Leaving with a Mexican amigo Shlomi after a long Thursday, we speeded to the airport to make it to our night flight. We made it, let's see how many fines we caught. Flight to Kenya was our main opportunity to sleep, unfortunately it was only 3.5 hours long. Arriving to Kenya at 5am, we had a 5 hours stopover so we quickly arranged transit visas, rented a car+driver and went for a game drive in a very close Nairobi national park. Generally we could see any impact of the election clashes few weeks ago.
The fees to enter the park were ridiculously high for the 2 hours of time we spent there but it was going to be great experience. So we met with buffalos, zebras, giraffes, waterbugs, lots of birds and animals... everything was like in a contrasting movie - foreground animals, background Nairobi city...
Getting through traffic jam back to the airport we learnt that there is only few streets in Nairobi and these are jammed all over the day... poor guys... so many people were standing on the sides of the streets and selling dusty bananas (after a day of goods "displayed" on a head of a local girl / guy, it becomes really dark...)
Flight from Nairobi to Accra was full of football fans, pretty convenient. And then, getting off the plane, this unforgettable happy laidback and humid atmosphere of Accra took over my senses.
Somehow it was really nice to be there, Friday after lunch, seeing the friendly people around, sandy roads with little houses along, eating local food with hands, talking to street merchants... Everyone smiling and relaxed. Would never believe that Ghana belongs to the poorest countries in the world...
In fact, it's one the most civilized countries of Africa. They gained independence already more than 50 years ago and you can clearly see the stability there. Just the price / GDP levels are extremely low. But it doesn't affect peoples' lives in the way we would expect.
Going out to parties at night, one feels completely safe (compared to Johannesburg) and would even talk to strangers at night to make friends.
Saturday we went to a tropical rainforest for a canopy walk (40m above the ground watching the forest from above) and the watched in a local pub the 3rd place game of african cup Ghana - Ivory Coast. Great experience! Ghana won :-), everyone was dancing, celebrating, ... For sure Africa is bedazzled with soccer...
One thing was frightening on Saturday - the rainforest was like 3 hours from Accra so we could taste the local traffic. The guys drive like the worst freaks ever. Never seen that before. It looks disorganized like in Iran but the people don't control their vehicles. We saw one pretty tought accident just happening in front of our eyes. And our drivers were so terrible - anytime there was a car braking in front of us, they were accelerating... And then they braked like hell in the last 10 meters.... Traffic in Ghana is to be avoided :-)))
And night, another party at the "Afrodisiac" club ;-) - sounds like a men's club doesn't it? it wasn't :-), the local people were so enjoyable, women especially :-) was coool....
Sunday we could taste another great feat of Ghanian people - no feel of time. We kept waiting for receipt at the hotel for 1 hour, then waited in a restaurant for 2 hours, and then there was already the final game - Egypt vs. Cameroon.
All around the stadium it was so busy, such a diversity of people from a German journalist to a Camerooni shaman... very good to be there...
The match itself was a cheap game, Cameroon played really bad.
Going back i was swearing about Ghanian laid-backness again - at the airport the exchange office (to change remaining local currency into USD) was not accessible from the departure hall. I was not allowed to get there. Spent an hour crazily running around and trying to solve it :-). Had to find a trustworthy security person to go there and exchange the money for me....
Despite these last moments, the country really got me. As written above, somehow....
Flying overnight back to Johannesburg, it was really tough to focus the next day at an important committee meeting... Mais c'est la vie...
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