JEFF McLEAN'S BLOG | MARTY POUWELSE'S BLOG
- 01/10/2002 - Warts and all... (Mali)
- 14/10/2002 - Timbuktu...Tomboctou...however you say it, it's bloody far away... (Mali)
- 23/10/2002 - Goin' birko over bein' in "Burkina" (Burkina Faso)
- 05/11/2002 - Ouagadougou to Bolgatanga (someone get me a linguistomy fast!) (Ghana)
- 11/11/2002 - Roast to Coast (Ghana)
- 26/11/2002 - Ghana get to Benin and finish this thannnnnnnnnnnng... (Benin)
- 10/12/2002 - Currently slumping in the couch...for a little bit anyway... (Australia)
11/11/2002 - Roast to Coast(Ghana)
G'day all,
Roasting on the "plateau" of Ghana we were one week ago.
And now we are on the coast.
The ocean spreads before us, both as a kind of salve from the heat we have experienced so far (though it is far from over! ) and as a reminder that we are coming home to our own surfed up shores in a couple of weeks.
This message will be somewhat shorter than the other tomes I have written. There is so much to do in Cape Coast (including our own "housekeeping" as it were) with sooo little time. Time really is skating away from us now, and when we leave here in two days, we'll be charging towards Cotonou in Benin, triking along about 130km of Ghanian coast, then another 70 km of coast between Togo and Benin. And in the middle somewhere, we'll be stopping for the Leonid meteor shower on the 19th. West Africa is meant to be one of the best places in the world to see it, and the good ones only come by every 33 years or so. We're not gonna miss this for the world - pardon the pun...
Anyway, the last time we left you we were in Bolgatanga (actually the message came from Tamale, but let's not get caught up in that detail - oops - we have - now how did that happen...)
Since then we have blistered from the north to the south, across the expanse of Ghana, both in body (from a pelting from the sun) and in pace. The sun has scorched us unbelievably, so we have pulled out some BIIIG cycling days and some badly needed rest days. And at this point, all I can say is that I'm bloody glad we have "Pete" the tandem trike with us, and not a couple of bikes. Actually, if you haven't seen him yet, go to www.greenspeed.com.au and you'll see a picture of him standing proud in the left panel. (I wish I could include pictures of our trip so far here, but as you can imagine, computer systems here are very basic. When I get home, I will be adding these pictures, and will let you know...)
Anyway, there are a number of reasons I'm glad we have "Pete" rather than bikes. They are :
- from Tamale to Buipe we did 100km. There is no way we could have done this on a couple of normal bikes (or even a couple of trikes!), given
- the heat,
- Marty's newness to the cycling caper (despite the fact that he has not ONCE opted out of pedalling the 840km we have done so far),
- our malnutrition (and I don't say that lightly - I'll get to that later), and just
- the fact that Africa is a very difficult continent on which to cycle. It is hard to get most of what we could usually expect here, and it is certainly hard to get it easily. But despite all this, here is an adventure that neither of us would exchange for the world.
- "Pete" is exceedingly hardy. Even over the stretches of relatively good roads that we have traversed, we have met some shockers. Potholes, necessary swerving, and sometimes even diving into potholes have all be handled with ease. The trike is BY FAR the safest thing to have if you need to get off the road quickly (when two trucks are occupying the same width of road for instance!) And all the time we are on these rough patches, the trikes geometry allows the bumps to be absorbed into the frame, allowing us to almost glide over bumps. Not without a "what the ... was that!!!" comment every now and then though...
- Trucks and buses ALWAYS avoid us by going right around us, slowing up (so they can, of course, hang out the window by their toenails, and have a wave and a damned good gawk). Even when I think there's a chance they'll try and force us off the road, all I need do is wave them back onto their side of the road, and they will do what they can to comply. If we were on bikes (as we have seen from the cabins of buses and trucks on numerous occasions), we would get beeped REALLY HEAVILY until we moved off the bitumen and onto the gravel verge. Only twice in our 840km have I decided to do go onto the verge, and on both occasions it was not really necessary.
- one of the main reasons I am glad we have the trike is for the attention from local people, and therefore the contact it gives. As I have mentioned, sometimes it gets somewhat cramped, but there is nothing that can compete with the feeling of riding out of a town or small village and having over a hundred children screaming and cheering you along as they run with you as far as they can. Both of us have lost count of the incredible images we have been able to film of really happy people here. It is another side of Africa that we rarely see on the TV, and one which is, I think, important for people to see.
- our pedalling complements the other's efforts. On a standard tandem, the pedals have to be in phase (i.e. both have to push down on the left pedal at exactly the same time.) On the tandem trike we are 90 degrees out of phase, so while I am at full stretch (and cannot offer any push at all) Marty is in full push. This allows phenomal acceleration on the flat (especially if your two riders are evenly physically matched) and much easier hill climbing.
The "he-men" and real serious physical challenge buffs out there must be wondering at the amount of times we have decided to put "Pete" on buses and trucks, but there are so many reasons for this too.
- At the forefront of this is the fact that, from the beginning, neither of us were out to bust a gut. We knew our limitations. And we wanted this to be challenging, but not breaking. We knew our limited time to cover the distance and the countries involved. Added to this was me starting the cycling without any training (and boy, some of you know how you can stack on the weight while travelling...), Marty's newness to the game (but hell - he doesn't display it), the heat, the road conditions, and the lack of good food. We had to balance this with our desire for an enjoyable but challenging trike journey which would bring out everything about where we were on film. Only the tandem trike could give us the comfort, freedom, and closeness to the locals that we wanted (sometimes the closeness can get a bit much though! When you can't bend over because you have 100 people pressed at your backside, you know that personal space is not too much of an issue here!)
- Riding on buses and trucks puts us in contact with more different sorts of people, enhances our experience, allows us an "out" when we are just too stuffed for it to be enjoyable, and shows the versatility that some of you may not expect from having the trike. It has also been an excellent way to show the hardiness of the trike. Just last night, coming into Cape Coast, we got excellent footage of stuff being piled high on "Pete" as he sat on the top of a bus, and he's come out smelling like roses again.
- It allows us to go a further distance with the time we've got. We knew we had to get from Bamako to Cotonou in 7.5 weeks, and alternating our transports while using the trike as much as possible, was by far the best way to get a good glimpse of life in West Africa.
Taking into account all of these above factors, we are enormously proud about what we have achieved as a team, the diversity of landscapes and cultures that we have seen (and the fact that they have blended into one very nicely), and the things we have been able to record. I see it as a wonderful success so far, and still we have a couple of weeks to go.
So now (I promise I'll keep it short! ) to some of the details of our travels since Bolgatanga and some other interesting tidbits.
We came south from "Bolga" and made it to WaleWale where we stopped for a night, then moved on towards Pigu. However, there was nothing much between Pigu and Tamale, and in the interests of getting there sooner rather than later so we may get something good to eat, we hopped on a truck in a village. I get the impression that the trike actually got our driver through a few dubious police posts where our erstwhile officers may have wanted to extract a bit of "filthy lucre", but I think our driver seemed to communicate very well "the urgency of getting us to Tamale" and "helping the cycling tourists!"
Tamale was interesting, if for no other reason than it had a curfew. 10pm to 5am, and all because the chief of the Dagombas was killed about 6 months ago! "They" take any violence here seriously, and the incredibly small evidence of any violence in this country (including the steps they take to avoid it) is yet another reason why I feel very safe here in Ghana.
From Tamale to Buipe we pulled out the big 100+km ride, which was quite an achievement for the two of us as a team, and one of which I am very proud. In the searing heat of the afternoon we got into Buipe, and once again, I think it is a testament to the trike, that Marty still had plenty of energy to get around at a feverish pace, whilst trying to capture footage of an excellent storm brewing. (Then again, to give it some balance, Marty could have sustained a mortar shelling to the head five minutes ago, and still be keen and able enough to photograph a storm!)
From Buipe we headed for Kintampo, but the bad roads and incredible heat, and lack of energy from our "malnutrition" told us to hop on another truck. The ride was EXACTLY what I hoped for. "Pete" was hauled up to the lofty heights of the top of a semi trailer FULL of onions and other produce. Our ride was provided by four (typically) wonderful Malian Muslims, plying the route from Mali to Accra. And there we were, kings of the road, sitting in complete comfort on the springy seats of the trike, on top of the truck, as we travelled the road into Kintampo, waving at locals looking up at us and squealing, and just enjoying the hell out of our birdseye view of the land.
After sampling the waters of Kintampo waterfalls and sliding down the precarious natural rock waterslide (with natural huge bumps - at which I very nearly rendered myself useless for any further cycling pursuits - or possibly any walking pursuits) we were off again. Our morning of cycling through the newly lush green vegetation of the jungle, and breathing the sweet air on a relatively quiet road was absolutely wonderful. One of those experiences that only cycling can give.
But before I go - and wow, this post has extended out - I want to tell you a little about this 'malnutrition' that we are experiencing.
Besides the fact that it is almost impossible for me to be a vegetarian (and I have given up on a number of occasions for pure necessity) the food here is rarely good for the energy needed for cycling, and our digestive systems are suffering (if only on a minor scale).
I guess the food is adequate, certainly if you have lived here all your life, but I just don't have the energy I need half the time. It can have noticable lumps of dirt in it, and mostly I can only get eggs (if I come through the terminal of Tulla sprouting wings, clucking, and pecking at imagined things on the tiled floor, you will understand that I've had one-too-many ova in the last few weeks.) The number of freshly cooked vegetables we can get is almost zero, even in sizeable towns, and the worst thing of all is the bloody oil. Nearly EVERYTHING comes with so much oil or fat that it feels warm for ages after you've swallowed it. It gets to the point where you don't want to order something because you know how glugged up it will be, but you also know you HAVE to eat.
And the oil is bad in other ways too. People here are quite plump without being properly nourished and it is a pretty sad thing to see. Weight is still a sign of wealth here, and it seems the wealthy may just live a drastically reduced life (and a harder life) from what they could otherwise expect, because of this proliferation of fats and oils.
Yet, I still keep coming back to the fact that this place is just incredible. I guess my experience in West Africa is a bit like my experience in India. The contrasts, the never failing to be amazed, the immersal in a COMPLETELY different culture - all of it is stuff you could never buy, you could never feel unless you were here, and you would NEVER exchange after having been here.
God bless diversity.
But right now, just outside this door, there's some surf to feel (dammmmmn how I've missed that!), some National Park to visit (one of only four of its kind in the world) and some shocking slave forts to try to understand the brutality of a couple of centuries ago, and only a few hours to do it in... I love this!!!
Cheers,
Joffa!
"Speed, and this
There's a feeling I get when I look to the sun
...
On and on - there's a ribbon of road and a mile to spare"
- Midnight Oil, "Lucky Country" (this and all the other lyrics we belted out to the Ghanian countryside as we triked our line through the Savannah country...what freeeeeeeeeeeedom!)