Adam was up before us heading for the border. Not having a Carnet de Passage he wanted to cross before us. We left at about 8.30 to cover the 90 odd ks to the border. Once we reached the only major town en route to the border, Agnibilekrou, we expected the road to deteriorate. It was just showing as a track on the map. We were in luck though, a brand new road has been constructed.
On arriving into the border town of Takikro a policeman waived us down. He got quite heated and insisted we get out and show our passports. We thought it was just another police check point and drove on.
We reached some official looking buildings and one was the Customs point. We parked Poki and walked across to the building where we quickly had our Carnet stamped. We then asked where we went for immigration. A young policeman said we had come past it and he would take us back there. Of course it was the place where we had driven off from the rather angry policeman.
He was still there, but now out of uniform, and demanding to know why we hadn’t stopped and showed our passports. We said we had no idea it was the border immigration point as there was absolutely no signage to say so. The young policeman who had taken us back was very friendly and spoke quite good English. He agreed and said because it was a brand new road, no signs had been erected yet.
It was eventually smoothed over with the original policeman, who was in charge. He wrote all our details down in the inevitable book. Slow as always. Once all our details were recorded we were free to go and within a few hundred meters were in Ghana.
Now we had to start the process all over again. We entered an office with about 5 officers in uniform. All young and friendly and, even better, English speaking. Two of them took our passports and filled in cards with our details. Incredibly slowly. The female officer then took us to the office of the immigration chief. Again there were several officers all of whom were very welcoming. Our passports were duly stamped and back we went to the original building.
Next to the Customs office to get our Carnet stamped. The girl performing the task didn’t have a clue. Dennis had to stop her filling in the exiting side of the document and tell her where to sign and stamp it. We then started to depart only to be called back to the Medical Department. Here we had to show our Covid and Yellow Fever Certificates and have our temperatures taken. A bit of a worry considering, our recent illness, but we were both ‘normal’.
Arriving in Ghana
One final stop to change some money. The local currency in Ghana is the Cedi. I changed just under 1,000, which should keep us going for a little while.
There had been no one else at either side of the border, but it had still taken us more than 2 hours to cross the border. Once into Ghana it was a bit of a shock to find ourselves on a potholed road. We have been so spoiled with the roads in Cote D’Ivoire.
Driving into Dormaa Ahenkro we looked for Le Petit Paris, the hotel we had been recommended.
Finding the place it was looking rather doubtful, so I went to investigate. Pushing open the gates into a large courtyard, the place was deserted. It was also full of building material and looked as if it was under reconstruction. Not suitable for us to stay anyway.
We decided to go into town and get a SIM card so we can communicate. Easier said than done. You need to be a Ghanaian with a Ghanaian identity card. After a lot of aggravation, I obtained the identity of a Ghanaian lady for 50 Cedi and purchased some data. While I was negotiating this arrangement, Dennis was starting to feel poorly and Adam turned up out of the blue.
Adam had found a guest house, Guest House Pokuaa. The staff were very sweet and helpful. Dennis was resting. Adam and I ordered a pizza for dinner, which the receptionist went to collect for us. We were about to give up waiting, when almost 2 hours later he returned with what was a very nice pizza.
Visits: 63