Kumasi

We actually only spent one night in Kumasi, but we fitted in an absolute mountain of things to see in the 36 hours we spent looking round the town. We arrived at 5:30am, having caught an overnight train from Bolga.

I admit that Karin pretty much had to drag me into the "Armed Forces" museum in the Kumasi Fort, but once inside it was probably one of the best museums I have ever been to. The history of Ghana's role in WW1 and 2, and as part of the UN peacekeeping force is so intesting. i wish i could elaborate here, but... (maybe once i get home). We also managed to visit the culture centre, the Ashanti Palace and the crazy enormous market, in which we completely lost all sense of direction!

VEry briefly, since leaving Kumasi, we have spent on night at "hand and hand community project for mentally handicapped children" where we had wonderful morning interacting with the kids. Then last night we stayed in the "Kristo Buase" Mission Monastery where we joined them for all their prayers, before playing UNO with the monks!

Now we have made it to the coast, where we intend to head to the beach, and Cape Coast and back to Accra for our flight on Tuesday.

whizzing through northern ghana...

phew! we have been on the move ever since we entered Ghana with not a moment spare to internet- sorry! When we arrived we were not used to speaking English at all; it felt like a complete foreign language, but we were also suprised by the number of tourists/volunteers compared to Togo/Benin- where there were none. We spent our first evening in Tamale, the chilled out capital of the north... staying in the Police Guest House (probably safest place in town?).

Since then we have visited Mole National Park. We went on a wonderful 4 hour walk through the park, and saw various animals. There were 4 or 5 elephants having a bath in the waterhole just a few metres away, which was very special. But we also saw baboons, antelpoe, monkeys and buffalo. We stayed with the Salia Brothers' guesthouse sleeping out under the stars for 2 nights. Perfect, until woken by the mosque at 5am!

Wechiau in the far north west of Ghana has a ecotourism community project thing with Hippos! unfortunately we were not able to see them because there had been to much rain, but we enjoyed a wonderful trip down the black volta river. with a quick stop off at Burkina Faso on the other bank without passing immigration!! Just as an example of the relaxed pace of life here, when we arrived in Wa, from Wechiau it was pooring with rain so everyone just stayed in the bus still it stopped. If we did that in England, nothing would ever get done!

We also went to Bolga in the far north east. Karin and I sat on a sacred (very much living) crocodile in Paga, and had a really fascinating visit to the local chief's palace. The chief spends all day in his room, praying to the gods for good luck. We went for a walk into the hills surrounding Tongo (a nearby village) and saw some crazy balancing rock formations.

We have generally found the north very hot, but really relaxing with very friendly people and few tourists. In contrast to Kumasi and the south...

unwelcomed visitor...

Karin and I had a bit of an unwelcomed visitor who forced their way into our locked hotel room last Saturday. Unfortunately this person decided to help themselves to about 300 dollars and all my chargers and cables, Karins perfume and various other really random stuff. More frustrating than anything else, although im not sure we will get all the money back from the insurance company, it was just such a shame that our impression of Benin had been scarred by this one theif. It also made for a few interesting and challening conversations with the police and others in French, trying to explain what happened.

Anyway, with more money in our hands with the help of my VISA card we should be able to carry on unaffected with the rest of the trip, if only on a tighter budget than before! So we are now in Northern Togo. We visited some traditional houses of the Tata Somba people yesterday which felt very remote and historic. They live in mud houses that are like mini fortresses with their herds and crops on the ground floor and the family live upstairs.

Today, we have been lucky enough to coincide with an annual festival in Kara, the capital of the North. It is the Evala Festival which celebrates local men "coming of age" by many wrestling matches taking place. Even the president of Togo himself was there to watch the goings on. Sorry I cannot post any photos, the burgular stole my cable!

Tomorrow we are heading back to Ghana, and ENGLISH, which we are obviously looking forward to. Although I am very proud to say that my French has improved tremendously. It is such a satisfying feeling when you realise you have spent a whole afternoon conversing with some french tourists or a museum guide in french and have understood most, if not all.

Finally, i just wanted to say Congratulations to Alastair and Sue who have a new baby boy. I wish you all the best in settling into your new life as parents of two!! much love xx

Voodoo: mysterious religion or just a big scam?

Ever since our experience in Togoville we have been trying to discover more and more about Voodooism. Our education about the religion/belief was widened by our visit to Aboméy, which is a town 3 hours north of Cotonou in Benin. Aboméy is the centre of the once great civilisation of Dahboméy Kings. Our hotel manager and tour guide, Monsieur La Lutta is a local legend and a fantastic storyteller. He took us on a tour of the various ruined palaces, and voodoo temples in the town.

Everytime we asked him to explain lore about a voodoo tradition, like why people hand animal skulls outside their houses, or build piles of clay for fertility, his answer was "i cannot tell you; because you must be initiated first, to be able to understand!" But... to be intiated you have to spend 14 days in a house with a voodoo priest and eat and wear various things bought from the fetish market, e.g. monkey heads, cameleons, skins of various different animals. Apparently most of the population of Benin have not completed the initation ceremony which makes us think that they believe in something they dont fully understand. Fair enough, who does fully understand a religion when it comes down to it?

However when you look into it a bit deeper... There are 41 stages of Voodoo priest, with only 2 people in the whole of Benin making it to the top. When you think about the amount of money changing hands when a believer visits a priest and is told to buy all sorts from the fetish markets; Karin and I have made an completely unfounded conclusion that voodooism may be one big scam, with those 2 priests who have made it to the top having right good laugh for taking the whole population along for a ride!! At least, were definietly not buying it!

Benin: crazy driving, hotels on lakes and slave history...

We arrived in Benin on Monday. First impressions of Cotonou were that the city was remarkably more developed that Lomé, much to our suprise. The roads were better, but crazier, with twice as many motorbikes, which we have dared to take because its about the only transport available. I now have a little spiel that i recite to my motor-driver... "Je n'aime pas le motor, j'ai peur, alors allez moins vite, sil'te plait" then i continue to exclaim "moins vite, moins vite" until we get there!!

We have extended our visas from the ridiculous 48 hours ones they issue at the visa to a month at some equally ridiculous cost. But it is definitely worth it, Benin seems to have a wealth of places to visit. The history of the slave trade originates here and we stayed in Oiudah yesterday which has an interesting museum. We alse walked along the "routes des esclaves", a 4km road to the sea, which the slaves would have done beofre venturing onto ships to the americas- it was quite atmospheric as you reach the "gate of no return", a memorial to the slaves who died during the voyage.

Another adventure we have done in Benin, is to visit Ganvié. This is a town of popultion siwe 35,500 people who live in the middle of a lake. We took a traditional pirogue (a wooden dug-out canoe, avec sail) to the town 8km out. Then we stayed in a hotel that is, like all the other houses/schools/churches/shops etc, built on stilts. Once you were in the building it was difficult to tell you were in teh middle of a lake. but just popping over to your friends house was suddenly a whole lot more complicated!

Every morning the women of the town congregated together in their boats to sell their goods. This starts at 5am, and happened to be right outside our hotel. We emerged blearing eyes into the dark and watched eery candles and the hollowing of market sellers. The men left to go out onto the lake and fish a little later. It was a really interesting excursion, and one that may well not be possible in a few years. There are plans to build a bridge to the mainland which will take away the special remote feeling it has now.

We are now in Porto Novo, heading to Abomey tomorrow, then Grand Popo (for some beaching!).

Voodoo ceremony in Togoville

Wow- we happened to stumble across the most surreal and interesting ceremony when visiting Togoville last weekend. The town was the German colonial capital of Togo but it also has kept strong voodoo traditions since beofre then. Karin and I were wandering around the small town , when we came across an enormous tree in a square. The people invited us to come and sit and watch the goings-on, it was only then that we realised there were about 15 people bowing down in worship to the tree. They proceded to do all sorts of wonderful things, like spit at the tree with water, mumur chants, and best of all... sacrifice two chickens. (vegetarians- dont read on...)

They held the chickens to the tree and then threw them on the ground, when they were unable to stand we realised that they had cut off the back toes of the feet, and also... their heads! the chickens had been decapitated but leaving behind what looked like the spinal cord. the really disturbing thing is it was amazing how long they stayed alive for, squirming around on the ground! i swear it was nearly 10 mintues. while they were still alive, all the villagers present came and blessed themselves with the dying animals!! Karin has not been able to eat chicken since.

The most frustrating thing, is that with our limited french all we could decipher is that the ceremony (i think) was honouring the spirits and meant to bring good luck. We were so lucky and priveledged to watch the whole thing.

TOGO...

Getting here was quite an experience, the first French we encoutered was shouted at us by a scary border official because we had not bought our visas in advance, but in fact once we,d tipped him a little the problem was resolved and he was soon asking if we were married or not!? our first destination in Togo was Kpalimé, a laid back town in the hills. We spent an enjoyable three nights there, visiting waterfalls, butterfly parks, qttending church on Sunday and seeing the local villages.

We arrived in Lomé, the capital yesterday. It is a different world entirely! Its quite reknowned for petit crime and the beach although beautiful is notoriously dangerous, but we are watching our backs. Actually its quite interesting to see the crazy dynamic of life here compared to in sleepy kpalimé.

We are extending our 7 day visas at the sevice immigration today so we can visit the north of togo this week. it is meant to be entirely different; hotter, Muslim, less touristy (not that we've seen any tourists really since we've arrived here anyway). After that we will head to Benin in a week or so.

Karin and I are struggling by with our poor French. I think we have already improved loads, but it is hard work. Nobody speaks English, so whenever you want to ask anything it involves constructing sentences and much concentration to hear the answer especially with the heavy Togolaise accents. Hopefully, it can only get easier though...