Waypoints

21st March: Got going really early and made our way for the Burkina Faso Border. When you reach the border you are stamped out of the country and must drive along 20kms of no mans land before reaching the Burkina customs and border guard. With 20kms of no rules territory imagine all the naughtiness you could get up to. I really think I should begin my own encampment there. I think I'll call it no mans camp. The visa process was a fairly simple, hassle free process and we were soon on our way to Ougadougou. We had been informed by Arnold and Bernadette that the best place for us to stay would be Hotel Ricardo so we sought it out on arrival. It was easy to find and we were making great time so we took the day off to chill around the pool where an obese, male swimming trainer was teaching young girls to do the breaststroke. The education was relatively thorough, and fun to watch, but completely wrong. No matter how hard he tried he couldn't get the girls to stop thrusting their backsides out of the water, and I think that if it wasn't for the floaters they would all just sink like dead weights.

22nd March: Guess what! There hasn't been a drop of rain throughout our trip thus far. Last night though, there was. I had happily pitched my tent without any rainproofing in order to keep cool. I climbed into bed and was just beginning to nod off when it started drizzling. I lay there and thought "nah, it'll pass, it's actually quite pleasant, leave the rainproofing off." Well, it got harder, and still I was like "nah, it'll pass" but I had begun doubting and letting off a slow stream of curses. Then, as if my thoughts were totally transparent, the heavens opened up and drenched me! My tent began to flood and my slow stream of curses turned into a raging torrent equal to that of the river that was now passing around me.
Today we left Ougadougou and headed for Bobo-Dialassou. It was a simple drive but long and tiring. Once there we tried to find a campsite recommended by the Lonely Planet. Apparently it's run by a Frenchman who does a pizza delivery service on the side, so for the first time on this trip we were going to eat pizza! My word what a treat! The pizza was amazing and the beers were the first properly cold ones we've had in a while. I pitched my tent under a mango tree and only realised the error of my ways once in bed and mangoes kept plowing into it.

23rd March: I believe that there was a small communication breakdown this morning because Johan and I were anticipating
spending one day in Bobo so we rose gradually and then began to settle in for a slow day. Any hope of that was shattered though when Pat sounded his generic catchphrase "right! Lets go!" A Congolese parrot would be hard pressed to compete against Patrick induced repetition. So, we packed and headed for the border. To do so we had to backtrack to Pa and from there take the tar road South. Once again the border administration was hassle free, the only thing that caused a touch of worry was the fact that the big welcome to Ghana arch that we passed under on entry had vultures perching on it. Bad omen for Ghana, maybe? I hope not. The visa process affected me like a bad hallucinogenic drug, or maybe my french has just improved so drastically that I was starting to hear people speaking in english. I could understand them! It was fantastic but a bit unnerving, throughout the process Sarah and I kept on cracking jokes along the lines of whispering " I can hear english people" (6th sense), the only problem being that they could understand the jokes we were cracking! I even had a bit of an episode with a beggar who approached the car window with his hands out, to which I said, "sorry mate, but I can't help you" to which he replied "ok, thank you, sorry to bother you" and walked off! I was totally flabbergasted, someone actually responded to a no! I was almost tempted to give him a coudou, I mean gift, just to have him repeat himself. But I didn't, harsh I am.
We continued the drive to Wa in Ghana. Funny that, we did the Pa - Wa stretch in a day, it must not be so Pa-wa-ful after all. The road was dirt and potholed but not terrible driving. We arrived in Wa around 5pm and attempted to find accomodation. We didn't find anything suitable so headed out of town in our intended direction of travel for the next day and bush camped just off the main road. It was absolutely brilliant to be bush camping again.