We spent last night in the mechanics forecourt in a delicious part of town. The mechanics seemed fairly optimisitic about out little predicament, we were adamant that there was no hope but in surprisingly good spirits to have made it to Ghana. Once again we were to be slightly amazed by the efficiency of our African mechanics - although not the same style of bush mechanics as in Casamance, their methods were slightly different than those in the UK. By about midday the team had stripped the engine down and replaced the push rods, and oil seals, with a bit of persuasion from me they decided to use the correct timing order too. Apparently an oil seal had gone leaking oil into the timing belt housing, this caused the belt to perish.
We spent the day chilling out at the mechanics, who also mass manufactured water pumps when there were no nackered cars around. The conversation of the day between Me and Tuters started with ’so are you going to fly home for christmas, now that this is finished’ and ended with ‘how are we going to pay these guys!’. After a bit of work and a few broken bolts that needed replacing, the car was miraculously driving again, we however had been caught a bit short in the finances department. Allot of people had told us that Ghana would have an abundance of cash machines - this wasnt true in Wa, which is a fairly big town. We were unable to get cash by any means from any of the banks, also travellers cheques were definately a no. We changed the last American dollars that we had (making us temporary millionaires - appriximately 70 quid), hoping this would be enough.
When the bill came in we counted the cash lots of times and it just didnt appear to be enough. We then remembered our remaining CFA from Burkina which was worth a fair bit here, going by the current exchange rate we had enough cash to pay for the repair, buy enough fuel to get us to Tamale (a major city), and a little bit of food and drink. The mechanics were happy to accept the CFA which I think they gave to the towing team, saving the real money for themselves. Before closing up for the day the boss mechanic took me for a drive in the Police Land Rover which they had been working on, he was more than happy to show me how fast it went with the refitted Turbo Charger in a 50kph zone, but wouldnt turn the sirens on. With our lack of cash we spent the night at the mechanics workshop again, they were more than happy to accomodate us.
In the morning our mathematics proved correct and we filled up one Jerry Can, combined with what was left in the tank this proved enough to get us to Tamale. The road was pretty bumpy in places but the work on the timing belt was good, we had to stop on a couple occasions to connect things that the mechanics had forgotten. i.e. radiator pipes, diesel jets and something which I know nothing about but leaked oil everywhere. We unfortuntely had to drive past ‘Mole’ national park which we were hoping to visit for the West African Elephants.
In Tamale we were to see our first ‘Barclays’ bank (my old employer!), here we were able to get cash, and its fair to say we splurged. We had our first hotel room since leaving England, we had our own shower, TV and even a fridge! It was still only about 3 pounds a night too. For a couple of days we enjoyed the sights, sounds and shops of the city, making friends with allot of the locals and also some white people. Ghana appears to be the land of the NGO where hundreds of students flock too each year and work in rural schools for a few months. The results of these projects appears to be mixed if not swaying slightly to ineffective, but for us it was nice to be chatting with a few people from Europe (especially as the majority are Dutch females)
