Burkina Faso

We are currently staying at the OK Hotel in Ougadougou which is at the back of a lorry car park.  However, it is great. We camp for free but we have to eat here and the food is fantastic, we even have to cool off in the pool in the afternoons.

We stayed in Ougadougou for five days.  We did our usual pit stop chores of washing everything, looking for spares and catching up with things.  Slade had to do some maintenance on himself as well. He019d had a hole in his tooth since Mali and had side stepped any suggestion of going to a dentist until it had just got too painful.  A visit to Ingrid, a German dentist and two root canals later he didn019t know if he felt better or not!

 Heike arrived back from Germany having recovered all her power.  We blew up some huge elephant balloons to give to her at the airport.  Unfortunately as we stood at Arrivals  they exploded causing a huge bang which silenced everybody and brought head of security rushing over to find out what was going on.  This little incident was not good timing as the weekend before there had  been an attempted coup in Ougadougou, so the people were understandably rather nervous! We felt rather embarrassed holding floppy balloons in our hands!

We applied for our Ghana visa which took 48 hours and cost 15,000 CFAs. Everything needed to be filled out in triplicate, so it took some time! We spent the waiting period exploring the town. Ougadougou is full of motorbikes and bicycles. The ladies manage to look immaculate whilst riding them. They wear nice dresses, handbags over the shoulder, styled hair and often have babies saronged to their backs.  Some ladies even drove balancing bowls of fruit on their heads!

Apart from 2 wheeled vehicles Ougadougou is also renown for its bronze work.  We went to an artisan place and watched people craft bronze statues, make batiks and wood work.  We tried not to be too tempted by all the crafts (well K and T, Slade sat down in the shade and went to sleep!) We also decided to go horse riding at  Cheval Mandingue in town.  Unfortunately the place was well hidden and by the time we found it, it was far too hot to go for a ride.

We left Ougadougou and headed for Ghana. In order to get into any country you need a document to prove you are not going to sell your vehicle and avoid taxes.  We had a Carnet for this purpose.  Heike and Didi did not have one but had been able to obtain a Laissez Passage document which does the same job as a Carnet at every country they had visited.  Before they met us they were going to avoid Ghana because they had heard that you could only enter with a Carnet and no other document.  Therefore we needed a plan so we could all stay together. There was a rumour that if we tried a smaller border crossing there might be a chance to get them through.  We decided to drive to Leo, a small village with immigration control. 

A dirt road led to the border surrounded on both sides by lush vegetation of trees and cultivated ground.  Villages were spread out down the road and people were everywhere, sitting under trees, walking back from the fields, working and cycling.  Everyone waved and we waved back.  Not many tourists come this way so three vehicles at once was unusual.  Finding a place for the night was therefore quite tricky.  We looked for places to pull over but there was always someone there or the ground was too wet or too steep to get off the road. Eventually, we maneuvered through the bush and set up for the night.  All was going well until we started hearing voices on the road.  We must have been making lots of noise as people had stopped walking and were talking near by.  We sat in silence and Bushman Slade crept off to assess the situation.  We discovered we were not very good at being quiet, the slightest noise travels miles.  In the end we were not interrupted that evening and slept well until woken by drumming in the morning from a village somewhere. We wondered if news of our camp was being spread!

Arriving at Leo we got stamped out by a very friendly police man.  The office was simple, he had a reclining cane seat in the corner and a ledger on the desk top.  It smelt of damp goat and we soon saw that the office was also a shelter for these animals! He was pleased to see us as he had not had any people come through for over a week.