Our final African country

Kumasi, Ghana, 7443 miles from home

Burkina Faso

Burkina Faso means 'Land of honest men'. It's an apt name but it could easily have also been named, 'Land of a million mopeds'. The few cars on the roads, which are invariably taxis are always swamped by mopeds, mobylettes and motorbikes. This gives the streets of the big cities a frenetic feel. Ouagadougou, the capital city with the best name in the world, has road-lanes dedicated to motorbikes. We used this to our advantage many a time but then when we needed to push our way through traffic at junctions and roundabout, the Capall has enough presence to be noticed and can't be bullied.

Burkina is a relaxed country. It doesn't have any of the big name attractions that Mali has but the main attraction is simply the people and their easy-going way of life. Everything is doable with no problem. Nothing is too big, awkward or fragile to be carried on a moped; tray of eggs or PA speaker, it's all easily managed.

Music was a big part of our two weeks in Burkina Faso. In Ouagadougou we saw a live band playing modern African music with vocals and percussion only and in Bobo-Dioulasso we saw an electric band playing African blues. Bobo-Dioulasso seemingly had live music from every bar and cafe and it was where Madou, a good humoured Muslim Rasta gave us two hour djembe drum class.

After travelling for 11 weeks and meeting only one other motorcycle traveller, in Bobo we met three all at once. Kobus was riding his BMW F650 from Holland back home to South Africa. Danish Mick was riding his 1996 Honda VFR750(!) to South Africa and in Senegal, he had joined with Ian from England who was riding his Yamaha Tenere all the way down too. We had a good couple of evenings swapping travel stories and experiences and the bike stories were nicely offset by Yvan and Marie, a French couple who are coercing their yellow and black 1984 Citreon Acadiane (2CV) van around West Africa.

After Bobo, we travelled to Banfora waterfalls and the versatility of the motorbike came into its own as we were able (and allowed) to ride down a narrow dirt footpath and camp right at the base of the falls.

We left Burkina Faso the same manner that we entered; by a long dusty road leading to a solitary border post where a relaxed official stamped and signed us through with no hassle. Honest men indeed.

Ghana
Each country we've visited has its own unique feel and we saw the changes happen gradually.
Ghana on the other hand was a major step-change. All at once the language, the religion, the landscape and the climate all stood out as being quite different.
After 3 months of murdering the French tongue, we are now back to English although the Ghanaian accents are thick enough to cause us to concentrate just as hard.
Ghana is the first country which doesn't have a Muslim majority and noticing this can't be escaped. Each town has an over-abundance of churchs and ministries but even more obvious and very entertaining are the enthusiastic names of shops and businesses. Some of our favourites have been, 'God is One Filling Station', Thy Kingdom Come Beauty Salon' and 'A Deeper Life Genuine Opel Parts Supply'.
We have definitely left the desert behind. The landscape is thick vegetation and lush greenery. The roads scythe through hills covered in thich trunks, vines and expansive leaves.
However, the water that allows this beautiful change generously donates high humidity to the air. I'm sweating so much my sunglasses won't stay put and Linda is considering joining the women here and shaving her head to cool down.

The jungle and greenery allowed us to go on our first safari. After a 2 hour grind along some rough tracks, we spent 2 nights in Mole National Park.
A 6am start saw us go for a 2 hour walking safari. 10 minutes after walking out of the camp-site our guide held up his hand for quiet and three adult elephants walked out of the trees and across a clearing less than 50 metres from us.
After that start, we watched more elephants nervously share water hole space with a horde of crocodiles, while antelope darted through the trees in the background and troops of baboons grunted in the trees.

We spent the last two nights in the city of Kumasi which is home to Africa's biggest market. It was like a colourful shanty town of corrugated sheet stalls and one step into its edge caused us to be dragged slowly with the crowd into its labrythine interior. The market spills onto the streets and the shops spill onto the street. Linda wondered what the shopkeepers and stall holders do when it rains but we were glad to not find out as back at our guesthouse, a gale blew without warning and the heavens opened. Blankets and sheets of rain fell and we hoped that the tent strapped to the bike would be okay.

This morning we woke to a scorching sun in a clear blue sky and the only effect on the bike was that some of our authentic Africa dust was streaked.