Burkina and beyond

Well it has been over a week and this is the first time I have had to think about sitting down at a keyboard!
This week brought home the fact that I'm in Africa, I've seen some of the best bits & the bits people dread! As mentioned in the previous post my baggage did not make the connection fro, JoBerg. "It i on the next plane in 2 days Mr Barry, I gauantee it" NOT! while it was in the system apparently no one told the fols in Joberg qnd two days later no bags! Close to 30 degrees and 4 days in the same clothes (yuch) Not to mention that the trip had left me behind. So off to buy cloths as it looked like my luggage was in neverland. (West Africa is expensive!)
BTW George W was visiting that day which made getting around the city less than fun (lots of finger pointing and yells of George Bush! - hhmm do they know whqt he looks like???)
having got some cloths it was off to the Slave Coast to try to catch up with the trip.
Unfortunately by the ti,e I cqught up with the tour there was only ti,e for the one castle (Portugese) and frankly the slave Castles really do show the levels of depravity that Man has sunk too in our history. It would be easy to say it was all the Europeans fault but that is not true! The Africans themselves were just as bad (though of course without the trade routes and demand it would have been significantly smaller in scope) The people who ran tese castles must have been either in human or deaf in order to ignore the screams of the slaves only 2 stories below them!

Well having caught up with the tour ot the slave forts it was then a fun 9 hr drive up to Kumasi (second largest city in Ghana) But unfortunately I didn't get to see any of it because (oh joy!) my luggage had finally made it to Ghana, but unfortunately only to Accra which was 500km away. so rather than trust them to forward it in a day I bit the bullet and flew back to Accra to grab ther bags (6hrs in an airport fun fun) but at least I had my own things - actually I now had twice as much as I had had to buy new stuff.

After Kumasi it was up to Mole National Park and now you knew you where in Africa. Baboons Monkeys and wild Elephants either around the tents (the mnkeys) or about 50m away (the elephants). And given the 45 degree heat a very nice pool!

The group is great with virtually every one being a seasoned overlander!

Well it was across the Border and now in Burkina Faso and on to Ouagagoudou (capital) and of course being in West Africa Riots are called for (with riot squads) but tey were all very polite to th e tourists!!

out of ti,e so another post later!