UK to Ghana by Motorbike. September to December 2009.                                 

Thank you to all who supported me during my recent trip to Ghana. When I set off on that rainy Tuesday from the UK I certainly didn't know exactly what would lay ahead over the next 7 weeks and nearly 6000 miles. Through the rain of Europe, to the deserted highway of Western Sahara, and the 42° heat of Mauretania, I made it to Ghana in the end.

Faced with having to ride the exact same route back up the west coast of Africa, I decided to get the bike shipped back from Ghana, and fly home myself. I eventually collected the bike from Tilbury docks, London, on a cold and snowy January. What a contrast from West Africa!

Here's my Blog in the form of e:mails I sent during the trip. Hope you enjoy!

Sent Monday 21st September - 4 days out!

Hello all,

Just a quick email to let you all know how its going so far. Well the trip down to Dover was very wet, so by the time I got on the Channel tunnel I war very wet! Anyway I spent the first night in a hotel in Rouen which gave me a change to dry off.

The second day I rode down to Limoges, and the weather wasnt much better. Then onto Toulouse and through the Pyrenees. A very cold night was spent at a noisy camp sight, so by this time I was looking forward to some warm weather. Riding through the Spanish Pyrenees was great, with some great scenery. I spent Saturday night just south of Barcelona. Got woken up at 3am by the tent being blown away by gale force winds. Had to repitch it next to a wall.

Anyway, I am now just south of Granada on the south coast of spain. On Thursday I will cross over from Algeciras to Cueta Morocco. From there on I will head down to Rabat to pick up some visas on Monday.

So the next time I will email, I will be in Africa hopefully!!!

Until next time.
Ben.

Sent Monday 28th September - 11 days out!

Hello All,

I hope everyone is well back in the UK. Sorry for any typos but trying to get to grips with first a Spanish keyboard and now a Morrocain keyboard is proving to me quite a test. It seems that the further south I get the more random the letters are mixed up on the keyboard and having to hold down a combination of Ctrl, Alt and Alt Gr in order to get full stops and @ symbols is a bit like plqying twister with your fingers.

Anyway, getting the ferry from Europe to Africa is like getting the ferry from Portsmouth to LeHarve (well almost). You can buy the tickets at a service station on the way down, or at the port when you arrive. You ride/walk/drive onto the modern ferry and soon you are passing Gibraltar and within half an hour you are arriving in Ceuta which is a Spanish enclave hanging onto the very top of the African continent. Once you have passed through the town you make your way to the Maroccain border which is where the fun begins. In all honesty it is very simple, you just need a bit of time and patience.

You can do the border in one of two ways. Firstly you can pay one of the certified fixers to help you out with the formalities, or you can have a go at doing the paperwork yourself. As it was my first time, I paid the 5 euros for the help of the friendly English speaking fixer to guide me through the process. Firstly you need the police entry stamp in your passport. Then you need to fill out the temporary import forms in triplicate and getting them stamped by the Douane officer. Once everything is in order, you head to the end of the queue where the head honcho is waiting to check your paperwork, then you are through into Africa proper. The whole process takes about 30 minutes from the time you get off the ferry and was a lot simpler than I anticipated.

After this I headed down towards the Riff mountains and a campsite I was recommended by a chap I met in Tarifa. David was an interesting fellow who spends most of the year driving around southern europe and west africa with his dog. He retired at 60 and decided that he could sell his house and spend the rest of his retirement living in his camper van sponsored by his pension. He is a keen bird watcher and every autumn he drives south down into west africa to follow the bird migrations.

I spent 3 days in the Riff mountains of north east morocco, two of which were rainy and one was good. I took the opportunity of getting some good photos of the fantastic mountains.

On Sunday I headed down towards Rabat riding with an Austrian Egyptian chap I met at the campsite. He had the unfortunate incident of losing one of his panniers while riding in spain. It fell of while he was riding along but he didnt find out until he stopped about 3 hours later. God only know how this happened! Fortunately his tent and sleeping bag were in the other pannier. All his documents were in the pannier that fell off, including his passport! Anyway he decided to try for the crossing without any documents whatsoever! When he got to the border he explained his predicament and they took him to the police station where they made him report his lost passport. They then took him back to the border where he somehow managed to blag his way into morocco! So it just goes to show that you can do the crossing without bringing any paperwork!

Anyway, I am now in Rabat, which I have to say is a very pleasant city. It is very clean and modern with some interesting historical parts. I have just applied for my Mauretanian visa which should be reqdy tomorrow (tue). I have just met another English biker called Martin from North Yorks who is doing a similar trip to me and we are staying at the same hotel. He has an obession with changing his tyres which is about the third time now. He is currently doing it in the hotel forecourt.

Hopefully the next time I write I will be well down the West coast.

Bye for now.
Ben.
 

Sent Friday 9th October.

Hello All,


I am currently in Nouakchott, Mauretania. If you look on a map, Its about half way down the coast of west africa next to the sea.


While in Rabat, Morocco, We collected our visas for Mauretania from the embassy, which was the usual scrum of people gathered around a door waiting for it to open. At about 4pm Martin decided to head out of Rabat for Marakesh and the Ibis hotel for the next few days. Riding south towards Marakesh in the dark we could see great big flashes of lightning across the whole sky in front of us. When we got to Marakesh the heavens opened and we got soaked within five minutes of reaching the hotel. More rain!


The next day I went for a ride around Marakesh to check out the city. I went inside the Medina which is the old part of the city. Inside you have the hussle and bustle of everyday life. The narrow streets cramned full stalls selling every kind of fruit and vegetables imaginable, you can buy anything here in the bazarrs from food to clothing, consumables.


Martin left before me to head south on his own as he only had 4 weeks in Morocco. So the next day I headed south out of Marakesh. On the way out of town my clutch cable snapped which left me stranded in the the middle of the road. I managed to push the bike to the side of the road and walked around the corner to some guys who were sitting outside a shop. I tried to explain in French what had happended and eventually they understood and told me there was a bike garage only two blocks away. One of the blokes volunteered to help me push the bike to the garage which was alot of effort. I was trying to talk to him in french but he couldnt understand me and he started pointing at his ears, and it turned out he was deaf. After we got to the garage I gave him 30 dirhams which is about 3pounds and he was very pleased. The garage was able to replace the cable in under and hour and they charged me 50 dirhams about 5pounds.


After that Iheaded south towards the Haut Atlas and the Tiz-in-Test gorge which is a scenic route through the mountains that takes you up a gorge and over a col at about 2100 meters. From here I headed down towards Agadir. I didnt quite make it so I sayed at a nice hotel in a town on the outskirts.


The next day I headed south again towards the Western Sahara border and Tan-Tan. The border doesnt really exist anymore as Moroccoand the king have swallowed up Western Sahara and made it apart of Morocco. The king is also very pro-tourist and the police are on charm offensive with the tourists. You get stopped a lot at the many road blocks but they are always very polite. They often ask for petit-cadeauxs -small presents- and I sometimes give them a spare pen or two-p-pieces from the uk. They love anything from the UK with the queen on and this is a great way of getting rid of all those blasted small coins.


From tan-tan I headed towards Dakhla and the border with Mauretania. This coastal route through WesterSahara skirts around the sahara proper and because it is next to the sea, its much cooler, the average temp here is about 25. The landscape is noticably drier and rocky but there is still a bit of vegetation.


I met a fellow british overlander called Archie from Bristol in Dakhla. We decided to try and do the Mauretania border together. We met up with
Martin again who had just come back through the border again after spending one day in Mauretania. He said it took him five hours to get through!


So we left early the next morning and by the time we got to the border at 9am there were 30 card in front of us. Things didn't get moving until about 10am. From there we had to fill in forms and stand outside the police post for about and hour and a half to get our passports back. You then have to go to the customs post and get them to stamp your vehicle paperwork. When this is all done, you can then proceed out of Western Sahara into no mans land. This is a 3km buffer zone between the two countries to keep the peace. Which is strange as the relation between the two countries is quite cordial at the moment.


The problem is that no mans land is not maintained by anyone. So it is just a maze of tracks that go off through the desert. To make matters worse the desert is heavily mined on eather side of the track. So there are two ways you can do it, if you have been before and know the route, you can do it yourself. Or you can hire one of the Tuareg guides to show you the way. We opted for the second option which cost us 10euros.


Our guide who was dressed in flowing blue robes sat on the bike of my bike pointing the direction. The first thing you notice when you get into no mans land is the large amount of wrecked and abandonded vehicles scattered all over the place. Im not sure if these are the ones that broke down and didnt make it or if they strayed from the track too far! There is no road, only a difficult rocky track that undulates up and down sometimes through deep sand. My guide was a big heavy bloke but with him sat on the back, the front wheel kept skipping and at one point I dropped the bike in deep sand, so after we picked it up I told him to walk in front of me and show me the way and where the deep sand was.


We eventually made it to the Mauretania border post and some more paperwork before we finally got in. We headed down towards the nearest town Nouadhibou. We stayed at a campsite but the town is a real dump and the only good thing was I managed to get a nice grilled fish and chips and a couple of nice cold lagers at a local restraunt, which is very unusual for a Muslim country.


From there we headed through more desert into the capital city Nouakchott. Apparently someone told us there was a coupe here in Mauretania last week or something. But you wouldnt know it. Apparently this is not unusual. You get stopped at every checkpoint but the police are always cordial, they dont seem to be bothered by foreigners. Again, Mauretania is a country that is trying to get its tourist industry together.


We are currently staying at the Aberge Sahara, which is a popular haunt with overlanders. Its very relaxed here and all the cold coke you can drink.


On Sunday we will apply for our Mali visas and then on Monday head out across the bottom of the Sahara towards the Mali border. And hopefully out of the desert and back into more coolers climes. Its currently 40 degrees at the moment.


See you all for now. Hopefully I have included some photos.


The Photos are of the Pyrenees, the Tiz-in-test pass x 2, and Tan-Tan.


Ben.
 

Sent Monday 19th October.

Hello once again.

Greeting from West Africa. I`ve finally made Bamako in Mali. The last week has had its up and downs. In the last message I sent you we were about to get our visas for Mali. This proved very easy as there was nobody waiting at the Mali embassy and we just walked in, filled out a form, paid some money and then returned two hours later to collect our passports with visa stamped. While we were there we met a Canadian attorney called George who was taking a two month break between cases and doing a bit of toring on his motorbike. He was heading exactly the same way as us so we decided to hook up and travel as a trio.

Before I left Nouakchott I decided to go and see the famous fish market down by the sea. At about five oclock everyday hundreds of little wooden fishing boats all arrive at once and and they battle with each other to try and land their catch first and get it down to the market. It was absolute mayhem and you have to be careful not to get in the way. It was quite a spectacle. All the different boats and everyone running around dragging nets in. It was all over in an hour.

The following day we left Noukchott and headed Eastward for almost the first time in the entire trip. It was 7am and already it was 30 degrees and the sun was starting to rise. We had a lot of difficulty finding a petrol station that had any petrol. Like all over West Africa, diesel is the norm, or Gazoil as it is called in French, and most places dont sell petrol. After half an hour we eventually found a station that had some and we filled up our bikes and any spare jerry cans we had. We headed east along the Highway of Hope as it is known locally. This is the only road in Mauretania that heads east into the interior of the country. After 3 hours we stopped at a major town called Aleg, but it was dry, so we had to use what fuel we had and carry on until we found a small station that was able to sell us petrol from plastic bottles. We carried on through the head of the day, passing through several small busy and dusty towns that had nothing to offer.

Archie, my fellow companion, pulled into a petrol station that had a pump marked L`essence (petrol) and began filling his bike up. George topped his bike up next. Ive always got into the habit in the developing world of first smelling anything I put in my tank, just to gauge the general quality of the fuel. But when I took one whiff of this load, I knew it wasnt petrol - but diesel! coming from a petrol pump! So fortuanetly I had only put about a litre in, George had put about 4 litres in his but Archie had a tank full of half diesel and petrol. But there was nothing we could do. Draining the fuel out would have got us no where because we had no spare fuel to put back in. So anyway, we had to carry on. My bike was fine, George`s bike was ok, but Archie`s bike barely ran. It wouldnt go above 30 miles an hour. So we had to travel through the heat of the day at 30 miles and hour until we reached the town of Kiffa where we found a decent Abeurge to stay the night. Kiffa also had a gas station that had petrol so the next morning we filled the bikes up with the correct fuel and headed onwards towards the next town. Unfortunatly Archies bike was still not running above 30mph on its fresh tank of petrol and the though of pulling it to pieces in the heat of the day was unbearable.

Things went from bad to worse when just 20miles short of our destination town, there had recently been a flash flood and the road was completely missing for about half a mile. So we had to take the bikes through a deviation and through soft sand for over a mile. Archies bike simply wouldn`t run by this point so we had to help him push it for over a mile, and then run back and get ours before moving onto the next section and doing it over again, all this in the heat of the day.

By the time we got to Ayoun el Atrous we were knackered and next morning got up early to help him sort his bike out. Fortunatley it was just the spark plugs that were fouled and we had the bike running again in an hour. We headed south towards the Mali border, which if you are not careful you could easily miss. You have to get your passport stamped on exit from Mauretania. But the exit post is a barrel in the road with a bloke sleeping under a tree. So when we got to the Mali border proper we had to turn back and find the sleeping policeman to get our passports stamped. The policeman at the Mali border were very freindly and keen to try and speak to us in English. From the border we headed south towards Bamako, stating in a small town on the way down. The roads are instantly better in Mali and the givernment obviously invests money in them.

Im not sure if I hold up much hope for Mauretania. I know its a poor country, but it doesnt have a lot to offer the tourist. The Road of Hope, which was built ten years ago to try and link the coast with the interia, is now beginning to break up badly in places now, as we found out. It unlikely the Mauretanian government will do anything about it. Yes, its true they have now found oil in Mauretania, but we all know where the money goes.

So Im in Bamako now staying it a nice hotel, enjoying a cold coke and A/C for the first time in two weeks. Im still two countries away from Ghana, but as the crow flies, the border is less than 600 miles.

When you next hear from me, I should be in Ghana!

A bientot !
Ben.

Sent Wednesday 28th October.

Greetings from Nkwanta.

Well here I am, I've finally made it half-way across the world to this small town on the eastern side of Ghana. In total, 5950 miles, and 39 days.

It took 2 days to get here from Tamale. Things didn't quite get off to the best start as I took a wrong turning coming out of Tamale. My Michelin guide to West Africa said stay on the main road to get to Yendi, about 60 miles. But in fact you have to take an obscure left hand turn that isn't sign posted. So after about 40 miles, the road got smaller, and then the tarmac turned to dirt, which didn't bother me at first because that is not unusual for a main road. Eventually, the dirt road turned into a path that lead to a village. I stopped in the village, much to everyone's surprise. I asked the way to Yendi and they pointed back the same way I had come. They said I had to go back to Tamale! Anyway, the whole episode cost me 3 hours.

That afternoon I reached Yendi and turned southwards towards the small town of Bimbilla. Yet another 50 miles of pot holed dirt road. There were many fords to cross, and with some I had to get off and walk across first to check the depth. Eventually I reached Bimbilla at 4pm just as the heavens opened once again. They have had a lot of rain around here.

The following morning I left later in the morning hoping that the road may dry out a bit. The road from Bimbilla was just as bad as the day before and the 45 miles took me 3 and a half hours. I eventually arrived at the GEP Kyabobo Centre (my destination) at about 2pm. Gill was still on here way back from Accra that afternoon, but the staff made me very welcome on my arrival.

I will make Nkwant my base for the next few weeks. I have plans to visit the nearby Kyabobo National Park and do some trekking. I have already met the Wildlife Officers here. I also hope to spend some time re-visiting some of the surrounding villages that I last visited in 2002.

Anyway, there has been no electricity here for the last 24 hours. This is fairly common, and it can be out for up to 3 days. Fortunately the Internet hut has its own generator!

Bye for now.
Ben.