ROCKIN’ PAR AVION, Accra, Ouagadougou. 19 Aug, Sun morn.

Aah, so waking up I began to remember some of the conversation with Eric of the night before. My first hope was that he did not appear at Joksa Hotel in Osu, then it was along the lines of ‘If he does come, will he try to rip my pants off of me?’ If this is the first post that you have read, then you do need to go back and get updates, otherwise this would sound very wrong. Realising that I was actually still in Ghana, I remembered that my flight was leaving at about midday, and I should try and take it easy. I am not sure if this is all over Ghana, at the hotel I was at it is highly recommended not to get the English breakfast but the Continental breakfast. Funnily enough, the English breakfast is only a salad, possibly with a slice of bread and coffee… juice is extra. For less money one could get the Continental breakfast, which includes a scrambled egg and several slices of toast. The toast was pretty awesome, with possibly a marmalade spread imbedded into the bread, the flavour is still (2 weeks later) a strong memory.

The cook for this meal was a lady named Victoria, she was also the waiter but this was easy as I was the only customer the entire time. She had finished majority of her cooking degree, all the hard yards had been done, and there were only some of the small specifics left. This had allowed her to be working at Joksa Hotel for the past 3 months for a bit extra cash. Even though I wanted a picture with her, my camera was up stairs and I could not be bothered grabbing it. Definitely a person you need to say hello to if you are ever in Ghana. I went into the cooking area with my dirty dishes and thanked her for the meal, in return she started giggling and gave me many blessings on my time ahead. Feeling light on my feet with this gesture of extra kindness, I got everything sorted for departure and took my luggage downstairs. On leaving, another person helped me with my bags (not the hiking one though, as no one else seemed to be able to cope with it. Even though it had been told to me to be wary of the slackness of local taxi drivers, I would have to disagree with any past information I had heard. Even though my driver was not very talkative he did interact and gave his number for either myself or any of my friends who may go to Accra and its surrounds. The bigger surprise was when the guy then offered to take my bags into the airport, I thanked him but declined the offer as I can only cope with so much help.

At the Air Burkina counter I mentioned about my syringes. After giving my details I was told to go to customs in this regards. At the entrance to customs the officer there said that it was OK, but to make sure I mention it to the security check officers. By the time I got back to where my bags were, all the administration side of things was complete, I grabbed my bags and went upstairs to go through security. At immigration I had a chat to the immigration officer about Soccer and Rugby, both Ghanian and Australian. Going on through, and then talking to the security officers about my syringes, I was able to momentarily settle at the corresponding gate for the Air Burkina plane to arrive. It was at this point I begin doing a little bit of reminiscing, where I number one thought that stood out the most was my miscalculations in the Visa cost in Ghana (I didn’t realise I needed any for one evening). Looking in my wallet a single Cedi stood there looking at me… oh bugger. I spoke to the lady at the gate’s desk. She said that I had to run as the plane was due to arrive in 10 minutes and it only needed to be emptied, refueled and passengers put on. With my bag and coat latched onto me, I ran like buggery to where she told me to go. I had to step out of the building, run to the other side and back in to the only two ATMs, then run elsewhere to the currency exchange booth. Well, a was stopped at one point by a checkpoint, the guy was saying what I was doing should not be allowed and I should have done it earlier. Being in the midst of an energy rush I said to the guy we can’t worry about what we should have done, but instead I need to fix up my current situation. Well, the truth put so bluntly to him shocked him a little as he continued staring at me as I was jumping down a series of stairs 3 at a time. I then stopped at an information desk to get more accurate information, this was a fortunate move as I would have made one incorrect turn otherwise.

Finally, at the ATMs, the first was in need of repair but the second was fortunately working. Not reading anywhere about the cost of a Visa for Burkina Faso, I got the maximum amount from the ATM and switched the Cedis for American money. So, to help us along a bit: 150 Cedis was bought at 184 USD, so the two currencies were approximately one to one. With this small wad of USA currency in my pocket, I ran back upstairs to where the gate was. It was a bit of a bugger running outside in the dry warm weather. Security was a bit more lenient on me this time, especially as the immigration officer walked over to the security check with me and we spoke more about swimming and how he had not seen many Australians come through here. The lady at the gate desk congratulated me, where 5 minutes later it was time to board the plane.

I wish I was able to remember to take a picture of certain aspects of the plane. We had to walk to the plane and once going up the stairs into the fuselage section, most people had to bend over to not hit their head. Storage was minimal and I realised why two of my bags were forced to be placed in check in. My other bag with me was unable to fit in any of the spaces legitimately available so it was sharing a seat with someone else’s carry on luggage. The safety process was inaudible as the static was near the same volume as the ladies voice, one thing I did hear was the fact that the other worker’s name was Claude. On the plane it could be seen that not many of the people had had much experience on one. During the flight the guy across the aisle from me was taking deep breaths periodically and trying to keep his eyes closed. Eventually, after there was some turbulence, he had to be moved towards the front of the plane and given some more space. The lady who was sitting in front of him was grabbing anything that could be grabbed whenever there was a bump of any kind, the funnier moments were: at the start of turbulence, where she made a loud noise and grabbed with both hands onto the seat in front and the guy sitting there then freaked out himself, and moved to the neighbouring seat. The other time that was funny was upon landing, she had thought we had landed, but the plane had only slightly dipped and eased off its trajectory. She had started clapping, until the real landing where she had one hand grab the seat in front of her and used the other hand to push against the storage above her.

Well, we had finally landed in Ouagadougou. Flight times were approximately the following: Melbourne-Tokyo ~ 11 hours, Tokyo-Amsterdam ~ 12 hours, Amsterdam- Accra ~ 6 hours, Accra-Ouagadougou ~ 2 hours; my total flying time was approximately 31 hours.

Getting to the transfer busses, that drove the equivalent of 20 metres but covered near 100 metres, was no drama but a drama did occur with the crew outside. The guy next to me and I were watching the waste water pipe being attached to the adequate valves, where something must have not reacted the way the workers had anticipated. One of the waste material bins, that was near full, got tipped over with a good portion of it running over the airport, “Ooh” escaped from the both of us. With this sick thought still in my head I was able to identify the Visa circumstances a lot easier… until realising the language was French, both spoken and written. Getting most of the things complete, I realised I was unable to complete the Visa application with no known address in Ouagadougou. Somehow getting across to the officer that someone was waiting for me at the front of the airport, he managed to get across to me that he will temporarily hold onto my passport.