There is just so much to write about and once again no opportunity to do so. We have been in Accra since Sunday evening, arriving in a torrential thunder storm in the dark. The objective: to apply for our Angolan visas on Monday morning. To do this correctly we needed to write a letter in Portuguese explaining our reason for going, so with the letter written in English Chris emailed it to friends asking for help. We had our request for translation go out to 3 continents (Africa, Europe and South America) and eventually received 5 versions of the Portuguese letter! So thank you to everyone for being so helpful. Africa won, as Chloe sent translations from 2 separate friends and these arrived first. The lady in the Angolan Embassy was very satisfied with our effort! She assured us that we should be able to collect our passports with double entry visas on Friday. We need double entry as our planned route will take us through Cabinda, an ex-clave of Angola. New friends from Germany, travelling in a beautiful MAN truck who we met at The Stumble Inn in Elmina, accompanied us to the Embassy but they had no translated letter and had to pay a lot of money on the spot to get it done.
While sleeping nearby in the street, or at least trying to with the noisy bullfrogs and heavy rain, we were greeted on Monday morning by a lady across the road having breakfast on her balcony. Shortly afterwards her gateman came to invite us in to her house for a cup of tea. Freshly ground coffee was also on offer which we accepted enthusiastically and we sat and talked to her and her husband, Yusif Ibrahim, for well over an hour. Warm croissants were sent out for for us, while we watched the latest Trump 'catastrophe' on CNN and chatted about many things. They had a beautiful house and we felt slightly embarrassed as we had jumped out of bed, put on our previous day's dirty clothes in order to finish getting the paperwork ready for the visa application, photocopying documents and printing the letter. Fortunately both Kathleen and her husband had to leave for their work (he was Director of one of the big Ghana banks) so we were able to go and smarten ourselves up for the Embassy.
At the Embassy we met Louise, a South African lady living in Tema near the beach. She and her husband Dirk are shortly going on a work scoping visit to Angola and she was there for visa information. Chris got chatting to her while I was completing the application forms and having my fingerprints taken for the biometric visa and she invited us to visit her home. Here we are now. We had a lovely evening with the 2 of them and a live-in friend. Louise cooked South African lamb and we had a real roast dinner South African style - absolutely delicious! Dirk's company makes Savannah cider so that was our pre-dinner drink of choice. The friend (sorry, can't remember his name) lived for several years in Guildford in the UK, so again was very interesting to talk to.
Enterprise sickness? Not that we are sick of living in it. Far from it, but we have had a continuous main battery/starter motor problem and yesterday we had a frustrating afternoon at a Mercedes garage in Tema waiting to have it looked at. We will be back at the garage for 8am (African time?) this morning to have some work done on it and new batteries. We had hoped to be away from the city for a few days and to have applied for Benin, Togo and DRC visas but the Enterprise has to take priority. We did visit the DRC Consulate yesterday morning but discovered, after filling in all the forms, that it will cost an extravagant amount here in Ghana. We are hoping now to get DRC in Benin.
Must shower, dress and prepare for leaving - change of plan. Chris has left in the Enterprise to follow Dirk on a quick route to the garage and I am remaining here with Louise for the day, hopefully having a swim in their pool and maybe work on the computer to update this blog. Hurray!!
While sleeping nearby in the street, or at least trying to with the noisy bullfrogs and heavy rain, we were greeted on Monday morning by a lady across the road having breakfast on her balcony. Shortly afterwards her gateman came to invite us in to her house for a cup of tea. Freshly ground coffee was also on offer which we accepted enthusiastically and we sat and talked to her and her husband, Yusif Ibrahim, for well over an hour. Warm croissants were sent out for for us, while we watched the latest Trump 'catastrophe' on CNN and chatted about many things. They had a beautiful house and we felt slightly embarrassed as we had jumped out of bed, put on our previous day's dirty clothes in order to finish getting the paperwork ready for the visa application, photocopying documents and printing the letter. Fortunately both Kathleen and her husband had to leave for their work (he was Director of one of the big Ghana banks) so we were able to go and smarten ourselves up for the Embassy.
At the Embassy we met Louise, a South African lady living in Tema near the beach. She and her husband Dirk are shortly going on a work scoping visit to Angola and she was there for visa information. Chris got chatting to her while I was completing the application forms and having my fingerprints taken for the biometric visa and she invited us to visit her home. Here we are now. We had a lovely evening with the 2 of them and a live-in friend. Louise cooked South African lamb and we had a real roast dinner South African style - absolutely delicious! Dirk's company makes Savannah cider so that was our pre-dinner drink of choice. The friend (sorry, can't remember his name) lived for several years in Guildford in the UK, so again was very interesting to talk to.
Enterprise sickness? Not that we are sick of living in it. Far from it, but we have had a continuous main battery/starter motor problem and yesterday we had a frustrating afternoon at a Mercedes garage in Tema waiting to have it looked at. We will be back at the garage for 8am (African time?) this morning to have some work done on it and new batteries. We had hoped to be away from the city for a few days and to have applied for Benin, Togo and DRC visas but the Enterprise has to take priority. We did visit the DRC Consulate yesterday morning but discovered, after filling in all the forms, that it will cost an extravagant amount here in Ghana. We are hoping now to get DRC in Benin.
Must shower, dress and prepare for leaving - change of plan. Chris has left in the Enterprise to follow Dirk on a quick route to the garage and I am remaining here with Louise for the day, hopefully having a swim in their pool and maybe work on the computer to update this blog. Hurray!!
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