41 Hours....

Thats about the time we were on the go for....Got up for work as normal on Friday and in the evening headed to the airport for our flight to the UK. Before leaving we found out from friends who were also flying that there were some problems. The in bound flight was still in the UK due to the weather. Instead of flying at midnight we left about 05:00 but at least we were on our way. The flight itself was fine until we arrived over the UK.....then the real joy of snow was revealed :-)

First we circled while Heathrow was defrosted and then when it was taking longer than expected we diverted to Manchester. Unfortunately we couldn't return as the weather was so bad and even being bussed back was not on due to the bad state of the roads near London. BA decided to put us in a hotel but we opted to take matters in to our own hands and so rented a car and headed off in to the unknown. Thankfully although the M5 was slow and snowy the rest of the trip was fine and we eventually made it to Southampton around 23:00, a little over 41 hours after getting up. Travel is good for the soul! Oh, and the kids were amazing!

Bigus Bastardicus

Just read this weekend about a place in the far North West of Ghana....there isn't much there to interest tourists which I guess may be reason enough to visit. That said there is a village with a sacred bat colony which sounds interesting, the bats there have a latin name which translates to monster because they are HUGE! their body is about one metre long...the biggest bat species in Africa apparently this makes me wonder where has bigger bats than that ffs!

I should cocoa

Spent the last couple of days in the town of Takoradi which is Ghana's second port and main port used to export cocoa beans all over the world. Ghana claims to have the highest quality cocoa beans in the world and they sell about 600 thousand tons per year and climbing. Most of the beans are sent abroad for processing in to products used in chocolate making but Ghana is slowly beginning to process some of the beans themselves and earning more money that way.....walking round a couple of processing plants the smell was divine mmmmm......chocolate! Mind you I imagine after a few weeks you'd probably be sick of the smell! And finally a note about the amazing guys who unload and load the bags of beans in and out of the warehouses....they carry these, African stylee, on their heads and shoulders like they're carrying a bag of sugar but these bags aren't one KG they are 64 KG!!!! Thats like carrying a not so small person on your head! And they probably load / unload a few hundred of these bags per day for no doubt a pittance. They are seriously tough these guys.

The Oud....

And no this isn't a Doctor Who thread but another musical one...this really isn't a Muso blog, honest! Yesterday I heard about a band that sounded intriguing on the world service...they are made up of three Palestinian brothers and they all play the oud. So what is an oud I hear you cry...well, it's an arabic lute and the music that I've heard so far from these guys via the joys of You Tube is absolutely bloody AMAZING! Check it out if you're open to something different....

The band name is Le Trio Joubran and their website is http://www.letriojoubran.com/en/discography.html

Overdue

Well, finally started to see a bit more of the country again last weekend with a trip up to Boti falls the other side of Koforidua. It's about 2 and a bit hours north of Accra and was worth the drive. A really nice drive up through some nice looking countryside and the falls were spectacular even if the "tourist" site built up around it was a bit scruffy....Oh and we saw a praying mantis and our first sizable spider, that should keep mother happy :-)

There were also what looked like some promising crags....must organise to try and beat a path to them one weekend and check them properly!

Mac Tontoh RIP

I must confess I had never heard of Mac Tontoh until the news that he had died this week made the press. He was a very well known musician in Ghana and perhaps their best known star internationally. He was in a variety of local West African bands, The Comets, Uhuru and Osibisa. It was with Osibisa that he had most of his international recognition including a track I'd actually heard...Sunshine Day also strange coincidence that Osibisa were formed the same year i was born. It's funny the things you find out have connections to a place when your there. Whilst normally not my cup of tea musically being neither Rock nor Goth :-) I guess I have a gradual appreciation of African music for it's life...it really is hard not to want to dance to it! Anyway, RIP Mac Tontoh....go and look some of his music up!