In the Western region, there are a few main stops on the tourist trail…there’s Busua beach, just a 40-minute trotro and shared taxi from Takoradi. Lovely beach to lie on and lots of backpacker restaurants as well as a motley collection of other volunteers, oil workers, and Rastafarians. Just 20 miles further West from Busua, […]
travel and culture
Go North young man, go north : Larabanga Stick Mosque and Tamale
The southern part of Ghana is almost 100 proof humid; the corner of the Western Region bordering Côte d’Ivoire is technically considered a tropical rainforest, while the rest of the heavily populated central and coastal regions are categorised as coastal savannah and deciduous forest. In practice, the whole swath from Kumasi down to Accra and […]
Safari in Ghana: Elephants, baboons, and warthogs in Mole National Park
For most people, Africa means safari. Or maybe the political images come first – slavery, war, famine, colonialism and chaos, racism and corruption. That’s one Africa. But then there’s the other Africa, the Africa of white tents, lions, and upper class Europeans in Land Rovers, imagining they’re Lawrence of Arabia. Luxury safari packages mostly skirt […]
Women’s Marches – why it’s important to use your voice (and feet)
So I’m in Ghana now. I ended up going a day later than planned, did a day and a half of orientation, got a local sim, have tried a taxi but not a trotro, sat by the sea and drunk a beer, and had a good old mooch around Osu, the neighbourhood we’re staying in […]
Reflections from Jordan
I’m not quite sure what I was expecting of Jordan really. Or what I think of it in the end. Maybe I didn’t see enough. I tend to expect middle-income countries to look a bit like Southern Italy, probably because there’s such a huge gap between the cities of Southern Italy (and their airports and […]
Why do the refugees all have cell phones?
I was sat on the couch last night watching the news, and my flatmate asked me why the refugees all have mobile phones. And then it occurred to me, that maybe no one has explained this very well, and people don’t know… Before the war broke out, Syria was a developed country, much more in […]
Rice, wheat, and where to go
My imagination was rather captured by an article in the Economist last week based on this study. A social psychologist was looking into the pervasive differences in Eastern and Western societies, and trying to come up with a positive correlation. Popular explanations, like development and modernization, don’t hold the second you look at Japan and […]
127.8 miles later
So in eight full days, and two half days of walking I: walked 127.8 miles (ish, there’s no official total really, and Muker added and changed my path by a good few miles) stayed in Britain’s highest market town (Alston, night 8) stayed in UK’s geographical centre in Greenhead, equidistant from all shores (night 9) […]
Friday Morning
Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda… Things I brought that I really didn’t need: Jeffrey Sach’s The End of Poverty – didn’t even crack it open Pen Knife – one of those survival tools you’re always supposed to have but lord knows when I’d ever use it. I’d probably be liable to hurt myself, really. Sleeping Bag – […]
Monday Night
Well, Thwaite was the last time I really had any service or got on wi-fi. I got a burst in Middleton today and sent my parents an email quickly so they knew I was still alright. Sunday morning’s shortcut turned into a bit of a long-cut as I went around the river cliffs to meet […]