Home already?
Trip Start
Sep 11, 2005
1
20
22
Trip End
Ongoing
Plymouth,
United Kingdom
Friday, July 7, 2006
Why? Well, as you will know, we have decided to spend some time in Ghana and settle for a while. As a result, as much as we love Bronwen, she would have to return to the UK at some stage this year, either by shipping or driving her.
There was also another VERY important reason for returning home in July, and that was to be in the UK at the wedding of my friend, Kate to Paul. We had been disappointed from the minute they announced that the big day last year - I knew that we would be traveling and there was no way of making the wedding.
So, whilst waiting for things to happen in Ghana, we decided to challenge ourselves to get back for the wedding by driving Bronwen. Hey, it's only 7500km if we drive direct. The trouble was, we only made the decision with 5 weeks to go, and with our history of hanging around, slow driving and the odd problem, this was a challenge indeed. Not wanting to ship too much back from the UK, we also had to leave most of our possessions in Ghana - cooker, fridge, mattresses, not to mention solar panel, petrol cans, water cans, water purification system, sand ladders and a lot of the tools
01 Our friend Lord, the roofer
. We stripped her down, keeping only the bare minimum - a single burner gas stove, as few clothes as possible, bought foam for sleeping on, old vegetable oil containers for water and petrol. Lastly we found a couple of pieces of wood for sand ladders (hopefully we'd be on tarred road most of the way, but you never can tell...)So, we set off from our new home in Akyinim with just over 4 weeks to get back for the wedding. Easy!
Highlights and lowlights of the trip:
* Leaving Sprite - she's our new dog. We were gutted at having to leave her so soon, as we've only had her for a month. But, she's gone back to her old home and is spending some time with her mum in Takoradi. She's a 3.5 year old alsatian who's afraid of the sea!
* Getting to the border at Burkina Faso. We wanted to get as far as Po in time for the Ghana/Czech Republic match at 7pm (remember the World Cup?) and as a rule you need to allow 1 hour to get through the border formalities. As we arrived at the border and got out of the car, an almighty cheer erupted from the passport control office followed by people running everywhere. "What's going on?" I said to one over excited man. "Ghana have scored" he replied. "But they don't start playing until 7". "Oh no, they started just a minute ago". And they had. We had the time wrong. But, we managed to see and hear some of it and amongst us apologising for our bad timing, we got through the border in record time and with smiling faces all round
02 Our new pet
. (except for the 2 guys in handcuffs chained to a bicycle in the Burkina passport control office). The fab thing about football in Africa, is that every African, no matter what nationality, will support a team from Africa. There is none of the petty hatred or jealousy you get in Europe. Anyway, you'll be pleased to know that we managed to get to a bar in Po in time for the second half. Jamie even had time to change into his Ghana football shirt, much to the amusement of the local kids...* Bamako, Mali where we had to get the Mauritania visa. Although we had heard that you could get this visa on the border, the crossing we would be making at Nioro was not really a main one and if, for some reason, the visa was not possible (it isn't), we did not fancy a long journey back to Bamako just to get the visa. Anyway, we had to stop there as it coincided with the England-Sweden match! (anyone would think we were football fanatics!) Instead of camping in the horrible "Mission Lebonnaise" where you may remember our tales of rats and mosquitoes, we opted for parking up right outside a bar we had frequented on our last visit, and who should we see but "Roger Rabbit". No, the sun hasn't gone to our heads, he's a lovely rasta' guy we met last time in Bamako and at the Segou music festival. Roger Rabbit is the name we know him by, although we really should have remembered his real name by now. A long wait and hanging around for the Mauritania visa the following day, which did eventually mean us getting it by the end of the day (they had to get rid of me from the office somehow...) we set off, nothing to stop us now....
* You know I said nothing to stop us now...
03 Unloading Bronwen
. well, 5 minutes after we had left, we had our first problem. For the first time in our journey, someone started putting diesel in the tank instead of petrol - aaagh! Jamie had been so careful to double check every time, but it was a foregone conclusion that it would happen one day....Luckily we noticed after only a small amount and, it was into the 2nd petrol tank which is not directly connected to the engine. The poor guys filling up were mortified and drained, then cleaned the tank without further mishap. Right, we're off. After a long slow climb out of Bamako, Jamie then got on the straight only for us to realize that the brakes weren't working at all and the brake fluid was pouring out onto the road - Help! Well, there's absolutely no way we're going to get back to Bamako down a long and winding road, but managed to trundle into the next town where someone managed to fix them using just a spanner and an old key. * Right, we're really on our way now. The bit of road to Nioro was one of the only uncertain bits - we didn't know how good this bit of road was going to be and it's a long way to Mauritania. As it happened, the road was pretty bad - like it wasn't built - there were signs that there will be a new road in a couple of years, but so far only the bridges are complete with no way of getting on them. It is also quite wet here, being the rainy season and all, and so VERY muddy and the ground VERY soft in places. Proof of this was everywhere with big juggernauts stuck and being unloaded - probably there for days with a few more days digging ahead)
04 jamie the fashion icon
. Bronwen did us proud. I was glad to say that Jamie wasn't taking any chances... Apart from a small problem with a leaf spring which was easily fixed by a man with a welder in Nioro, the rest of Mali wasn't a problem. (well, apart from spending the night in no mans land between the borders and woken up at 1am by the police with AK47's. Very pleasant men though, I have to say..) The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful - the Mauritania/Western Sahara becoming slightly tedious with miles and miles of the same - such a shame we didn't have time to do some more proper desert driving. Eventually made it to Spain where we took the opportunity to stop for a while and fill the car up with cheap wine to take back to the UK - rude not to...
And, did we make it to the wedding? Of course, with a few days to spare in fact. The whole trip took us just 3 weeks - and there's you lot moaning about Bronwen being slow!
Plans for the future: we have purchased a new left hand drive landrover which we will be driving back in the next week or so. Hopefully by then our mud hut will be finished so we'll have a home.
By the way, Bronwen is now for sale, based in North Devon - any offers in the region of £5000, please contact us!
