Close Encounters...

We are over the border in Benin, a close encounter with an elephant.

Fada N'Gourma

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Quick post before battery dies, Arrived at La Panache Hotel at 6pm and are parking outside for night. Fada famous for its locally produced honey, Strange hotel - looks very plush inside, run by the 2 Ugly (Syrian) sisters and a French "Buttons". Bizarre watching Syrian news in Arabic in the lobby on a huge wide screen TV followed by African Cup football in French (Guinea v Libya), Sat and had beers in garden before it got dark with large fruit? bats swooping into the swimming pool beside us.

Very nice European music coming from place across road while we ate home-made spaghetti bolognese made with Spanish mince from our freezer. Plenty for a second meal!

Last of Ouaga

Yesterday was very good in lots of ways. We have had 2 very good night's sleep parked outside Les Palmiers, so we have been able to use all the facilities here without the cost. We started the day by going to watch the Moro-Naba ceremony which was much more elaborate and interesting than the Lonely Planet led us to believe. Through a case of mistaken identity we got a front 'seat' for the spectacle.

While waiting to collect our Ghana visas, Chris had both pairs of his brown leather shoes cleaned and polished at a corner stall. We then drove out of the town to the north past parks, experimental garden centres and big open reservoirs which serve the city, to try and find propane. We ended up at a large industrial area where a man who spoke good English asked to buy the Enterprise. He was the Director of a nearby plastics injection moulding company and next door there were 2 gas manufacturing places. He went with Chris to find out about propane. They were very helpful but confirmed there is no propane in the whole of Burkina. We have a contact in Bamako should we ever wish to return to fly in Mali.

We had a siesta parked in a quiet street near the Visa d'Entente offices and then were successful in receiving these and ready to set off for the next set of countries. Niger is included and I got quite excited about driving to Niamey, the capital and then south into Benin from there, but our family will be relieved to hear that we have decided to follow all the safety advice and give Niger a miss. We will be setting off soon for the Benin border via Fada N'Gourma.

Ouagadougou has grown on us - the pollution, heat and traffic we encountered at the start when we were a little exhausted has abated. It has been so interesting having a view from the high windows of the Enterprise of the passing people and traffic in the street. Some cyclists should be in the circus with the amount of piled high boxes and bundles they carry on their shoulders while negotiating the steep speed bumps and driving one-handed. "Carrot head" has taken on an entirely new meaning: some ladies blatantly display their carrots while peeling them as they walk, while others hide their wares under mounds of carrot fronds so that they look as if they have a vegetable plot on their heads!

We wanted to spend our last evening here with a night on the town, so chose the Baratapas as a likely place. Unfortunately after driving across town in a taxi we found it had closed down so returned to the next street along to look for a restaurant run by nuns, who sing Ave Maria at 9.30pm! This time we found they had closed early (tired nuns?). Chris had been directing the taxi driver with the satnav, which showed the next nearest restaurant close by was Zaka which the driver knew. It was a stroke of luck: we were the only customers there until much later, and they not only had food but live music as well! the rice and spicy sauce (with meat) - a Burkina speciality - was delicious and went well with the local beer. The band consisted of 2 wooden xylophone like instruments (bigger versions of the one on the boy's head in the photo below), 2 drums and a stringed gourd like 'guitar'. At first they sounded very plinky-plonky but as the evening went on it became better and better. one of the drummer's fingers moved so fast on the skin of his hourglass shaped drum they were a blur. He came and gave us a special rendition. Another group of tourists arrived and 2 young men on the stage gave a dance performance to the music which was spectacular, including somersaults. We kept thinking how much brother Tim would have enjoyed joining in with the band.

We have taken quite a while this morning to plan the next part of our journey. Up until now we have had recommendations from other travellers where to aim for so this next bit is of our own making. Coincidentally there are a younger Swiss couple here in a Land Rover, also aiming for South Africa, who are leaving today for Benin and may decide to do the same as us and maybe do a complete tour of West Africa this time and leave the difficult bits out. We will have a look at shipping possibilities from Ghana to Namibia later.

Sindou + Banfora

Les Palmiers, Ouagadougou

The sat phone is not getting much use lately, except to check for messages to us. Thank you to those who are keeping in touch both by email and texts.

Th OK Inn was a good place to stay for 1 night as it was free parking, but it was very noisy: outside music playing continuously (not our choice of easy listening), trucks coming and going constantly, planes taking off and landing close by and finally the chorus of muezzin which started around 4am and grew to a crescendo by 5.30. The place would have been almost impossible to find without the lat/long co-ordinates as trucks were parked 2 deep blocking the entrance and we were pleased it was still daylight. It did mean that this morning we were up early and ready to leave to search out the Ghana Embassy and a bank with an ATM around 7. The roads were already swarming with 2-wheel traffic including several driving towards us at speed down the wrong side of the dual carriageway. The cars were fortunately all going the same way as they had no hesitation double overtaking into oncoming traffic.

We arrived at the embassy 30mins before opening time at 8am so had time to find our way around the main part of town and get some more cash (CFAs). We were the first into the embassy to fill out our visa application forms in quadruple plus 4 photos and a hand written explanation why we had not applied in the UK. We were then interviewed by the First Secretary who was very polite but a little stern. He told us that if he agreed to grant us a visa it would not be ready until Monday which was what we expected. However, the receptionist received a phone call to affirm that we can collect them tomorrow at 11.30am. Hurray!! We had planned to then go to the Benin Embassy. There is a Visa d'Entente which covers 5 counties: BK, Benin, Togo, Niger and Ivory Coast but most people had led us to believe we stood little chance of getting this. We decided to give it a go as we had the address of the Police office and just as we were stopping to park we saw the Italian lady with the Austrian husband (from Zebra & Camel). She had just applied and was told to come back Monday. We had a lovely smiling officer who was very happy to practice his English and filled in the forms for us. He is doing his best,  to have our 5 visa pass ready by tomorrow afternoon, so by 11.30am we had applied to visit 6 countries!

We remained in the quiet back street and had our cereal, orange juice and coffee and studied the Lonely Planet for another place to stay. This place close to the centre of town sounded good. It is set in a very attractive courtyard under thatched shelters and bougainvillea. They are fully booked for parking space - we found our friends were already here - but we have parked outside the gates and had lunch here (very tender lamb chops with mixed salad) and used the free (open) wifi in the shade with cooling fans. It is up to 35C in the Enterprise but we can bear that overnight with our side windows open, shields up and Artois purring to us.

On Friday mornings there is a 7am ceremony at the Moro Naba's palace (the traitional Mossi tribal chief) so we hope to be able to go and watch this. No cameras allowed as it is a solemn government occasion. If we get all our visas tomorrow we intend to depart for Benin. If not, we will go somewhere else until Monday as it is too hot and noisy in the city and there are a lot of mosquitos here.

LIVE LONG AND PROSPER IF YOU CAN

Live Long and Prosper

Or as the retired Polish fighter pilot in Banfora translated “Have a long life and make a lot of money”!  The adventurous grandparents are having a lot of fun. We are sitting in the carpark of the OK Inn in Ouagadougou drinking Shwepps tonic and Gordons gin with ice while we consider the future. The sad death of hot-air and gas balloonist friend, Dr Janet Foulkes, from cancer yesterday has reminded us that you must live every day as if it were your last.

Carpe diem doesn’t quite get to grips with the way we think (Chris talking). Don’t just seize the day, grab it by the throat and shake it until the pips squeak!!

Today has been interesting on the journey to Ouagadougou. To start with we have a clean windscreen for the first time in a month. We had a tour round Bobo in the Enterprise, stopping for a quick walk around the mosque. Pics to follow. Had a second breakfast with pain au raisin from the Boulangerie Patisserie plus coffee at a café where all the young men were gathered (very pretty waitresses) before setting off for the 360km drive to the capital.  Saw cotton loading lorries, pickers on cycles with conical baskets on their backs, men fishing in lakes from reed rafts, vultures, parakeets, villages with spiky roofed granaries, a man on a bicycle with 30, repeat 30, 5-gallon drums.

The road to begin with was the best road in Africa, but deteriorated later until after the 3^rd diversion on bumpy, dusty red laterite roads. Our newly cleaned Enterprise is again somewhat dusty.  We are following the route via small scale paper map, Tracks4Africa, and better still another mapping system we got from Chas, a motorcyclist in Bamako. Chas was one of 3 motorcyclists, the other 2, both called Tony, one from Sheffield who had our balloon on his Facebook page.

We have had some very good news that our friend Chris Wood has checked out as a gas balloon pilot over the weekend. Chris is another of those naturally talented people who seems to be able to master whatever he sets his mind to. Congratulations, Chris!

A special thank you to Ellen and Peter for being such good friends and watching over things at home. Enjoy your holiday in Sri Lanka.

We will be here 2 or 3 days, or maybe longer, to get our Ghana visas. We have free parking and wifi and use of swimming pool showers at the rear of the OK Inn provided we have at least one meal here. Believe it’s quite expensive. We are eating in tonight.

Live long and prosper!

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Casa Africa, Bobo Dioulasso

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We are both feeling very sleepy, having had a meal of Chicken yassa (very tough stringy chicken but the sauce was very good) at Le Bois d'Ebene not far from the rest camp, where we are the only 'guests'. We spent last night at the end of the disused airstrip near Banfora and were up at 5am to prepare the balloon before sunrise. No wind and a perfect 15 minute flight together, landing in a clear sandy field 5kms on the opposite side of the main road. Chris went back to collect the Enterprise while I packed the balloon away with some friendly villagers and entertained the children. We then drove straight here with a stop for breakast on the way and have spent the afternoon sleeping and cleaning the red dust from the Enterprise inside and out and then ourselves. Tomorrow we will have a look at the Grand Mosque and the big market and do a bit of shopping before setting off for Ouagadougou for the next visas.