Thought I’d really cocked up again! I’m not very good with airports; have a bit of a history of forgetting passports…) Not this time, but I did forget to reserve a window seat. I did turn up 3 hours in advance however, only to find that 120 of the 167 passengers have already checked in…these Africans are keen. I get an isle seat, which makes me a bit nervous as I really want to see the sahara as we go over it.. No need to worry though, I get to the gate and ask off-handedly if there any chance of changing, lo! I get one. Nice.
It’s a beaten up old BA 767. On it’s last legs, or wings, by the look of them – it looks from the wings like the plane flew through the cloud from an exploding black paint factory, and there appear to be bits missing from those spike things that trail behind the wing…oh well, non-essential I am sure.
I am sitting next to Sam, a Ghanain who spends most of his time in Edmonton, north London. Kind of weird having the location of Edmonton (N13) explained to me by a Ghanain. I thought EdmontonCanada… was in
Sam has a timber business just outside of Kumasi, where I will spend my first two weeks. Two thirds of the country is forested, he says. Very friendly guy. With a much smaller sense of personal space than I have...Very touchy, grabs my hand a lot and strokes my arm (I later find this is totally normal in Ghana)…He invites me to call him when I am in Kumasi, and he’ll “take me out and show me a good time”. At this stage I was wondering if that was innocent enough, but anyway said that I would be pleased to accept. I am sure I will be cooped up quite enough and to get out and explore a bit would be welcome.
Later I was not so sure – he drank 3 small bottles of wine (to be fair so did I), then brought out the duty-free Jack Daniels. I had a huge JD & coke poured for me and we drank and chatted. Very enjoyable.
I wasn’t enjoying it so much when he started falling asleep, head on my shoulder. Though even that was bearable, it was when he started actually drooling onto my leg I had to draw the line, push him away and prop him up.
When not re-positioning Sam, I was staring out the window at the most amazing view. FranceAndorra (still with some snow on the peaks), then we passed over the med and over Morocco (I guess, Tunisia perhaps?). That was quite mountainous and it was amazing to see that the ridge-tops were all build up with houses. No stand-alone villages, every ridge top was crowned with houses, all the way along them. It was like one giant dendritic community, spread over dozens of connected ridges. rolled by, ho-hum, then
After a while it got really dry. Just sand and hot rocks. It was just incredible to see where people were living. After a couple of hours of variations of rock and sand, in varying colours from black to red, there were no more signs of human occupancy, or human transit.
The thing that struck me the most was how, in a place that doesn’t have a lot (er, no) water, everything about the shape of the place has been determined by that absent substance. There are dry river channels, flood plains and channels of incredible complexity.
I really wanted to be down there, in a jeep, amongst it. Though, it’s probably much more interesting from the air… not to mention air-conditioning…and drinks trolleys…
Eventually the sand on the ground was obscured by sand in the air, then cloud, then HUGE cloud structures that we were flying around, rather than through. It was humbling, and gorgeous. When dusk came the lightning lit up the clouds like some faulty, flickering mood-lamp.
Sam was in real trouble by this stage. Dead drunk and ranting to me about “…business, innit....” Not sure what he was talking about, and I was desperately trying to hide behind the scant cover of my Economist. Nevertheless, it was hilarious to hear him terminating his ramblings with “innit”.
I think I decided that I wouldn’t be calling him when we landed - he was fighting his way back towards me, through the other passengers in the aisle, from the seat at the rear where the pursers had restrained him (and kept him close to the loo, I suspect, should he need it), yelling “hey, white man – white man! - don’t fall asleep! Wait for me, I’ll leave with you” (I was merely filling in my landing card).
The baggage collection has fine, but I have to say that I have never seen such large suitcases in all my life. Most were definitely big enough for me to physically get in. And stretch out in. And many of these people had 3 of them piled on top of straining trolleys.
There are 16,000 Cedi to the pound. I naively changed 20quid and got back a stack of 320,000 Cedi in 5000 Cedi denomination – a wad about 2cm thick. My wallet wouldn’t close!
I remember coming out of that terminal for three reasons; the powerful smell of coconut oil in the air, emanating from the mass of people waiting outside, the guy in the suit with the monkey wrapped around his neck like a stole and, lastly, the air itself – so warm (about 28C), heavily laden with moisture. I loved it. Very exotic.
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