The border crossing from Togo into Ghana was straightforward, but it took some time because Olga’s Carnet de Passage (CDP) was expiring and they wouldn’t give us a ‘Temporary Import Permit’, which you need if you don’t have a CDP. But after a couple of hours of discussions, the officer wrote an approval letter to extend the CDP for a few days, so we had time to cross through Ghana. We entered Ghana and took the road to Akosombo, a town a little bit up north from the coast. Shaun, an old friend of Tom, who came with us to the AfricaBurn Festival in Cape Town, is a huge fan of Ghana. He had spent quite some time here and he fell in love with a place called River Cottages in Akosombo. He wanted us to see this place as well and invited us to stay there for a night when he heard that we would be passing Ghana on our way back home. River Cottages sn a small little paradise with a few cottages in a beautiful setting right by a river. We arrived and jumped right into the river and enjoyed chilling a few hours at this beautiful spot. We had a bungalow to ourselves and there was also a pizza oven which we could use, so we decided to have a pizza night, which was a lot of fun and delicious!
Martin, another guest from the UK who was also staying in a bungalow on the property, joined us for some beers. He was in Ghana for work and has spent a lot of time in this country. He told us a lot about it and he loved listening to our travel stories. In fact, he was so excited to meet overlanders that he connected us with his business partner Alpha, a Ghanaian who lives in Accra. So the next day, we headed towards the capital, where we met Alpha, who invited us to stay at his house.
Alpha is an architect and owns a beautiful house on a compound where he is building more houses. He is a very interesting guy with many skills and interests, but most of all, he is an enthusiastic overlander himself. He drove from Ghana all the way to Sweden in his beautiful Deux-Chevaux, a crazy trip! He is also a passionate filmmaker and made a documentary about ‘Sodom and Gomorrha’, the world’s biggest electronic waste dump in the middle of Accra. Tom was really interested in visiting this place as well so Alpha told us where to go. Unfortunately, he didn’t have time to join us, but he assured us that it was not a problem to go there on our own. The township that developed around the e-waste dump is considered to be safe. So the next morning, we took a taxi to the place and went on a stroll by ourselves. It was an interesting but also intense and shocking experience. The amount of trash was unbelievable but what was far worse, was seeing all these people living right in between these mountains of waste. For them, it’s an opportunity to make money, by collecting precious metals such as copper and bras. In order to collect it, they have to look through the trash and burn the plastic, which is very poisonous and bad for their health. It was truly devostating to see this. However, the people were very friendly and we talked to many of them and everyone was very happy to tell us about their life.
When we returned to Alpha’s house, he introduced us to his brother, who invited us over for dinner. We had a fun evening and later went out to meet a friend of Shaun, who showed us some bars and the food night market in town. We could have easily spent a week at Alphas place, but after two days, it was time for us to continue our trip. We decided to drive along the coast and visit Elmina, a fishermen’s town with a beautiful old castle that was initially built as a trade port but was later used as a slave house.
When we arrived at the castle just after dark, the security guard told us that we could camp on the parking lot. The next morning, some curious people came to talk to us. One of them was Sam, a local journalist, who was in town because of a special festival that was happening that day. He offered to take us on a stroll through the town and we explored the area together. We met many local fishermen who were repairing and building their boats and there were soo many local tourists around, all visiting for the festival.
Since we still had some time left until the ceremony started, we decided to take a tour through the Castle. Sam and his assistant joined us and by coincidence, we were joined by three girls from Ticino, the Italian part of Switzerland. They were there for a vacation. The tour was very interesting and when we were finished, we decided to walk back into town to watch the big parade that was happening for the festival. It was a big parade, where also the king attended, and the streets were packed with people. The parade ended in the small port, where people hopped on decorated boats and everyone was singing, dancing and celebrating either on the boats or on the piers.
From Elmina, we continued further west along the coast. Unfortunately, traffic was terrible and it took us a while to get out of the city. We initially wanted to drive to another beach but since it got late and we were stuck in traffic again in the next town, we decided to stop at a local church and ask if we could spend the night there. The people were very friendly, and we were welcome to stay. The next day, we crossed the border into the Ivory Coast. The border Crossing was simple and easy and we continued straight to the coast. We were welcomed by heavy rains, it was the first country where we actually really realized that we were traveling in the rainy season. When it rained, the road transformed into a river, but shortly after it stopped, everything dried very quickly again. Luckily, the rain only lasted for a few minutes every day. The landscape we drove through was very green, but unfortunately, it was not the green rainforest you would expect, but thousands of hectars of plantations. It weas either rubber tree plantations or palm tree plantations that we saw next to the roads.
Our plan was to spend a few days at the beautiful beaches, the Ivory Coast has to offer. Our first stop was in Assouindé, a small town before Abidjan, the capital of the Ivory Coast. Unfortunately, there were many signs which forbid driving on the beach and wild camping, so we asked at a little beach hotel if we could camp on their premises. The owner allowed us to camp in the parking, which, unfortunately, was behind the hotel and not facing the beach, but the restaurant and pool area were quite nice. We were all tired from driving and the border crossing, so we ate dinner at the restaurant and went straight to bed.
We had been texting with another overlander, Paulo, who was driving in the opposite direction towards us and told us that he had found a nice spot to camp at the beach a bit further west from where we were. We, therefore, decided to join Paulo and his friend the next day. On the way, we stopped in Abidjan, the capital of the Ivory Coast, to get some groceries and Toby needed to buy a new convertor because the old one unfortunately broke a couple of days ago. We found everything we looked for in the very big and busy town of Abidjan, but getting out of this place was another mission. They were repairing the highway, so traffic was rerouted, and everything was just one big mess. It took us about 4 hours to reach Jaqueville, which is only 70 kilometers outside of Abidjan. But finally we managed to get out of the city and arrived at the beach in the late afternoon. There was still time to relax a little, have a beer and chat with our overlander company. We cooked a risotto for dinner and we enjoyed a lovely evening.
The next day, we still had time to share some information about the upcoming route and exchange Sim Cards, and then it was time for us to continue. We tried to find a last spot somewhere along the Ivory Coast where we could wild camp, but it turned out that it was not so easy. The coastline is highly populated, so finding a hidden private spot was almost impossible. We looked at the map and decided to drive into a small fisher town and ask them if we could stay at the beach. The people were very welcoming and happy to have visitors and they let us stay at a beautiful spot right at the beach. It was not private, but this didn’t matter. Everyone from the village came by to say hi; they also brought us some jerrycans with water to shower.
Just when we had set up our camp, a young boy came by. He brought a backpack and sat down with us and started unpacking everything he brought with him. He told us, that his name was Frédéric. Apparently, a white man had bought the land we were staying on at the moment, where he wanted to build a hotel. He was the one who gave the fishing gear to Frédéric, to keep it there until he would come back. He also gave him two surfboards and taught him how to surf. Frédéric told us that he wanted to go fishing and surfing together with us the next day. We agreed, and expected Frédéric to go back to the village for the night, but just when we were about to climb into our cars and go to bed, Frédéric put up a tent in between our two cars and told us he would stay here for the night as well. So just like that, we had some company at our camp :D When we got up the next morning, Frédéric had already caught some fish. He told us a lot about the village and his life here and his plans in life. We ended up staying two nights and we enjoyed the place and company a lot. On our second night, we decided to watch a movie and set up our little beamer outside. We informed Frédéric and he spread the word in the village, so many people joined us to watch a movie – that was an exciting experience for us and probably for them as well 😊
Before we left the next morning, the fishermen from the village proudly showed us a small crocodile that they had caught and killed to eat. It was sad to see the dead crocodile, but we were also happy we didn’t ran into it alive at our camp. Even though it was still quite small, its teeth were super sharp.
We left the small fishermen’s village and drove inland towards the border to Guinea. We spent the night close to a town in the Ivory Coast, where we found a perfect wide open field and asked the local family who was living next to it, if we could camp here for a night. They were super lovely and excited to have foreign guests. After we showed them our cars and the camping set-up, they brought us some fresh passion fruits from their garden. Before we left the next morning, they asked us to take some pictures together. Of course we agreed, but then everyone left again into the house. We were already wondering if they had changed their mind, but then they all reappeared again. They went to change into their most beautiful dresses! It was so cute to see how excited they were about having us as guests. Luckily, we still carry our polaroid camera, so we were able to take some pictures and give it to them, so they don’t have to look at the pictures only on their phones. From there, we drove to the border to Guinea.
