More Ghana, then into Togo

  Lome, Togo
Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Monday 12 Feb Axim - Cape Coast, (cont)
We settle into the Oasis, shower and decide we will have to drag ourselves to the Cape Coast Castle before 4pm if we want to see the movie presentation. We talk to the Danish girl we met with John and Helen at Elmina (as in el Mina, the mine) on the beach, before negotiating a particularly grotty area of boats, nets, public toilets and fish smoking ovens to get to the main road, and along to the castle. We can walk a fair way into the castle structure, through commercial and marketing areas before paying our 140k, getting a guide we are not sure we need to pay, who directs us to the museum to kill some time waiting for the tour. The building was first converted into a castle by the Dutch in 1637, and was captured by the British in 1664, who occupied it for the next two hundred years.
Slavery had existed in West Africa for many centuries, but it gained momentum with the arrival of Islam. The Moors, Tuareg and Soninke in particular were known as slave traders. By the 17th and 18th centuries various European nations were heavily involved. In most cases, European traders encouraged Africans on the coast to attack neighbouring tribes and take captives. These were brought to the coastal slaving stations, such as this castle, and exchanged for European goods.

04. Cape Coast Museum slave sale notice

It is estimated that from the end of the 15th century until about 1870, when the slave trade was abolished, as many as 20 million Africans were captured.
We see a fair bit of the end of the film, then walk through the museum, which is well presented, concentrating mainly on the slave trade, and local culture and customs. The displays and captioning are all in English, which helps one appreciate it better. We are collected by the guide to join 8 to 10 tourists, including what we assume was an African-American couple looking for their "Roots", but they didn't say a lot (unusual for Americans).
First stop was the slave dungeons, a complex of five underground vaulted chambers, reached by a steep ramp from the courtyard. The chamber for the real baddies has been fully excavated to reveal a stone floor, with gutters to collect the effluent. There is almost no light and restricted ventilation through a vent shaft high in the seaward wall.
There is a shrine in the chamber closest to the exit tunnel, against the wall which has been symbolically erected to forever close off the passage to the ships and slavery. From out in the courtyard, we can look into the tunnel, and check out graves and water cisterns. An arched passage under the ramparts leads to the "Gate of no return", 

01. Cape Coast Castle passage to exit gate

 which opens on steps down to the beach, which is closed off at the far end by a stone wall which runs a long way out into the sea. Fishermen are mending nets on the rocks leading down to the beach, kids are swimming in the surf, and colourful fishing boats are pulled up onto the sand right along the beach.

02. Slaves' beach, security wall, footballers

Beyond the stone wall built to cut off escape routes is a grotty, but colourful fishing village. It is a bit late for photos, but get some good shots from high on the castle structure,

03. Slaves' beach and fishing boats

and get a rain-check promise from the cashier to come back tomorrow and see the whole film.
Outside, we walk into the town to find Commercial Street, take a fair walk through the busy centre of town to find a very large internet, with dozens of computers, but not very fast. On the way back, we buy an over-ripe pineapple, forgetting that in the tropics, fruit can be ripe, yet not yellow. Talk to Didee, the Danish girl, before having a surprisingly good pizza, with real cheese, but have to eat in the dark by torchlight, as it is Cape Coast's turn to suffer the 5-day rotating blackout from 6pm to 6am. This makes for a very sweaty night, with no fan, and no mosquito screens to allow leaving the windows open.
Tuesday 13 Feb - Cape Coast, Kakum NP
We make an early start without breakfast to get on the way to Kakum, having arranged to go with Didee, the Danish girl. She has been approached by the hotel taxi-driver to charter him and his cab. We are prepared to pay a reasonable amount, but she is on a budget, so manage to talk him down to 150k for two hours at the park, plus a stop at Hans Cottage Boatel on the way back. The trip is complicated by taking the owner and her daughter to kindy, and a long wait for fuel at the Goil station, which turns out to be next to the bus station.
Buy breakfast bananas on the way, and have a quick trip, through a large suburban area, a couple of towns and a major rainstorm. It fines up before we arrive at the park gate to pay our 2k to get in, which seems more than reasonable. However, this only gets us to the park office, where we are charged serious money for the tours, 90k each for the canopy walk, and 40k each for the guided walk.
It is quite a steep climb on a stepped path to the start of the canopy walk,

08. Kakum NP canopy walk, out to trees

which runs in a semicircular direction, pretty well horizontal out onto some serious rainforest trees, and back to a landing about 200m along the slope.

09. Canopy wakl, towards the hill

The support trees are quite tall and substantial, the ropes look in good condition, and some sections are brand new. The base walkway is planks laid on aluminium ladders, a bit rickety, but normal.
We start off with only one person per span, but later, as we get used to it, and out of sight of the rangers, this increases to two per span. As is typical with most of these walks, there is no time to stop and enjoy the view,

10. Kapum NP, rainforest tree canopies

look for birds, etc. The main exercise is to have done something scary. One of the tourists had lost her glasses in the surf, so was pleased when someone lent her their spare pair so she could see the view. Our guide leaves us at the start, as he has to do a quick hike with a woman in a hurry, so when we finish, we are told to walk back by another guide, and are intercepted halfway down by our guide, who says we should have stayed put. Consequently, we walk a way back up, to do the hike in reverse, back to the end of the canopy walk. The path runs fairly level around the hill, and we look at plants for medicine, food for birds and animals, an ebony tree with a file-like serrated bark which is good for elephant scratching, rattan vines for craftwork, and a few plants which provide poisons.

11. Kakum NP buttressed roots

Back down at the visitor centre, we look at ecological and rainforest displays, and the only known photo of a jungle elephant, before heading back to Hans Cottage Boatel. We find a concrete-framed, double-deck restaurant in a large crocodile pond, with concrete sculptures, concrete walkways to pavilions, and a large, ugly concrete hotel building, built over tanks once used as a fish farm. The hotel pool is pretty milky, and we are pleased we are not here to book in. Didee checks out the rooms for a possible stay. We see a couple of crocs, and a few of the colourful lizards, but no monkeys, as they have proved too troublesome.
On the way back, we stop at the Goil Servo to check out the VanefSTC buses to Accra, but the only bookable bus leaves at 11, and the more useful 8am Tema bus can't be booked, as it comes through from Takoradi. Decide it is too hard, and we'll probably stick with the tro-tros, so head back to the Oasis, stepping out later to visit the Castle again. Manage to get in free as arranged, but have to wait a fair while in the museum for the film to start. It is a long film about local tribal customs, then slave liberation, then US liberation. Take more photos from the castle walls,

05. Cape Coast fishing village

then out on the street to walk along behind the slave beach, looking at the fishing families, then take a street which runs all the way to the beach.
People are living right down to the sand, and it is pretty grotty, and very crowded with LOTS of children, and with garbage, fishing debris and human waste. Take photos back at the castle (not game to take photos of the colourful village), then walk back through the town to the hotel, where a drum and dancing troupe is practicing all afternoon for tonight's performance, which actually doesn't eventuate, as they all wander off, and don't come back. Go for a walk along the beach, and watch a fishing boat being landed through the surf

06. Ghana fishing boat in surf landing

- a very dangerous operation.

07. Ghana fishing boat, scary landing

and watch the sunset

12. Cape Coast sunset

We decide we will move on in the morning, as although our hut looks fantastic in photos, as does the beach (if you don't look too closely and see all the rubbish everywhere), there is something we don't like about it. Have a better night with the fan working, but we are both pretty itchy, possibly from the heat and sweat, or possibly from insects (which also makes us question whether they are IN the bed).
Wednesday 14 Feb Cape Coast (Ghana) - Accra - Lome (Togo)
We take a taxi off the street to the tro-tro station for Accra, and are pleased to find that the system works, and find a tro-tro to Tema ready to go. Are tempted to take it, as Tema is beyond Accra, in the direction we are heading, but unsure it isn't a dead end, so move into the Accra waiting room, find the ticket seller, and buy two for Accra, 26k each, plus 10k for the bags. We select our seats, put hats on them to reserve, and wait outside until the bags are loaded, then read waiting for the bus to fill. This is a small bus maybe 30-35 seats, too big for a tro-tro as we know it. Fills pretty rapidly, and leaves while there is still a spare seat beside DP. This is unusual, as is the distance we go before the inevitable fuel stop. Must be the civilised end of the country.

13. African lunch break, Cape Coast

There is a fair bit of road construction going on, but not too much traffic, and none of the heavy transport as on the Tamale - Accra road. There are some coast views, but a fair way off, and no chance to photograph.
Towards Accra, the terrain gets dryer and sandier, but there is a large lake on the left, then many kms of urban sprawl before entering Accra proper. It is very large and spread out, with multi-lane main roads, and a lot of traffic. We are able to follow the map, along Graphic Road, until we lose it in the maze of streets, alleys and parking for the market near the main rail station, close to the centre of our map. We have no real idea where we are in relation to the Tudu motor park, from which the tro-tros to the Togo border leave. (we've decided we'll check out Togo, before coming back to Accra, as we fly out from here). We try to get directions from the bus driver, but it is complicated, so he seconded a woman porter carrying a large basin to direct us. Quite a long walk in the heat, pulling the bags through the sandy and muddy lanes of the market area, dodging trucks and taxis, to emerge in some proper streets. Still don't know where we are, but have determined that we are being led towards Tudu.
The woman offered several times to carry the bags, but we declined. Almost at Tudu, we are hailed by the driver of a passing minivan - calling out Aflao, our final destination in Ghana before the border. MP crosses the road to verify the destination, and price, but DP is more reluctant, as there are only two men, and a load of boxes in the van. Having decided that they are fair dinkum, and that 36k each is reasonable, put the bags in the back seat, and each set up with a window. Tip our guide 5k for her trouble - she seems to think it is enough.
We are relieved when the passenger continues to spruik for Aflao, even to the extent of parking across the exit from the motor park, but eventually see a tall woman with a suitcase on her head, walking beside the main road, who seems to be a customer. Turns out she is only a porter for a well-dressed middle-aged woman, who is going most of the way to Aflao. We exit the city on wide, divided carriageway roads through the diplomatic area, and pick up more starters on the outskirts (as many as can fit in with all the boxes and our bags). Pass the turnoff for Tema, in an area of large, modern industrial complexes, and get onto the toll road, where we pick up a lot of speed, on good roads for most of the way through increasingly dry countryside, with small villages. This is the main road to Aflao, well in from the coast, straight, slightly undulating. We make good time, although the driver's attention to the road doesn't look optimal, and he reacts late to problems ahead. MP keeps an eye on him, but he doesn't look sleepy.
Closer to Aflao, we cycle a lot of passengers through, in one place stopping right at a sign, nearly knocking it over, which expressly forbids stopping or picking up passengers. Later, there is a police check, and we stop before it. The driver's offsider has a wad of money, and we watch him offering it to a policewoman, who is obviously disagreeing with him. The policeman in charge deliberately turns his chair away from the offsider, so as not to be seen involved, but the woman won't deal. We are told to move forward, presumably so the passengers (particularly us, the foreigners in the front seat) cannot see money changing hands, and the driver now gets involved, coming back cursing policemen, and we take off down the road. The deal which went down was heavier than usual, suspect it might relate to the freight we are carrying so close to the border.
Everyone tells us about how entrenched corruption is in these countries, especially the police at roadblocks. After six weeks of being stopped four or five times EVERY day, we certainly know what they mean!
We cross a large wetland, then terminate short of the border, at Denu instead of Aflao, and are offloaded into a taxi, along with the other remaining passenger. We have changed hands, but in one of the honour-between-thieves deals you run into here, our former driver shells out cash to the taxi driver to take care of our fares. DP is well set up in a seat belt in the front seat, but a woman gets in, insisting on the front seat. DPs too polite to get out and give her the uncomfortable centre seat, with no seat belt, then can't read the LP because this woman has monopolised it. This woman later confides in DP to be careful, not sure whether she is referring to the border, or our present company.
We are dropped in sight of the border, in a very busy area, with cars, trucks, pedestrians, touts and spruikers. We are besieged by money changers, but having been hassled into a quick transaction coming into Ghana, want to be more careful on the way out. We are not sure how much we will need, but the touts indicate we will need at least 50k Cfa for the 7-day visas. Can't find what a reasonable rate will be, so decide to go back to find a bank, but spot a forex office nearby, and change E100 for 62,000 Cfa. We have picked up a taxi tout, which isn't all bad, as he directs us to the right Togolese immigration office, where an officer is seated at a desk in a passageway, outside the office proper. He is processing a Frenchman, who has a filled-in form, which we don't have. After the officer checks both passports in some detail, he hands each of us one of these forms, and we fill it in, losing our place in the queue. After checking the form, he then has to look through his large register of entrants to find an Australian, so he can check how much we will have to pay. He can't find one, so has to ask other officers. Finally settles on 22k total, better than we were led to believe by the forex touts.
During our entry processing, DP checks out a local woman who has 3 rubber mats, along with some other things. The immigration officer takes 2, and leaves her one. This is a pretty savage ad-hoc import duty. Meanwhile, our taxi tout has turned up with a newish BMW, which has been backed through the barriers right up to the customs office. It is not obviously a taxi, has a large African driver, and he wants 2.5k. The whole deal looks dodgy, so we decide to walk through and get a genuine taxi, distinguished by its yellow fenders. We can't get below 1.5k for a very short run to the Hotel Galion, which is on the border side of town, hardly a km from it. The driver decides to help DP check out the rooms above the restaurant, which are pretty poky and very hot. They have better, though more expensive rooms in the annex, across the road. Normally, we dislike annexes, as you are away from the action, but the room was more like a suite, with air-conditioning, so took it for 14k. Take a warm shower, and head out to look at the town after an excellent pamplemousse drink. Vive la France!
Togo is quite a small country, with a population of 5.1 million. It doesn't see a lot of tourists, and has had lots of problems since French Togoland became Togo in 1960. In 1963 it became the first African country to have a military coup. Soon after Gnassingbe Eyadema seized control, and establishing a cult of personality, surrounding himself with sycophantic staff. Following his death at 69 in 2005, his son, Faure Gnassingbe seized power in another military coup, then relented and held presidential elections, which he won. Amid allegations of fixing, some 500 people were killed in riots in Lome, and thousands fled the country. Hopefully it's going through a period of calm at present!
Our street is a minor one, of red sand, with a few shops and kiosks. In the street beside the annex a furniture workshop has spilled out across the road. We find a selection of detergents in a stall, and walk to the first sealed cross street, where we happen upon a very slow internet café, where we contact the world, then head back before dark, to wait in the room until the restaurant opens at 6.
We go with the menu du jour, a really good charcuterie plate, a great beef bourguignon, and a genuine crème caramel, plus a salad Nicoise. This is our best meal in a long while, and cap it off with house red.

14. Touch of Paris, Galion Hotel, Lome, Togo

There are a few expats in the place, possibly sex tourists, but no travellers. Head off to bed at 8, after a big wash, and a major mosquito hunt.
Thursday 15 Feb             Lome (Togo)
Out at 8am for a slow, but good continental breakfast, then pack our bags so we can leave quickly, then out to have a look at the town. Walk into town along the Cornice, being careful not to show cameras anywhere near the presidential palace, or to walk on the beach and risk a mugging. From our reading, Lome is definitely not as safe as other destinations on this trip, and we're feeling a bit ill at ease. The beach side restaurant area opposite the big hotel looks pretty depressed, and we take photos of once-grand ageing public buildings, then pick up Commercial Road, which has lots of expat stuff in a real supermarket. Have to be careful how much we buy, as we need money, but manage to get juice, powdered milk, muesli, bread, mozzie spray. Get E400 in traveller's cheques cashed at the second bank we try, so now have 242,000 Cfa's, enough for our Togo visit.
Walk a long way through a busy market area (getting a couple of photos)

15. City Markets, Lome, Togo

to Avenue 13 Janvier, where we pick up a cab for 1,000 cfa to take us home via the ring road, so we can get an overview of the town.

16. Modern architecture, downtown Lome

Negotiate with the driver to take us to the upmarket Coco Beach Hotel (9 kms out of town) for 4,000 cfa, even though he doesn't know where it is, and has to confer with the Galion staff to work out where it is. It is a long haul across town, and along the beach, which has a fair bit of market gardening between the road and the surf, then past the port in heavy traffic, over the overpass which allows port traffic secure access to storage areas inland. We pick up a sign, and head down a sandy track, through industrial and slum villages. When we finally get to the hotel compound, we are very pleasantly surprised - just what we are looking for to take a well-earned rest.

17. Luxury on the beach, Coco Beach, Togo

During the process of finding if they have a room, then booking in, then getting the bags out of the taxi, we leave MP's daypack behind on the back seat. By the time we find it is missing, the taxi has gone. The manager quizzes the security staff, but they have not taken note of the taxi number. They have a quick look further down the street, as they think he went that way, but turn up nothing. We are both shat, but can't do much about it, so go for a swim, and relax as much as we can under the circumstances, as we are now starting to realise just how much was in the pack, and how important it was. We have lost the chargers for the Palm Pilot, the phone, and both cameras. We have also lost the knife, the Leatherman, which is our can-opener, both of our warm tops, which is no big deal now, but could be on our return flights, plus this morning's food shopping, our clothes line with DP's underwear attached, our day-to-day first aid kit, and the book MP was planning to read during this "relaxing" phase of our trip. The other job we were going to do while relaxing was catch up on the diary, which we also can't do as we can't use the palm pilot.
The room is good, the A/C not too savage, the ocean is relatively clean, with an offshore rock bar to break the power of the surf, the swimming pool is clean, and the ocean temperature refreshing. Have a TV, but unfortunately the only English channel is CNN. All-in-all, it is a great place to relax if only we can let go the loss of our gear.
As card-carrying residents, we get free mattresses on our banana beds under the umbrellas,

18. Taking it easy, Coco Beach, Togo

so can read as best we can with limited literature, and take it easy. With our valuables in the "coffre", as we wouldn't handle another loss very well, are able to take a walk down our street, past some restaurants and a small village, to the beach, where there is some civil work on a pipeline, and some sort of abandoned structure on the rock bar. It could be left over from early phosphate shipping. We are warned by locals not to proceed further, as there are "bad boys" in the no-mans land beyond. We walk back past the hotel to look at the run-down Robinson Beach restaurant and zoo beside us, which was in pretty sad condition, and not worth investigating as a source of cheaper eats and drinks.
Had a meal at the restaurant in the hotel, with the usual West African choice of what is on the menu, compared with what is actually available. We ended up with two large, but different fish dishes. DP's was ok, but MP could, fortunately, only eat a little of his before deciding it was "off", and sending it back. The good one was enough for both of us, and luckily, MP had no adverse reactions. Restaurant is actually quite good (but nowhere near as good as last night's, which we are pining for), but their main business is lunch, when they are quite full. There were only about four people for dinner (the same number that are staying in the hotel), and they'd obviously ran out of a lot of things. Our meal took forever, we suspected because someone ran off to find a fish in the village.
Friday 16 Feb - Lome - Aneho - Benin border - Vogan - Togoville - Lome
Decide to put our losses behind us and carry on regardless with our look at Togo. Make an early start out on the main road to crack the taxi-brousse system. Get a ride surprisingly in a non-taxi, to take us to Aneho for 800Cfa each. We are always pleased, under these circumstances, when they spruik for other customers, as it means you aren't being abducted, and it gradually fills to dead tight.
On the way we are looking for Chez Alice, a possible spot to stop which is oriented to backpackers and overlanders, surprised to see Alize Hotel first, then the real Chez Alice. There are sea views right, with market gardens along the shore, and palm tree views left, with occasional water glimpses, opening out into Lake Togo, with a large, rail bridge across it, elevated a surprisingly large distance above the water. We then cross the road bridge into Aneho, and can see the Hotel l'Oasis on the river bank, but don't take the road past it - think we may be back later to look at it. The road cuts inland, past what we think might be the gare routiere for Vogan, but carry on all the way to the Benin border, which is similar to the Ghana-Togo border, jammed with trucks, taxis and people. We've decided not to go to Benin, as we can only get a 2-day visa at the border, plus the fact that we don't want to push our luck too far at this late stage of our trip.
Think we will have to get out and start again, but our driver works out that we don't want to go to Benin, so takes us back to the Vogan gare for another 100Cfa each.
A clapped out small Opel is ready to go, so pay 600Cfa each for a very cramped journey through a couple of small towns to Vogan. At one town, the driver gets out, and a woman gets into the driver's seat. Unlikely thought #1: she is going to drive. Unlikely thought #2: she has her foot on the brake because there is no handbrake, and they can't turn off the engine. Unlikely thought #3: The driver is going to get in and make it 4 across the front seat. The winner is #3!
Vogan has a Friday market, which is supposed to be on the largest and most colourful in Togo, with a well-stocked fetish section, and that's what we've come to see. We stop in the taxi-brousse park, where the market is still being set up, but it is still early. We have to get some change for the taxi, so buy a bottle of water, and walk to the end of town, looking for the only hotel. On the way back, DP notices that the cap on the water bottle didn't seem to snap properly, so rather than risk our health on bogus water, bought another bottle from the same place. Made sure it was sealed, and left them with the suspect bottle. It was probably ok, so the shopkeeper must think these foreigners are strange people.
We walk through the hot, dusty streets to the other end of town, then quiz some boys as to where the hotel, and the internet are. No luck finding the hotel, but did manage to find the internet, where we killed an hour in the relatively cool café, (after they finally switch on the fan), and managed to get through an email to Flight Centre, hoping to bring forward our flights by one week if possible, but not for any urgent reason, just that we are starting to" run out of steam", and would rather relax at home. Get a quick reply, because David is out of office, so re-send the request to his backup person. Fail again to get an email off to the kids before we run out of time.
Back at the market, which is now in full swing, we sit in the oil and petrol covered market section, which is not crowded, possibly because of the fumes, killing a can of coke from the supermarket before plunging into the melee. Although this is a very large market, it covers an extensive area, so is not as tightly packed as most. The market is probably 500m long by 200m wide, and is divided into sections - large pottery,

20 Reclaimed rejects, maybe, Vogan Market

woven cane ware, fruit, vegetables, chooks, a large pig section, goats, cooking areas, and a particularly good fetish section, with all sorts of things like animal skins, skulls, desiccated bird bodies and heads of honey badgers. Some in Togo ( and probably 50% in Benin, the adjacent country) practice voodoo. It conforms to the general pattern of West African religions, with a supreme god, Mawu, and a host of lesser spirits. Traditional priests, or juju men, are consulted for their power to communicate with particular spirits. A fetish is an object or potion imbued with the spirits' power. Fetish markets are like voodoo pharmacies. The buyer has a prescription of the items the priest needs to make the required concoction - such as a parrot's tail, a cobra's head etc.
We are approached by a large African fetish vendor to sit and talk with him.

21. Fetishes and fetishist, Vogan Market, Togo

Offers us some carved his and hers voodoo dolls, but we explain we can't take wooden articles into Australia, but settle by paying him 1000Cfa instead of haggling over carvings. Get some good photos, think the fetishist's offsider is giving us a porcupine quill as a goodwill gesture, but end up paying 100Cfa for it. MP later pricks his finger on it. Earlier, we de-facto paid for another photo by buying some fruit, and photographing DP with the vendor.

19. Buying bananas, Vogan Market, Togo

Don't take anywhere as many photos as we would have liked, as we were the only tourists in the whole town, and we didn't want to upset anyone.
Having checked out the lot, we headed back to the taxi-brousse marshalling area to find the area from where the Togoville taxi-brousse departs. We are directed to a Commodore look-alike Opel wagon, probably the biggest, but not the best transport we have used in Togo. It is empty, but we are given the front seats, so leave our markers, and retire to a bench in the shade of a tree to watch the loading process. Visit a loo which has a patch of charcoal to receive the deposits, and is remarkably clean and odour free, due in part to the absorption properties of charcoal. There is a large ram tied to the back bumper of the wagon, and he doesn't like it. Repeatedly butts the fenders, then gets himself tied up in the rope. The transport head honcho has had enough of him, so hog ties him, and drags him into the shade.
Other passengers and freight turn up, until we seem to have too much for one vehicle, but get a quick load up, with the sheep and at least one chook in a shopping bag in the back, with sundry basins and bags, us in front, and 4 or maybe 5 in the rear. We have a slow, bumpy 700Cfa ride through the dusty streets and dirt roads, with the suspension bottoming out at bumps and ruts, heading for Togoville and Lake Togo about 15k south. This is another vehicle which slithers across the ground like a slug, seeming to bend to follow the shape of the ground, lurching from one corner to the other.
Togoville is dead quiet when we arrive in the heat of the early afternoon. We're the only vehicle in town, almost no-one on the streets, the market is deserted,

22. Quiet day at Togoville market

and we only find signs of life when we arrive at the ferry ramp at the end of town. Here we are taken over by a guide, who shows us the shop attached to the large church, which was famously visited by Pope JPII, after a miracle appearance of the virgin on the lake. There are some interesting carvings, but we are not in the market, so he closes up and takes us to what we think is going to be the hotel for a drink, but turns out to be the supermarket all the way back at the start of town - we just needed another long walk in the stinking heat! Get a very welcome, cold 600ml bottle of pamplemousse for 500Cfa, as distinct from a 300ml bottle for 1000 back at our hotel, take a photo of a weird Aztec style monument in a park,

23. Strange Aztec-like monument, Togoville

and head back down to get a pirogue to the other side of the lake (we hope).
The guide book indicates a price of 2000 return, but we end up paying 4000 one way, to the pirogue organiser, not the boatman, and 500 to our guide for his trouble. It is obvious that our contribution has made a trip worthwhile, because we are directed to the bow of the pirogue, and a crowd of locals piles in behind, for a lot less than 2000 each, we suspect. The boat is a classic West African punt, flat bottom, curved up each end and flat sides, splayed out in the middle, pointed both ends, probably 10 metres long, and pretty heavy, with timbers at least 3 cm thick. We get some photos back at the church,

24. Togoville church, visited by PJPII

across at the resort, and up and down Lake Togo, which disappears into the distance either way. It gets as deep as a couple of metres, but a lot of it is less than half a metre, with the bottom easily visible. This explains the use of Hobie cats, and windsurfers at the resort on the south shore.
There is a moderate headwind blowing, and a bit of chop, but the one man poling seems to be handling it ok. Poling is probably a lot more efficient than rowing or paddling under these conditions, as the polers seem able to go on forever.

25. Poling in a punt across Lake Togo

We are caught up by a small pirogue, and a passenger transfers. He is a security man at the resort, and speaks a bit of English. He gets out and wades ashore when we get abreast of the resort. We carry on past the security wall of the resort, which comes right down to the water, to a landing where we can see a small car waiting. In a typical 3rd world transport example, this turns out to be a taxi waiting for us, and we get the front seat again for a 600Cfa ride to Aveposo, and Chez Alice.
Chez Alice is an older style hotel and camping complex, with an excellent traditional timber and thatch restaurant area, with carved chairs and tables, and doorposts of strangler figs carved into animals and plants. There are a few, male, burnt-out looking westerners drinking beer in the restaurant. We settle for another large pamplemousse, for 500Cfa, before checking out the accommodation. The cheaper rooms nearby are quite good for 4000, and the 7000 rooms at the annex, about 500m away, are quite large, with mosquito nets, but no window screens. There are Africans and a few overlanders staying here. We take the long, hot, walk down to the beach, which has a strong surf running, and decide that where we are staying now is worth the extra money.
Our next taxi needs a lot of haggling to get down to 500 each for the 3km to our turnoff, possibly because no-one seems to know where Coco Beach is,

26. Signs of the times, Coco Beach, Togo

possibly because not enough cheap taxis ever go there. Back home, we have a swim and a good sandwich before retiring to rest up in the room for tonight's Soiree.
We head down about 8, in our best festive gear to find the beach transformed with strings of coloured lights, flares, a fire pit, and a video screen. The chairs, tables and divans, set up on the sand for about 50 people, are all high quality timber furniture, not plastic beach stuff. The French managers of the hotel are doing a good job of making the hotel a meeting spot for all the local, mainly French, expats, plus local middle-class Africans.
We have some savage pre-dinner Capiroskas, which help with breaking the ice with the mostly French speaking crowd, although DP overdoes it a bit, and has trouble keeping her feet on the sand by the time we eat about 10pm. Our hosts do their best to integrate us into the crowd. Talk at some length to a pretty stuffy German who has just finished setting up a museum/art gallery in town, but he is pretty heavy going.
At dinner we take places at a table with two Italian men we have talked to a couple of times, and their Togolese "companions". They have enough French and English to enable us to have a conversation, and a pleasant dinner. One of the men has crook guts, and only has bread. We have two bottles of red wine on the table, MP has at least half a bottle, while DP is still cruising on her Capiroskas. The meal is rice and salad first, followed by some pretty weird offal on skewers, and pork last, then a fruit dessert. After the skewers, we didn't bother with the pork, but for 7k each, not a bad feed, but we still miss the excellent cooking at the Galion on our first night.
We are entertained by a couple of local strolling musicians, who are quite good, then the music and video on the large screen, including an Amnesty International Concert, with readings and explanations of the United Nations Universal Bill of Human Rights. Almost all the music and commentary was in English, and a bit heavy for a soiree. We get to bed, well oiled, at about 11.30, after a very long day.
Saturday 17 Feb               Lome (Togo)
We have a lazy day, swimming, sitting around, MP reading the guide book from the first page. We both use DP's mask to look at the reef in some detail at low tide. The mask is quite usable for MP below the surface, but pretty strange above, as the lenses are for short-sight. Also MP finds it hard to swim with a mask, but no snorkel. The reef looks natural, but probably sandstone rather than coral rock. See a few small fish, sea slugs, and a lot of sea urchins, which make it difficult to climb onto the rocks. We note that the large, rounded granite outcrop offshore is actually the upturned hull of a medium sized ship, and the rows of timbers off Robinson Plage, next door are part of a defunct swimming enclosure, not the ribs of a sunken wooden boat. Robinson probably fell on hard times when our hotel opened. There are a few local fishing boats offshore, so take some long-lens photos of them.
The chalk board has announced a Fete for tonight, but nothing seems to come of it, and we have a normal meal of good fish, and tough-but-tasty entrecote de boeuf, and watch the process of the Italians disengaging from their girlfriends, one more easily than the other, as they fly out tonight. We are surprised when one of the girls turns up with a couple of take-away pizza boxes, and asks the waiter for plates.
We hang around till late to check for action - see an older expat with a very young, non-fashionable local girl, who, while pretty well developed, looks like she is straight from the village. We have another battle with the air conditioner, finally getting it sorted out in the early morning.
Sunday 18 Feb                 Lome - Kpalime (Togo)
We make a late start, DP having a long swim, as we don't have to be too quick, as only going into town to the Galion, but then have a flash of inspiration. We work out we can access the internet from anywhere, and if we get the change of booking we want, can easily reach Accra from the Lake Volta area of Ghana in plenty of time, so get our act together. We manage to detain a taxi which has arrived at the hotel, and he takes us all the way to the gare routiere for Kpalime taxi-brousses, depositing us right at the nearly full minibus. For Cfa 4500, including the bags, we end up beside the driver, just the two of us, and leave almost immediately, delaying long enough to flag down the Fan man for a couple of frozen yoghurts.
Being Sunday, the traffic is pretty light, so we make good time, seeing a fair bit of Church activity, with big groups under thatched shelters, and a large seated group facing a table full of church bigwigs. We are almost to the highlands before we see them, as the air is full of smoke and Sahara dust. The harmattan wind, which usually blows on and off from January to March, is responsible for this dust, which has followed us the whole trip, and is the reason quite a few of our photos are a bit hazy.

27. The highlands of togo through the haze

The mountains rise abruptly from the plains, and have a number of interesting- looking villages on the steep slopes, but we are in no mood for stopping and organising a trek.
In Kpalime, we terminate near the markets, and decide to walk to the Cristal Hotel, which is a long haul through hot streets, with the wheels of MP's pack resisting all the way. The hotel is big, has a courtyard and large pool, but also has a large parking deck, and no obvious guests. The room is OK, but has a louvre window onto the passage, and we have had bad noise problems in the past with this arrangement when the hotel has been a knock shop.
Decide to look further. Back on the road again, stop for a drink at a pleasant small café, with an interesting menu, but no customers at lunch time. You have to feel sorry for people who are trying hard, but just not making it. Arriving at the main road out, on the way to the Geyser Hotel, we knock back moto-taxi offers, and also an offer to ride back and find a taxi for us. Get the idea that the hotel is not far, so set off dragging the bags, MP making hard work of it, even downhill. Accept a lift in a private car about a km for Cfa1000 to the hotel, which looks like what we had had in mind. The room is large, with a verandah, a large bathroom, hot water, and air conditioning, and the swimming pool is large and full of locals and expats.
We soak in the pool, lunch and head up to the internet at the craft centre in time for the opening, which is 3pm on Sunday, but not THIS Sunday. Look at the woodcarving, cloth dyeing, sculpture, drum-making crafts, then back to the hotel for more swimming, an intensive mosquito hunt in the room, and CNN on the TV. Find the restaurant in darkness when we venture out for tea, but the staff are waiting, and we get a reasonable meal, and then back for more mossie hunting and sleep. The A/C is pretty good, but we get a power blackout in the am, and worry about internet, with no power.
Monday 19 Feb             Kpalime (Togo) - Hohoe (Ghana)
Up to the internet at 8am, takes a long while to boot up the whole system, then have keyboard troubles, but eventually get through to find we have no reply from the travel agent. Decide to cancel flight changes, as we don't know when we will be able to internet again, and would hate to miss our changed flights because we didn't know about them. Read the SMH, do internet housekeeping, and look for a charger for the Nokia phone, finding one on the bench in the hotel restaurant. Have breakfast to kill time waiting for the phone to charge, and check out a display of local creepy crawlies

28. A selection of creepy-crawlies, Kpalime, Togo

We've really enjoyed this trip, but we're now ready to go home. You know it's time when little things that you have to do all the time, and you took in your stride at the beginning of the trip, now start to really annoy -such as rooms too cold with air conditioning, too hot without, continually having to mosquito-proof rooms, having to apply Deet mosquito repellent every evening, and getting it on your hands and in your mouth, continually re-arranging your valuables when you go out - locking and unlocking bags continually if left in the room, always sweating, police road blocks, to name a few.
The hotel tells us there is no way to get a taxi, or a minibus, other than from town, so we set off walking. Not too hot at first, but by the time we get to town we are sweating.
At the main street we are adopted by a local agricultural engineer who works for an NGO, and takes us to the taxi-brousse depot for Hohoe (in Ghana), in the transport park. We buy tickets, Cfa1000 each, Cfa1000 for the bags, about 11am. He waits with us for the passenger list to climb from 5 towards the required 15, written on the side of the Peugeot 404 ute. It has been around the block quite a few times, but has a brand new coat of sky blue paint.

29. Waiting for the taxi-brousse to fill, Kpalime

He then goes for a walk with MP to find cold drinks. All we can find is a large Coke, so share it, then back to see DP, empty handed. He leaves us here, and we decide that, as nothing is happening, we might as well go and look at the market. On the way, we buy a Nokia charger for Cfa2500, then carry on to the main market, which would be pretty impressive if we were more receptive. On the way back, MP realises that the charger would be of little use in Ghana, which has English plugs, so we trade it back for Cfa2000.
Back at the gare, it is still pretty slow, but when the shortfall gets down to 5, about 3.30pm, MP makes his move - how much to buy the outstanding seats, and leave now? At Cfa5000, MP says sold, and we start to load up in earnest, with the bags going under a tarp, with a pig net over the top. We score the front seat again, which is a mixed blessing, as we can see, and hear all the shortcomings of the vehicle. DP can see the ground, as usual, and the gearstick is a welded reo-bar 4-on-the-floor, converted from a column shift. The steering column is now stripped bare of trim and wiring, the ignition being achieved by twisting wires together. There is no sign of a starting switch or button, and we may not even have a starter motor. All our starting is with the clutch. The transmission sounds full of gravel, and gear changing is a hit-or-miss affair. As we are climbing a reasonably steep escarpment, this is of some concern, but alternatives are pretty limited.
At least we shouldn't have the mandatory fuel stop, as there are three plastic containers of petrol on the floor under our feet. We do a slow pass through town, then out onto the main road, passing our hotel 4 hours after we left this morning -could use a swim in the pool. After a couple of unexplained graft stops on the road up the valley, we climb the escarpment, with the engine and transmission both working hard, but getting us there. We pass over a saddle to the first check point, where we have to get out for a passport check, and walk to the immigration office proper, where we are checked out by a reluctant Togolese officer. He labours through MP's exit, then asks if he is married to DP. When told yes, he just puts ditto marks in the book, and stamps her out.
Still in the mountains, and in Togo, we stop at a village, which we are told is the driver's home town, for some mysterious purpose. Look at a very large church with some sort of fete going on in the grounds. We cross a steel bridge over a small river to get to Ghana - surprised that the border is not on the watershed of the mountains, and interrupt the officer's fish lunch. He is pretty friendly, but gets a bit upset when we lapse into French through habit. We get through for free, but the locals have to pay (a bribe).
We get back in the taxi-brousse for a reverse clutch start, and a long haul up from the river and over the ridge, but run out of petrol, and have to top up. The run down hill is made interesting by the driver switching off the ignition and coasting. Normally, this wouldn't be too big a deal, but when you have to take both hands to untwist the ignition wires to stop the engine, then twist them up again when you want to restart, swing around tight bends and dodge potholes which would seriously cripple a vehicle in this condition, it gets interesting, if not exciting.
The road gets better into Hohoe, and we pick up speed. By the sound level, we could be doing 100kph, but it is probably closer to 60. We are dropped at the bus station for a long, hot walk to the Taste Lodge Complex, following written directions in the guide book, as Hohoe doesn't rate a map. We are dying for a cold drink, but find there isn't one in town, as the rolling 12 hour blackout has extended for 30 hours. We settle for a warm coke, and rest in a temporary room, as the one with A/C has a "broken pipe", and Madame has been trying to get a tradesman to fix it, and will put someone "straight on it". Our rest turns into a virtual occupation, then an actual occupation, as the promised repair doesn't happen.
Madame Florence is the large, friendly African earth mother type, first encountered lying in the shade on a mattress in the courtyard. She is on friendly terms with an Australian woman and her son staying at the hotel, and we meet them briefly before heading out to check on a Chinese restaurant DP has seen on the way in, but find that, while the building is decorated in Chinese style, its function is uncertain. We look for a cold drink, but instead settle for three delicious oranges, cut in the local manner for sucking out the juice. Later, we wish we had bought more, as the drinks are still warm at the TLC.
It has a large indoor restaurant, which is hot and unpleasant, so settle for a table in the courtyard, and rice and spaghetti bols, both with half a chicken. Talk to the Australians, Camilla and Charlie, while we eat. She is here delivering funds she has raised in Oz to an orphanage, he has finished Commerce at Sydney Uni, must have been there at the same time as Adam, probably didn't go to enough common lectures to meet. They are heading for Mali, so we are able to pass on some information.
DP discovers Smirnoff Ice, which tastes cold, even when it isn't, then we retire to our "temporary" room for the night. It is only a fair night, as the room has a security light right outside, a piece of the ceiling falls into the fan, there is a baby crying, and a dog barking, the compound gate has a loud squeak, and is used surprisingly often, there is a 6am morning sweeper, sweeping a bottle top all the way across the compound, and a very noisy bird puts his head right in the window. We counter-attacked with white noise from the TV, and managed some sleep in the morning.