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Published: January 23rd 2005
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Having sorted out flights home to the UK - $550 US return with Monarch Charter to London Gatwick - I left Neil and the Landrover in Accra while I headed for Kokrobite, about 30 km west of the city. I was heading for Big Milly's Backyard Camping, which came highly recommended by our German friends we'd met in Morocco, and also by the LP. Deciding to leave at the crack of dawn, to try and avoid the traffic jams was a good idea, and I got there bright and early - 7am!
Even though I'd brought a tent with me, I decided to treat myself to a room - it was cheaper than our camping in Accra. What can I say about Big Milly's? It's a fantastic oasis of beach huts, bar and restaurant right on the beach...the perfect place to chill for a week or two...
I was also pleasantly surprised to find that our German friends, Dietmar and Cisco were still there. Dietmar had managed to sell their bus...and they were just chilling out until the end of the month as well. They'd travelled through Mauritania to Mali, Burkino, Togo and Ghana. Cisco was flying back to
More Beach - Kokrobite
Sorry these aren't clearer folks - that's the Harmattan! Germany but Dietmar is flying to Tanzania to meet up with an old friend, and continue travelling. They'd heard from the Fins as well...they had gone from Mauritania to Niger, Chad and then Cameroon, but they were heading for Ghana as well...to ship the vehicle to South Africa.
Cisco had been taking drumming lessons - he was taking it very seriously with 2 hours tuition a day and he'd bought his own drum, so it was really interesting to see his Liberian friends performing one evening, and even more interesting when he persuaded me to have a lesson...now anyone who knows me well knows that I 'aint got no rhythm... so I was delighted when I managed to keep a two handed rhythm going for longer than a minute - just! At the end of my 1 hour lesson I was so in awe of the guys I'd watched the previous evening. My hands were smarting quite badly - they'd kept drumming for hours and managed to make it look so easy!
After a few quiet days on the beach, the weekend arrived and with it 2 massive overland trucks...one of which was the same one we'd met
at Bandiagra...I soon discovered they'd followed our route pretty much exactly...Dogon...Ouagga for xmas, Mole for New Year, Kakum, Cape Coast...Accra. One of their party, a big Swedish guy I remembered Neil chatting with at Bandiagra had come down with Malaria over xmas, so they'd had an extended stay in Ouagga while they waited for him to recover. It was quite scary listening to his story - he'd been on a drip and unconcious for a week and had been taking anti-malarial tablets religiously...but reckoned his downfall was the copious amounts of alcohol he'd consumed, weakening his liver. Anyway, he'd lived to tell the tale...and I made sure that my mossie repellent was out in full force that evening!
I asked again about their proposed route and they said they still planned to travel through Nigeria and Cameroon but then miss The Congo and fly straight to Kenya, where (alright for some) a new truck would be waiting for them! The other truck I never found out...they kept themselves to themselves. That evening there was a barbecue on the beach, and more african drumming and dancing....and much partying into the early hours of the morning...
The next morning I woke feeling not very well at all...and dashed to the bathroom...I was hoping it was a one off, but I'm still not feeling 100% a week later...this always seems to happen to me at the end of trips...
On the Saturday night there was a fantastic Reggae Band who played well into the early hours...I'd never seen so many massive amps on such a tiny stage before! One of the things you get used to travelling throughout Africa, but especially in Ghana, is going to sleep with extremely loud vibrating music in the background and being woken up at 3am by roosters crowing...
I met some great people at Big Milly's...Anna and Simon, an english couple from London, kept me sane amongst all the cliquey truck people...and it was great to do girltalk and get more than a little merry with Rosie, Mary and Dutch, three americans from Colorado. Dutch (Sarah) was two thirds of the way through her Peace Corps placement in a small village in Mali and was taking a well deserved holiday with friends over from the States...Having done 18 months she only had another 9 months to go!
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anonymous
non-member comment
hey traveler, hope you are well. i am in switzerland on holiday but anna is still at home, having not recovered from the amebic disentary she got that same night at big millys. i hope the rest of your trip was successful, and you managed to get your money for your share of the landy. lovely to meet you there and spend a few days hanging out. big smiles blue skies simon - simon and anna