Motorcycle Diaries!

Aug. 31, 2011

From August 17^th – 27^th I road my motorcycle around Ghana covering a total of 1818km. I did the trip with 3 other EWB staff members – Romy, Wayne, and Don. You can see the route we took in the google map below.

The route: 1818km starting from point A/L

From Tamale we set off for Kumasi, traveling 400km in about 7 hours. I had some work to finish up in Kumasi with the G&RI short term volunteers, so we spent two days there before heading out to the coast to Elmina where we spent 2 days on the beach, enjoying fresh coconut milk and the beautiful Atlantic Ocean. Ghana has some of the best coastline I’ve ever seen. The majority of it is untouched with 80meter tall coconut trees lining it. The water is also very warm, and the waves are pretty strong. When you stand on the coast and look out across the Atlantic you recall the rich and often sad history this ocean has played on Ghana’s development. Along this coast, several Ghanaians, Malians, Burkinabe’s were sold as slaves to fuel agricultural and industrial development in western nations. It’s always a powerful experience visiting the coast.

After spending 2 final days with the 21 short term volunteers who flew back to Canada on August 22^nd, we traveled from Elmina to the capital city Accra where we ate some good pizza, and some good burgers, and just hung out.

From Accra we left for the Blue Skies fruit factory. Blue Skies is a social business that exports 100% fair trade certified Ghanaian fruit to European markets. Another EWB staff member Mark is working at Blue Skies supporting pineapple farmers with a new variety of pineapple that Blue Skies believes will give Ghana a competitive advantage in the European market. From the Blue Skies factory we went out to a couple of pineapple farms, and visited Billy’s farm which is 200 acres of pineapples – essentially pineapple as far as the eye can see. From Billy’s farm we went up to Aburi and road the Aburi hills which was absolutely breathtaking. We stopped at the Aburi Botanical Gardens for lunch, and then left for Atimpoku.

At Atimpoku we stayed at a guesthouse along the banks of the Volta River. Once again the scenery was spectacular, and the moto riding was amazing. We also went and visited the Akosombo Dam which powers all of Ghana. From Akosombo we crossed the river to travel towards Ho, the capital city of the beautiful, mountainous Volta Region. From Ho, we went and visited a Kente village that makes hand woven Kente cloth which is amazing. We picked up some cloth and then traveled the windy mountain roads to Biakpa where we spent the next two nights on the top of a mountain surrounding by unbelievable landscape in every direction. On one of the days we also visited Wli Falls, the tallest waterfall in West Africa, and did some hiking in the mountains!

From Biakpa we hopped on the moto for the homeward stretch, traveling North along the eastern corridor road back towards Tamale. This involved putting our moto’s in a small wooden canoe to cross the River Oti which separates the Volta Region from the Northern Region. We broke the trip back up, and spent a night in Kpandai, the community Don is living in. From there we continued on toward Tamale along Bimbila Road, which is by far the WORST road in all of Ghana. It’s been completely neglected by the Government although it provides the most direct passageway to the South. It took us 7 hours to travel a distance of about 250km. And then we were back in Tamale.

Ghana is an absolutely beautiful country to motorcycle around. There’s loads of breathtaking scenery, and so many things to see! The country is also very diverse, and after 200km of riding you sometimes feel like you’re in a whole different country.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy the photos! I’ve got a whole bunch of video too but I’ll need to find faster/cheaper internet both I upload it!

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