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Trip Start Nov 02, 2004 Trip End Ongoing Next
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  Accra, Ghana
Friday, November 5, 2004

OK, so heres what I wrote on my first night, in a garden bar under the influence of local beer, tropical climate and sleep deprivation:

"Where to start? The Maori security guard on his way to Iraq on the Sydney/Dubai leg of the journey? Dubai airport itself? Thouroughly crazed place, people from every conceivable breed, like mad machines, going from nowhere to nowhere, as I'm sure I've written before, like diamond pinballs, moving too fast to see, fading...Or how about the Cantonese businessman returning to his Nigerian PVC factory on the Dubai/Lagos leg of the journey? Too strange, too strange, almost uneccessary to land in Africa the way the flight was going: late Coltrane, "Interstellar Overdrive", J.G. Ballard and malt whiskey. The thought crossed my mind that maybe I should stay in the air, better to meet people fleetingly, only find out half the story....3 continents and 32 hours later I find myself in Ghana's bracing heat, getting ripped off twice in 1 hour and marvelling at how similar this city smells to another I experienced a few years ago... Accra initially was hard to deal with, in the way that the chaos of 'developing nations' is always something that will give you a slap in the face when you first get off the plane, no matter how well you think you are prepared for it: the streets crawling with all those intense "we're not in Kansas anymore"-type input overloads, that are so typical yet so foreign to us - goats and chickens, seemingly ownerless, wandering the streets - people cooking and selling food everywhere, all the time - people actually LIVING in the streets (just like in Kathmandu, as opposed to our shopping in the streets) i.e. chopping food, cooking, washing clothes, washing themselves, sitting outside with their families in makeshift outdoor living rooms - and also like Kathmandu, I suppose: the contradictory / complimentary notions of beauty and horror living side by side, sometimes one in the same".

That was a couple of days ago. Now my impression is a little different, but the initial ones always the sharpest isn't it? Had a tradtional breakfast this morning (well traditional isn't really the right word, people only eat this stuff because they can't afford anything else) at a roadside stall, with an old homeless guy I've befriended named 'Freeman'. We have an arrangement where he sits around talking with me for hours about Ghana, and in exchange I buy him breakfast and lunch. Its a sweet deal, I'm learning a lot. Todays breakfast was a handful of peanuts in some sort of thin gruel, with bread. Like everyone else in Ghana I've come across Freeman wants to leave the country: "If people had money, if more countries were open, I tell you: nobody would be here. Ghana would be empty, nobody would be left, not even one old man."

Am picking up my visas for Burkina Faso and Niger this afternoon. Can't believe I've managed to obtain the Mythical and elusive 'Visa Touristique Entente' already. its 34 degrees, I'm tired and my hotel doubles as a brothel.....I don't know what else to say....

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