Its Tuesday the 19th January and we have now been in Togo for a few days, internet contact is very scarce and we cannot link in with our 3G for some reason. The local keyboards are also different to ours back in SA so emailing takes an incredibly long time figuring out where certain buttons are.
We left Green Turtle last Thursday and headed back to Accra to make a few changes to our gear and get some additional supplies. On our last day at Green Turtle we headed off to Cape Three points, the furthest land point to 0;0 so we calibrated our watches to the GPS as this was about the most accurate time possible by land. It is a very cool spot with a lighthouse and we got a short private tour by Charles, the local guy looking after the lighthouse, he is quite inventive and has made stacks of maps and directional arrows pointing to New York, Cape Town etc. Very cool and well worth the drive.
The final hours were also spent at the local hospital at Dixcove where Clauds has managed to pick up the big M (Maleria), we spent a few hours in the hospital waiting for the test results, they had run out of the 15min tests so had to wait for the slide to manually dry. We both were allowed to take a peep down the microscope. Malaria’s gestation period takes around 7 – 10 days and we had only been in Africa for 6 days which meant Clauds was bitten in the airport as we landed... lucky girl. We were a bit slack on initiating our malaria cure in South America so can’t blame that... my dear wife is really testing out her tolerance for diseases, but a quick three day course of anti malaria cure and she is right as rain!! We however did end off our day back at camp with some Crayfish and Tuna we bought in the market... delicious (the folks from SA and Belgium all pitched in for a real feast!!)
We entered Togo on Saturday eve a bit later than hoped as whenever someone tells you a journey will be 2/3 hours we need to adjust it to 5/6 hours. The police are fascinated by our vehicle so there is no way of getting away fast. The border crossing at Lome was pretty easy apart from our shipping company importing our car fully and not filing in the Carne (a temporary import and export permit) which meant the clearing agents had to spend 1.5 hours convincing the Gharnaians that the car was cleared. Anyway all was cleared and we left the border after 18h00. The Togo side was straight forward and they signed us through.
We found a little spot called Chez Alice which is 12km outside of Lome (capital of Togo) along the beach road which has some basic camping facilities but perfect for our needs (a running shower is a luxury which they had), cost per evening was CFA 1000 per evening each which amounts to around R 15.00 each.
On Sunday the 16th we walked down to the beach which is not for swimming but were met by Dan, a very cool old local chap who showed us around his beach house which he had decorated in shells and other items off the beach, he also manufactures drums (some people are just born artists). Dan proceeded to spend the remainder of Sunday with us taking us off to the local market in Lome and took us out razzling in the evening to Gods Beach (we partied away with some locals just chilling in different nightclubs). He also found out the exact whereabouts of the Angola embassy for us and we all caught a taxi in on Monday morning (with slight hangovers).
Dan's House
The embassy was closed... DAMMIT!!! For no apparent reason however the guards tell us that they had a ministry meeting or something, sounds like absolute bull but we will try again on Tuesday. The Angola visa is very important for us to get as we cannot enter the DRC without it and there are very limited embassies. In the meantime our small camera has packed up but some locals believe they can fix it so we left it in town.
Tuesday 18th and we head back to the bloody embassy by ourselves after the 35 min taxi ride and the usual 15min mortorbike ride (very fast and really great for the adrenaline rush) we skid into the embassy gates again... we get the same guards blankly looking at us stating they do not know why but the secretary general we needed to see had not come to work and we should come back tomorrow... NO WAY MUTHERS!! So we sat at the gates and said we would wait until someone arrived at work who could assist us... we were quickly given a telephone number of the head hancho and were informed that we could apply for our visa here but it would take 7 – 10 days as the visa needs to be sent off to Abuja in Nigeria, the same would need to be done if we went to the embassy in Benin which was our next stop as we do not want to spend too much time in Nigeria but alas it seems like we are off to Abuja to get our visas...
Dan the man found us on Tuesday evening and insisted we have a fish braai at his spot with some local Cusava/ Jam and a fantastic sauce. We had to buy all the ingredients and he would cook, we couldn’t say no and had a really superb evening feeding some locals who also pulled in (the whole community seems to really help one another out), we even had a drumming session under the full moon... The Togoliese have to be some of the most hospitable people we have met on our journey thus far including South America. (any one going to Chez Alice should definitely find Dan whom you will find straight down on the beach, he has the last house on the right with the red doors, he is awaiting every ones arrival...)
This morning Wednesday 19th, Clauds went to town with Dan to pick up the camera (which is still broken), i packed up the car and we started driving around lake Togo, we misunderstood the Lonely Planet and drove to a town called Togoville expecting some accommodation... NOT!! We were informed once we arrived in this small town that the resorts we were looking for were on the other side of the lake where we had just come from, there was however one “hotel’ in town... we negotiated a price for camping in their back yard and have set up camp next to a slightly green pool. We have everything we need including flushing toilets and showers so it has worked out fairly well. I must admit the best thing about our trip has been the total randomness in every aspect, from the people to accommodation to roads etc. Well we sit here on a small stretch of grass with a great dinner of chicken, tomatoes, onion, rice and chilli boiling away and you have to remind yourself how cool Africa can be!!
Tomorrow we head North in Togo looking at some waterfalls as we are wanting to go to one of the game parks in North Benin so we figured we would begin the Northerly route now as we need not go to the capital of Benin which is on the coast.
On our congrats list:
Ammy and Mark your new addition Mia is absolutely adorable congrats again!!!
Ed and Gail congrats on your wedding anniversary.
Later
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