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Published: February 27th 2024
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Well, here we go again, ‘back on the horse’ as they say, with my first solo travel since I visited East Africa pre-Covid in 2019. And just so they didn’t feel left out, this time I visited West Africa, which now completes for me the four points of the compass in Africa. Specifically, I have just completed a 14-day tour of Togo, Benin and Ghana with the travel companies Native Eye (UK) and their local agent, TransAfrica. Joan very graciously gave me a ‘leave pass’ for this period, which was not easy for her with her very limited vision although she did import some friends to help in my absence.
As I progressively pull together my photos and scrappy diary notes, I will post a series of blogs on my highlights of the trip, grouping together excursions with similar themes rather than giving a chronological account of the trip. So in some cases, the one blog may include highlights from more than one of these three countries.
They say misfortunes come in threes and that certainly happened at the start of this trip. Firstly, my ‘point and shoot’ Nikon camera that has served me so loyally for well over
10 years decided to freeze up the very day before I set off. I thought I’d be able to replace it at Sydney Airport duty-free but they had nothing available between a virtual Box Brownie and sophisticated reflex cameras. I finally had to settle for one that one of the staff at the hotel in Lome (Togo) got from a mate (probably hot!), which was a Fuji and didn’t appear to produce the quality photos of my old Nikon. The second blow came when I went to pay my initial hotel in Lome. To cover all contingencies (or so I thought!), I took over with me three separate credit cards and just a small float of cash. Unfortunately, all three cards were declined, first at the hotel and then at the ATMs, so instead I had to rely on my limited cash and a funds transfer I had to make from an account back home. Finally, on day one of the tour, on the very day I met my fellow travellers for the first time, I felt like shit and probably left them wondering what they would be dragging around with them for the next fortnight. Fortunately, it was just
a 24 hour thing and I was right for the rest of the tour.
Our group comprised 11 pax - a French Swiss couple, an Italian couple, an Irish couple and 5 singles, these being two Aussie men, an English man and woman, and an American woman. All of us were within a similar age range except the lass from London, who was in her late 20s, but she fitted in well with the oldies, apart from her obsession with Taylor Swift, which was a bit out of our league! We travelled in two mini vans with good aircon (imperative in that part of the world) and that held 8 pax comfortably, and we had two guides and two drivers. Fortunately, the travellers were a convivial and harmonious group, which I know from prior experience is not always the case, as I’ve often seen one or more people alienated from the group by the end of such trips.
There is no easy way to get from Broulee to Lome (not a single direct flight!), so I had to travel mainly by Ethiopian Airlines or its code share partners via Sydney, Singapore and Addis Ababa, taking 32 hours in
all. While travelling cattle class, I did splash out on ‘comfort seats’ on all flights, which were a sound investment as not only did I have greater leg room but on each of the international flights I had an empty seat next to me.
So that sets up my trip and over the next few days I will post those various ‘theme’ blogs and plan to finish with a summary and my general thoughts about the whole trip. Don’t move that dial ...
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Ann Burke
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Great Memories
I can hear you talking when you write Neil - Good or a bad thing? I'm sad enough to be excited recognising where your photos were taken, so looking forward to your next instalments.