2wheels2africa

Wow! What a crazy night in Lagos that was – not at all what we expected!

We have a good friend from Gibralter, Nigel, who we met at the beginning of this trip. Nigel, a fellow biker, religiously signs his comments and mails with the guiding line ‘keep the rubber side down!’.

Jeremy, for his part, generally abides though it must be said that Ghana has been something of an exception. The following picture is of an event which took place in Accra, the capital of Ghana. It’s not often you get to see a bike from this angle so we thought we’d share this rare sight with the rest of you.

The question on all your minds now is ‘ What just happened?’. Was Jeremy trying his hand at some evil knievel trickery? or Was there some freak accident? or something completely different…

We’ll post the answer in the comments after some of you take a stab at a guess. The most correct answer gets a years supply of FanMilk! (but you have to come to Africa to get it)

Its incredible to think that today is 4 months to the day that we rolled through the rainy streets of London all green and wide-eyed into the big old world! But yes it really is.

We had all sorts of plans and schedules and thought we might be rolling into Cape Town long haired and bearded up sometime this month… well two out of three isn’t too bad is it?

What we’ve learnt so far is that you can’t put a schedule on Africa and make it stick, and if you want to really enjoy it here you need to throw away the schedule and be prepared to meet all sorts of crazy and wonderful people and take some time with them.

So instead we are sitting in Togo getting our bikes serviced in the hope that they will make the next big push for civilisation (Namibia) and that our schedule won’t be too shot up by the next countries in our list (Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon, Congo Brazzaville, DRC, Angola, Namibia and South Africa), quite literally in some cases!

We’ve both been busy revising our plans a bit for this year, but we aren’t sad one bit that we are still only this far as Africa has been more than we expected and the people we have met along the way have been the biggest standout – from the most loony and crazy ones to the most sobering sights its been worth every minute so far!

We just had to write a wee bit about the amazing Fan Milk ice creams that we have come across here in Ghana!

Picture this in your mind. It’s blazing hot outside and you are a soggy mess after riding all day when you hear a honk honk of a clown’s horn and a guy cycles by on a bike with a big freezer box on the front full of ice creams that cost between 10 and 20 pence a hit!

Can you really blame us for the orgy that follows? I think at times we are hitting between 4 and 5 Fan Milks a day and we have tried the full range of Fan Milks with Fan Choco (frozen chocolate Milk), Fan Ice (Vanilla Ice Cream) and Fan Yogo (frozen strawberry yogurt) among our favorites!

We are now in Togo having our bikes serviced and it was quite a relief for us that they still have Fan Milk here, and we have discovered a new flavor – Fan Extra (frozen strawberry yogurt with extra vitamins!)

As you can see from the pictures we’ve become quite the Fans and have resorted to all sorts of product placement to extol the virtues of our addiction!

After the chilled moments spent relaxing at the GT lodge the team were lucky enough to be put up at an old colonial fort in Dixcove. 10km’s from the GT lodge. On one of my random missions I bumped into the owner. The order of the day was to locate ‘the secret beach’ and some dry accommodation in nearby Busua. On my way to the secret beach I was introduced to Rob, the owner of the fort. He’s building a restaurant and lodge on a super picturesque beach with the help of Florian, a German biker who also happens to be a roof carpenter.

He’s a dead ringer for Woody Harrelson but sounds more like Arnold Schwarzenegger. We’d met Florian at the GT lodge and he’d told me to drop by where he works and he’d point me in the direction of the elusive beach. While I was there talking to Rob he was kind enough to extend us an invitation to stay at the fort for a couple of nights.

In the Ghana Bradt guide Rob is described as an eccentric Englishman. Frankly they couldn’t be more wrong. Rob is a clever, kind and ambitious kinda guy who’s got both his feet very firmly on the ground. Rob is doing some brilliant work in this little corner of the world. He’s helped the locals of Dixcove and its environs to build several churches, a road linking Dixcove to nearby Busua, and some much needed accommodation. He’s a pragmatist who’s getting good things done and using his own private means to do them. This kind of behaviour is rare but it’s philanthropic; most definitely not eccentric.

Many thanks go out to Rob for his kind hospitality and also to the staff at the fort for their help and generosity.

We’ve uploaded some more pictures to the Ghana gallery. There’s more of the fort, Cape Coast castle, one of the largest forts, and our travels along the Ghanian coastline as we head towards Togo. We’ve also created a Togo gallery with pics of our adventures in Lomé thus far.