guinea fouls and tamale.
We had planned to go to the hippo sanctuary nearby, but the rainy season prevented us from trying. We decided to get back to Ghana and visit Tamale, the city in the north of Ghana. After many busses and crossing the border and whatnot, we ended up getting to Tamale at 2am. Now one problem with Ghana is that it is quite difficult to plan anything in advance, like hotel reservations. We start at one hotel, wake up the owner, who was not happy, and told us that the hotel was full. The nicer, more helpful guard at the hotel pointed us in the direction of two more hotels, which were also full. “No room at the in.” On of the guys at the second hotel told us to get a taxi to another hotel, we turned around the the barren main road and saw that this was obviously not possible. There was apparently some sort of conference going on. So the guard from the first hotel let us come in and sleep outside within the gates of the hotel so we would not be sleeping on the streets. For this, we were grateful, but were not sure how we would sleep sans mosquito nets on concrete. Until, ten minutes later, Daniel, our new guard friend opened an empty conference room with fans and everything and told us we could sleep there because he did not want us to get malaria. Daniel, my new best friend. He even let us into one of the rooms in the morning to take a shower.
The next day, showered and refreshed, thanks to Daniel, we walked around Tamale. The north of Ghana is also much more poor than the south, but Tamale was a gem in the midst of the surrounding rural areas. There were streetlamps, and lanes for bicycles and pedestrians. It was planned and organized and very charming. We walked around the market, and to the cultural center where we met some rasta artists, the usual. Then we went for lunch and I ate Guinea Foul! In South Africa, we had some problems with this polka dotted bird with blue heads, so I was really excited to seek revenge by eating one. (My vegetarianism will return with me to the states.) We then head home on a 10 hour bus back to Accra, stopping on the way to pee in front of a “do not urinate here” sign.
