into Togo that afternoon...we stayed another night.
The next day was entirely devoted to travel. We did a pretty good job taxi hopping from Boukoumbé back to Natitingou, from Natitingou to Djougou, from Djougou to Kétao for a customs checkpoint into Togo, from Kétao to Kara in Togo for lunch. We were doing really well getting into Kara in the early afternoon, and we thought we had it made for a trip to Atakpamé, getting in in the early evening and having a nice relaxing evening to prepare for a trip to Badou. Luck can swing any direction in West Africa, and if you believe at all in luck you know you can never name it or else you'll jinx it, especially in a place that plays so heavily into Voodoo/juju. We got to Sokodé and as we were leaving, three motorcycles and a car full of police officers pulled up and forbade us to leave. The driver got out to talk to them, and I wasn't suspicious at all until the helper jumped into the front seat, grabbed the papers and tried to hide them. Over an hour later, after the driver was taken away by the police, he returned, no doubt a little lighter in the wallet, and we continued to Atakpamé, arriving around 8:00 instead of at five as we had anticipated. Finding the Peace Corps house in the dark, down a street that barely exists and is not lit was interesting to say the least, but at that point, I felt like anybody who wanted to mug us would be pushing their luck pretty far.
In the morning we took off for Badou and visited the Akloa falls. These were spectacular falls in the mountains bordering Ghana. We spent the afternoon swimming and relaxing in the pool at the base of the falls before the three of us returned to our tiny little flop house of a room in a dirty shady bar near the motor park. Where else are you going to go if you're in West Africa and on a Peace Corps budget?
Togo was mostly a week of camping and visiting nature. We stayed three nights in Kpalimé, on the border with Ghana. It was probably one of the most touristed places we'd been yet, but we did have a great time. While out at dinner, Mary and I met a guy named "Momo," an African dancer who works at lot with Peace Corps and the American Embassy. The next day, he hooked us up, helping us out with stuff to do, places to eat, places to buy music, and new haircuts for the three of us. I re-mohawked myself, Jyoti just buzzed her head, and Mary is now the proud new owner of some dreads, courtesy of Momo's sister. We played with his neice, possibly one of the cutest little girls I've ever met and just generally had a good time hanging out with a friendly local. He took us into his home and made us feel just overall very welcome.
From Kpalimé we went 12k up the road to the border town of Klouto. I took my own hike with a guide through the coffee and cacao fields. It was originally meant to be a tour of the plantations, but it turned into a tour of local plants used by the artisans as natural dyes. It was very interesting, and with my mother's extensive background in fabric and dye, it wasn't entirely lost on me. It's crazy to come from the desert plains in Niger to the tropical rain forest mountains of Togo and Ghana. Whereas in Niger it's a hot, dusty silence, Togo's humid forests team with birds and insects. I didn't know it would be so NOISY. Being up in the mountains though is great. Last night was very cool and peaceful. I'd recommend Togo for anyone into music, amazing people, and crazy amounts of butterflies.
I'm in Ghana now in the town of Hohoe. We were going to go to a town about an hour away known for its kente cloth, but decided we needed to slow down a bit. There will be plenty of time for crafts when we get to Kumasi. Tomorrow we're hiking up another mountain (Mt. Afadjato, Ghana's highest at 885m) and the day after we'll be at yet ANOTHER waterfall (Wli, over 40m tall). Our hope is we'll be able to appease the nature nut with us so she won't complain when we're rumbling through Accra or lounging on the beach near Cape Coast.
Well, that's about all that I have time for right now. If it gets a little random at the end, I'd challenge you to sum up an entire weeks worth of travel in a little under an hour. After spending a few hours here, I can already tell I'm going to love Ghana. We're a little over halfway through our trip. From here, we'll be going to Accra, Cape Coast, Kumasi and then back to Niger via Burkina Faso.
Until then, bye bye Rasta man.
In my last post, I was in Natitingou just about to travel into Somba/Bétammaribé country. We met up with two guys named Evan and Josh who are traveling around West Africa. The started in Mauritania and flew to Cameroon and have basically been going from Peace Corps Volunteer to Peace Corps Volunteer, doing some service work and generally hanging out with people in their villages in Mauritania, Cameroon, and Benin. We went out to Boukoumbé, a village about an hour west of Natitingou down a dirt road through the mountains. Being with some guys who've been crashing at Peace Corps houses, what did we do? We crashed at a Peace Corps house! We met up with a Volunteer in the area, though I can't give her name or post because of Peace Corps security reasons. She got us in touch to sleep in a Somba house out in the bush. Let me just say, this was one of the coolest things I've ever done. It was about a two hour hike through the mountains, and because the rains have already come to Benin (still over a month away in Niger), everything was green and beautiful. The best way to describe the landscape would be to describe the Shire from Lord of the Rings. These great mountains and rolling hills hide mini-castles dotted throughout fields of corn and yam. Because we're so used to castles built on the scale of large European fortresses, it seemed like the fortresses surrounded by gigantic baobob trees should have housed numerous little people ready to defend their Lilliputian homes. Pictures will go up on facebook when I've returned to Niger. There's really not a good way to describe them that will do justice to our sleeping conditions that night.
The Bétammaribé people build their compounds in the middle of their fields, so there's no "town" per se, and because the children so rarely see white people, they really wanted to play. Evan, Mary, and I were happy to oblige. We danced, wrestled, and fired slingshots at imaginary enemies in the fields. We ended the day climbing a giant baobob and watching the sun set before eating dinner with a local family and sleeping on top of our own little fortress.
The next day, we hiked back to Boukoumbé and met the local Volunteer and another from Togo for market day. The market in Boukoumbé rotates every four days. This confused those of us from Niger who are used to weekly markets until we realized the true meeting point wasn't the market, but the tchouk bar. Tchoukou is the local Beninese millet/sorghum beer, and, like tea in Niger and other Muslim countries, it is the drink of choice for sitting and socializing. The market rotates every four days because it takes three full days to prepare the tchouk. The women pound the millet and water the first day. It's cooked and fermented over the course of the second and third days, and then it is served up in both dark and light varieties at the market on the fourth day. It's not too potent, but over the course of an afternoon in a hot, humid market place, just drinking bowls and bowls of it, it'll pick you up and put you on your ass.
We had originally planned to head into Togo that afternoon...we stayed another night.
The next day was entirely devoted to travel. We did a pretty good job taxi hopping from Boukoumbé back to Natitingou, from Natitingou to Djougou, from Djougou to Kétao for a customs checkpoint into Togo, from Kétao to Kara in Togo for lunch. We were doing really well getting into Kara in the early afternoon, and we thought we had it made for a trip to Atakpamé, getting in in the early evening and having a nice relaxing evening to prepare for a trip to Badou. Luck can swing any direction in West Africa, and if you believe at all in luck you know you can never name it or else you'll jinx it, especially in a place that plays so heavily into Voodoo/juju. We got to Sokodé and as we were leaving, three motorcycles and a car full of police officers pulled up and forbade us to leave. The driver got out to talk to them, and I wasn't suspicious at all until the helper jumped into the front seat, grabbed the papers and tried to hide them. Over an hour later, after the driver was taken away by the police, he returned, no doubt a little lighter in the wallet, and we continued to Atakpamé, arriving around 8:00 instead of at five as we had anticipated. Finding the Peace Corps house in the dark, down a street that barely exists and is not lit was interesting to say the least, but at that point, I felt like anybody who wanted to mug us would be pushing their luck pretty far.
In the morning we took off for Badou and visited the Akloa falls. These were spectacular falls in the mountains bordering Ghana. We spent the afternoon swimming and relaxing in the pool at the base of the falls before the three of us returned to our tiny little flop house of a room in a dirty shady bar near the motor park. Where else are you going to go if you're in West Africa and on a Peace Corps budget?
Togo was mostly a week of camping and visiting nature. We stayed three nights in Kpalimé, on the border with Ghana. It was probably one of the most touristed places we'd been yet, but we did have a great time. While out at dinner, Mary and I met a guy named "Momo," an African dancer who works at lot with Peace Corps and the American Embassy. The next day, he hooked us up, helping us out with stuff to do, places to eat, places to buy music, and new haircuts for the three of us. I re-mohawked myself, Jyoti just buzzed her head, and Mary is now the proud new owner of some dreads, courtesy of Momo's sister. We played with his neice, possibly one of the cutest little girls I've ever met and just generally had a good time hanging out with a friendly local. He took us into his home and made us feel just overall very welcome.
From Kpalimé we went 12k up the road to the border town of Klouto. I took my own hike with a guide through the coffee and cacao fields. It was originally meant to be a tour of the plantations, but it turned into a tour of local plants used by the artisans as natural dyes. It was very interesting, and with my mother's extensive background in fabric and dye, it wasn't entirely lost on me. It's crazy to come from the desert plains in Niger to the tropical rain forest mountains of Togo and Ghana. Whereas in Niger it's a hot, dusty silence, Togo's humid forests team with birds and insects. I didn't know it would be so NOISY. Being up in the mountains though is great. Last night was very cool and peaceful. I'd recommend Togo for anyone into music, amazing people, and crazy amounts of butterflies.
I'm in Ghana now in the town of Hohoe. We were going to go to a town about an hour away known for its kente cloth, but decided we needed to slow down a bit. There will be plenty of time for crafts when we get to Kumasi. Tomorrow we're hiking up another mountain (Mt. Afadjato, Ghana's highest at 885m) and the day after we'll be at yet ANOTHER waterfall (Wli, over 40m tall). Our hope is we'll be able to appease the nature nut with us so she won't complain when we're rumbling through Accra or lounging on the beach near Cape Coast.
Well, that's about all that I have time for right now. If it gets a little random at the end, I'd challenge you to sum up an entire weeks worth of travel in a little under an hour. After spending a few hours here, I can already tell I'm going to love Ghana. We're a little over halfway through our trip. From here, we'll be going to Accra, Cape Coast, Kumasi and then back to Niger via Burkina Faso.
Until then, bye bye Rasta man.
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