The Crazy Gang's Mushrooms & Ghanaian Espionage

Dormaa Ahenkro was a real eye-opener.  Used to being in border towns & usually wanting to get over the border and not hang around, I was confused by this town, it's wealth and atmosphere.

Generally in West Africa, I try to be 30km from a border, they're not the most safest of places to be and can get volatile.  The Elubo (Ghana) Noe (CI) border further south is one border I ensure I'm well away from at night.  However, Dormaa Ahenkro was the 'Silicon Poultry Valley' of Ghana as I exclaimed to a friend in Accra that night over the phone.  The town was obviously wealthy, people were lovely, incredibly laid back and I found a gem of a little guest house complete with French electrical wiring (no more problems with my French plugs going into UK type sockets!).

After a feast of jollof rice and chicken at the 'Canteen' I found a taxi to return me to the guest house with the thought of a long restful night of sleep.  How wrong I was!!!  I was sitting in the garden's  concrete gazebo in the dark when an Obruni caught me relaxing with a Star beer.  Absolutely shocked to see an Obruni in this little unknown corner of Ghana, I started talking to him.  He was German and in business with a Ghanaian setting up mushroom farms.  The business partner soon joined us, we had a hilarious evening of chatter which went on far too long before I found my bed again.

In the morning, I was invited to join them for a mushrooms & moringa breakfast, absolutely delicious, all cooked on a small stove in the gazebo which was still littered with the previous night's beer bottles!  They asked me to go with them to meet a local chief and promised to drop me at the border shortly afterwards.  By 9am we were ready, my bags were in their pick-up and I went into the guesthouse briefly to pick up my small backpack, on my return I discovered they had locked the car keys into the car.

To put the situation into perspective, the Ghanaian business partner didn't drive and didn't realise this could happen (the keys were in his jacket in the pick-up), their driver didn't have a clue about mechanics & it was Sunday morning, so the whole town had already gone to church.  One of the boys of the guesthouse found some wire & we started trying to break into the pick-up to no avail.  The town's main mechanic was sent for, one of boys went to find him, he eventually turned up with most of the male congregation of the nearby church ... Meanwhile, my new found friends aka 'The Crazy Gang' settled back into last night's chairs in the gazebo with cold beers ...

The centre of Dormaa Ahenkro

By 11am we were finally on the road, I was given a tour of the town with some lovely old colonial type buildings then off to see the Chief.  The meeting went well and we headed for the border, 8km from town.  I went directly into immigration, I was told to take a seat and hand over my passport so he could fill the form in; he was quite young & junior in rank.  This is where it started going wrong, I told him I'd fill the immigration form in (last time this happened in Ghana in about 2007 it took them 4 or 5 attempts to fill out a card without a mistake and wasted 45minutes or so!).  He thought for a moment and opened my passport, he went through every Ghanaian stamp in my passport, of which there are many and then asked me to show him my work permit.

At this point I was a bit miffed and surprised by him, usually the junior officers don't look too much; however I have nothing to hide.  I asked him why he thought I was working in Ghana, he told me that I must be working in Ghana to have come through so many times.   I made it clear that I don't have any job in Ghana.

"So you are a spy" was his next question!  Trying to figure this out in my head.  Here was a junior officer now accusing me of spying on Ghana, for who? why? when (it's not as if my 2-3 day transits gives me enough time to do any spying).  I laughed at him and asked him why he had come to that conclusion as he was opening his desk drawer.  His manner changed & he was looking rather flustered, it turned out that there weren't any immigration forms ... this changed the situation as he went to another cupboard in the office, then out to the waiting room but the forms it seems were nowhere to be found.  They had run out!

He returned, semi-apologetic saying that he would call his senior officer but still wanted explanations as to what I do in Ghana.  I ignored this and asked him what I was going to do if there weren't any forms, because I wanted to be in Cote d'Ivoire as much as he didn't want this 'spy' in his office.

Eventually an arrangement was made and I escaped his office with an exit stamp in my passport to add to the other hundred or so in there!  I found the Crazy Gang behind the little Duty Free shop drinking some more cold beers & then discovered that we couldn't go over the border in the pick-up as the 'Obruni' couldn't leave Ghana and was the only one able to drive.  My immigration officer found us all there and asked what the problem was, we told him, he offered to drive me to the Ivorian border and suddenly became very friendly, my espionage status was obviously downgraded!!!

Long road south

After a relatively normal trip back to Abengourou in April this year via my usual Accra route, I found that summer airline ticket prices were astronomical for July to both Accra and Abidjan.  However prices to Ouagadougou were somewhat more reasonable and as a follow up needed to be done for a repatriated child, it made sense to fly Air Algerie south via Algers (an airline that I've always preferred over Royal Air Maroc).

Landing in Ouagadougou close to midnight it was sad to see the lack of tourists, clearly demonstrated by the lack of taxi's available.  Amadou seemed to be the only one around so after some easy negotiation for a price to the St Leon area of town, we shot off on the 5m journey.  As with every trip to Ouagadougou I stay in a small cheap auberge behind the cathedral and as with every arrival, they were all asleep!  Finally waking Alidou the watchman, I paid Amadou, took his number and found my small room.  I then spent an hour in the courtyard talking to Alidou over a Brakina and discovered the horror of what the January attacks had done to the tourism business.  I was the first non-African to stay there since January, a place I've known for 10 years and always busy with budget travellers but only 3 rooms full that night, 2 Burkinabes and myself; I was stunned and upset how bad it had become.

After making several calls about the repatriated girl, it became clear I wasn't going to be able to see her.  She had vanished, unknown if that she was in Ouagadougou or had been trafficked again!  Sadly I walked with my luggage through the hot, dusty streets to the Rakieta bus station for Po and then the Ghanaian border.  Unusually the bus was late, due to a lack of fuel before Ouaga, over an hour after it's scheduled time we finally boarded with the inside temperature showing 45°!  I was sad to be going this route south, hoped to have gone east first to the girls village but it wasn't meant to be.

Just prior to a bridge where I'd had problems before with the police, the drivers mate told us all to turn our phones off.  When I enquired it was made clear that the area has had problems with bandits on the road.  We made it into Po without a hitch, I was happy to think I could make the border before it's closure at 6pm.  With a Burkinabe lady headed for Accra, we scoured around for a taxi to get us to Dakola, the Burkinabe border.  Soon enough we made it to the border village but go find it blocked by trucks waiting to clear customs, I'd never seen it so busy and our driver was unamused at not being able to find a route through! 

The clock was ticking and I really wasn't filled with joy at spending a night this side of the border, eventually we made it through, I raced into the immigration building where one lady officer remembered me and ran out again to find an argument ensuing between the police and our driver.  I begged them to let us continue the 1km in the taxi to the Ghana side ... heads shook, I tried everything to persuade them.  It was only when one of them heard I was due to sleep in Tenkodougo (a small town near the girls village to the east of Ouaga) and what had happened to her, that they let us go!

Ghana was the usual gruff immigration post, TV blaring, officers sitting around ... eventually i was stamped in!  I trudged off to another known bed, 300m from the border post is a small, clean lodge that isn't bad value for money in the small tourist town of Paga, better known for sacred crocodiles than accommodation!  Unfortunately their brilliant kitchen had been closed a while ago, so I sent out the boy in charge to find some jollof rice and chicken.  Wonderful jollof rice but a chicken thigh I could have bounced against the wall!!! 

The following day, I was at the station by 5.45am, in a taxi by 6am and south in Bolgatanga before 8am.  Here I ran into trouble, the driver left me at a trotro station with air-conditioned vehicles.  I paid for my ticket and was bluntly told I was paying the same for my luggage, knowing these typically Ghanaian antics for the 'Obruni' travelling public, I ignored him, ready to negotiate just before departure.  To my horror another 'Obruni' showed up, young girl from Germany or Sweden and immediately handed over the requested amount while I was saying No to her when they quoted what they wanted.  An argument ensued, I handed back my ticket and walked off, very annoyed.  Luckily arriving in the taxi station I spied Emmanuel who'd driven me in the shared taxi from Paga, negotiating a price for him to drive me directly to Tamale, we set off!

Tamale is my favourite place for Chinese food in the region!  However I was going to try to get onto Sunyani or at least Techiman today.  I just missed a trotro for Techiman pulling out so headed to Ghana's government bus company, Metro Mass Transit's station to find a bus boarding for Sunyani!!!  Chinese looked to be off the menu until I talked to the driver who had sold every seat.  I waited to see if there was anything spare, watched it pull out and walked off to find a tuk-tuk to have lunch, at the Chinese!   The hotel I usually stay at has seriously gone downhill, one lady was really sullen, so I headed next door to Hamdallah Hotel to find a lovely room that was cheaper!

Back at the trotro station by 0530 the next morning I had to wait almost 3h for the Techiman trotro to fill.  Yet again, two Obruni's showed up.  Yet again totally ignored me; maybe I'm getting old but before there was a spirit between travellers however it doesn't seem to be the case in Ghana or else I look so worn out from travelling, they stay away?!?!?  These two missed asking to get off at Kintampo Falls so when we stopped at the last stop in town the driver asked me to ask them to get off! 

Almost 6h after leaving Tamale we arrived in Techiman where I found a shared taxi for Sunyani, another hour away, this driver definitely had F1 aspirations but he was a safe driver so I didn't squawk as I would normally!  Dormaa Ahenkro is the town just before the border east of Agnibilekro, I hadn't had any money since Tamale, luckily found a convenient cash machine in Techiman. So on arrival in Sunyani, I agreed to pay for 2 seats for myself to Dormaa if the driver would wait whilst I found food; 2 hard-boiled eggs, a handful of groundnuts and a small packet of biscuits all guzzled at 4.30pm ...