So Magalie and me will go today (right now it's 6:20 in the morning) to the Mole national park where are plenty of elephants. I'm already super excited. That also means, that I won't find WiFi within the next 3-4 days, so I just upload some fotos and you have to have for the big rest 😋
The day yesterday started with repairing my slippers (flip-flops). There are people sitting in the roadside offering repairing service.
This is how one of these places looks like.And this is the outcome. You see the metal buttons? They are new. He also put tons of glue in there, was 15 minutes busy and charged 5ghc (~85cent). I gave him the double with the words "good work my friend" and he looked like Christmas came early. Repairing stuff here is extremely cheap. I also repaired my small black bag twice already (new zipper and a fixed pocket) for less then 3€.Then we went to a crocodile pound and saw these guys on our way. This is not special, illegal or uncommon, just wanted to share with you.Before we got to the pound we were really hungry (it was 4h ride by car) but the restaurant close to the place served no food at all. We did not ask for reasons here. I got this leg of a goat or sheep on the street.After eating we went to finally see the crocos.Here I'm pulling the crocodiles tail.Wanted to know how fresh crocodile tail tastes like.And, if course, a group picture.The croco was cool but definitely not worth the 4h ride (one way).Someone on the streets asked us, if we would go to the border of Burkina Faso. As we asked if there was something special, he replied there were plenty of traditional stores close to it. Since the border is just 15 minutes away we started walking and found out that the traditional stores are the same stores then everywhere else. People selling water and juice, plantains and yam, cellphone credit, shoes and all kinds of stuff. Sometimes the recommendations of locals are pretty shit 🤣🤣Magalie read of this place called Sirigu which is supposed to be really beautiful. We tried to get a taxi to there but they all charged way too much money. It was just 50km and they all wanted to have 150-180 ghc. That's 25-30€. They said that the road would be really bad. To give u a comparison, 42km cost us on a good road 30ghc. Anyway, we hassled someone down to 60ghc and went to the village. We had some issues to find it but made it in the end.It's beautiful 🤩 More fotos in the picture section! Check it out.The village works like a sanctuary for women. They work a lot with clay and paintings, make a living from that. It is a charming place! I started to experiment with my phone options and fell in love with the "ultra wide angle mode". Great shots of land scapes! And yup, the road was really shitty.Magalie has this super power that she gets tired in cars, no matter what. It was one of the hottest days here, we were in an old, uncomfortable taxi on a super shitty road and she just sleeps. These guys crossed our way on the road. There is someone sitting and steering, you can see his left leg...As we arrived in the next big city, we payed the taxi driver who was really unhappy about the price which we agreed on before the start (always, always do so before you enter the car..). We took a Trotro back to Tamale. As always it was supposed to start when it was full. But after 30 minutes we just kept on waiting for the last 3 people..Yeah mixed feelings about the waiting. Guess who slept before and felt refreshed and fine 🤣On the ride the sun went down and every day, in the south and the north there are thousands of bats in the sky.You already see some in this picture, make sure you open it in original quality and zoom in. The black dots are NOT dirt on my lens, it's all bats!This is the local dumpyard. To give you a scale, this black cask on the right can hold 10.000 liter. Also the hygiene is a problem here in the countryside. I shower with a bucket of 10 liters and use my hands to get myself wet, soap myself and use the hands again to get the soap off. This is not toooo bad but the toilets are. This is a good one, only for small business.If you want to see a bad one, click on this link. (I put up the link because maybe not everyone wants to see this..) If you zoom in, you see white dots. These are maggots..https://www.dropbox.com/s/gyq5s7mc8mi5xyx/IMG_20190831_230414.jpg?dl=0 Are you still here and reading? Yes? Good 😂 👍
We are sleeping together with our Couchsurfing host in one room and I realized that Ghanaians usually sleep with the lights on. I already wondered about this when I stayed with Naa, she always had the lights on, also when I went to the bathroom in the middle of the night. But Shiraz (our host) is even more extreme, he sleeps with the TV on. I'm not judging here, don't get me wrong it's just really alien to me. The TV is also running 24/7. Almost every Ghanaian turns the TV on when he enters a room - may it be his home, a place of a friend, a hotel, you name it. TV needs to run.
Here an example. Shiraz sleeping on the right, Magalie on the left (didn't fit in the picture). If it was for Shiraz we also would put on these bright white lights and sleep.
Also at the restaurant where we ate yesterday evening put the TV so loud that we had to yell and we didn't sit even close to it. Oh and the movie wasn't English, it just was some Indian Bollywood movie..
At the same time people can get worried about electro smog and put some stickers on their cellphones to protect them from the bad cellphone radiation.
Well anyway, not my cup of tea. Once Magalie wakes up, we make our way to Mole. We will sleep a night in an orphanage which is known to take travelers in, I'm super excited 🤩
