[ 22:00 sunday 7 january – rosevear , st agnes , isles of scilly ]

since completing the previous chunk i’ve had supper (the remnant of seb’s excellent sugo from last week) , started making two loaves of pumpkin-seed bread and walked down to periglis to phone grandpa since today’s his ninety-fifth birthday (periglis is one of three places on the island where i can get a signal) .

as i write , david owen is on radio four talking about britain’s short-lived social democratic party , of which he was a founder . he comes across well . direct , statesmanlike and entertainingly prickly . the time i spent working with him on balkan odyssey seems distant now . i suppose that was my first proper break .

but on with the show .

my final visit to tamale was a brief one . i arrived in the afternoon and left early the following morning . time for some last goodbyes at the mandela development centre , particularly to the digital workshop team . one of the design trainees , mohammed sumaila , had painted a large canvas for me . i packed up my computer , my saxophone , the digital camera and my tailoring into a large bag and left it with the centre staff to send down to accra . then i said my final goodbyes to iddrisu , isaiah and hadi , who had travelled back from a drumming job to see me off .

i needed to be at the tro-tro station at six in the morning . the previous evening i’d bumped into a young taxi driver i knew so i’d engaged him to pick me up . he promised not to be late but ten minutes after the appointed time there was still no sign of him and i was getting nervous . afu amidu came to my rescue and offered to take me in on his motorbike . i felt a little top-heavy perched there with my huge rucksack on my back and the smaller one clasped between my knees but we got there .

and so i left tamale , just as the sky was lightening , squeezed into a decrepit minibus with perhaps fifty per cent more people than it was design to convey . a fitting departure . we proceeded south for a hundred miles along the worst road i’ve ever travelled . passengers gripped whatever solid fixtures they could find as the vehicle lurched and bounced from one chasm to the next .

eventually we arrived at makongo , a tiny settlement on the east bank of lake volta where fish were laid out in squares on the ground to dry . it was thrilling to be by water for the first time since leaving giglio in the summer . to north and south the vast lake stretched as far as the eye could see . after a while the ferry for which i and most of my fellow passengers were waiting arrived and lowered its ramp . i boarded and soon we set off to cross the seven miles to yeji on the west bank .

yeji was a larger place but notably unprepossessing . i wandered around with a young fellow i’d met on the boat , a son of the atebubu chief . several people invited us to share their lunch (my friend was recognised) but i was feeling tired so i excused myself and found a room where i refreshed myself with a bucket shower and slept for a few hours . i awoke to the sound of a whistle , which i guessed heralded the arrival of the weekly ship from akasombo at the opposite end of lake volta a couple of hundred miles south , my reason for being in yeji .

knowing that the voyage back to akasombo would take twenty-five hours and that the ship had only two cabins with beds (the alternative being a board in an open dormitory or the deck) i proceeded fairly swiftly to don my clothes and remove myself to the waters’ edge . there indeed was the yapei queen , an ugly vessel with a large open foredeck and three decks of superstructure rising behind . i went aboard , across the foredeck and up the companionways to the bridge deck . there i found a man who had the unmistakable air of an official . with my heart in my throat i asked about the cabins . to my great relief one was still available so i handed over the fare and promised i’d be aboard in time to sail at two the following morning .

the rest of the afternoon i spent talking to various people around the town , including the largest group of whiteys i’d encountered since arriving in ghana (seven of them , all tourists , who’d arrived on the ship) . as night fell a sound system started playing in a side street and investigation revealed … a street-dance ! by this stage of my wanderings in ghana i was completely uncontrollable when faced with a function of this kind and in no time i was grooving away . i even managed to persuade a couple of the whiteys to join in (one fellow from bavaria and another from norway , who danced in the manner known only to scandinavians) . oh , it was wonderful . but all too soon the pumpkin hour was upon me and i had to tear myself away , gather my bags and board the ship .

the voyage south was one of the most magical journeys i’ve been on . we stopped at four villages on the way down , mainly to load yams destined for the markets in accra and kumasi . the loading process was entirely unmechanised . farmers from surrounding area had piled their yams into great heaps near the water , each specimen marked with a splash of coloured paint to indicate its provenance . women transfered one bowlful at a time on their heads onto the ship , where they were expertly thrown up to boys who laid them layer upon layer in wooden crates , interspersed with layers of grass . it was not a fast or efficient process but there was no real need for it to be . wherever we stopped i took the opportunity to explore and meet people . different tribes , different aspirations , different problems .

by the time we left keti krachi , the last port of call , we must have been carrying more than a hundred thousand yams . there were also a couple of cows , half a dozen goats , a dozen chickens , a minivan , a sofa , a baboon and a couple of hundred passengers . what you might call a mixed cargo .

at night i stood wide-eyed at the front of the bridge deck for hours as we wove between densely-forested islands , the dark horizon sillhouetted by the menacing glow of huge bushfires .

all too soon the surrounding country grew more mountainous and we were approaching akasombo , with its vast dam and hydro-electric plant . the presidential motor yacht was there , moored somewhat incongruously beside decrepit oilers . we docked . i disembarked and started looking for a tro-tro heading towards accra .

: cH

[ 17:35 sunday 7 january – rosevear , st agnes , isles of scilly ]

it’s three and a half weeks since i returned to soggy old britain , despatched the briefest of notes and promised to write more in “a day or two” . with every day that passes i find myself with more to write and less idea where to begin .

there’s still so much to say about ghana . probably i need to get some of it out of my system before i can move on . rather than a single giant mail i’ll break it into more digestible chunks . so if you’re sitting comfortably …

after a week of blissed decompression in mole game reserve i returned to tamale and took a tro-tro north to bolgatanga , capital of the upper east region , hard against the border with burkina faso . a remote place where the harmattan was more pronounced than in tamale . the nights were crisp and chilly , the days dusty and hot . i liked it a lot .

from there i ventured to tongo , a remarkable landscape of granite carns (to use the cornish term) and rocky hills . this was the least-changed part of ghana i visited . even christianity and islam had made only marginal inroads and each cluster of huts had a pillar on which the soothsayer would make sacrifice when a god’s favour was sought . before i could walk in the area i had to secure permission from the paramount chief . he was dozing in the sun when i arrived at his compound but arrangements were hastily made and soon he was ready to receive me in his palace , the interior of which was hung with goat skulls and drum-heads from the annual festivities .

i introduced myself , made some general purpose flattering comments about the chief and explained my request , with one of the chief’s sons translating for me . then i presented the tribute of kola nuts i’d brought along . this was received without comment . after a slightly awkward silence the son explained to me that it was customary also to offer some cash for the chief and his elders . so i pulled out my wallet and handed over a decent wad . this was inspected and tucked away , then everyone looked at me again . the son said “that was for the chief – now you need to give some for the elders” . with a little less grace than before i pulled out my wallet and handed over a few more notes . after this i was invited to take a photo and told i was welcome to explore the area . the audience was then at an end and the chief left to resume the important business of snoozing after another profitable day’s business .

after a respectful interval i too left the palace with the chief’s son and several others , all of whom were clearly going to accompany me whether i liked it or not . as we were passing through the compound an elderly lady clambered out of a little doorway . this was the senior wife , it was explained , and i was welcome to have a look in her room if i wanted . not wanting to offend i crawled through the doorway and cast my eyes around the gloomy interior , furnished with a few blankets . the old lady and translator-son came in too . there wasn’t much to see . i made a few token appreciative noises and turned to leave . “you should make a tribute to the senior wife” it was helpfully suggested . so i handed over some more notes .

with some relief i exited the chief’s compound and set out for the hills with my entourage of four , all too aware that i would be expected to dash every single one of them (dash being the standard african term for a “reward”) .

we proceeded across the irregular-shaped fields , skirting several of the little mud compounds which dot the landscape . arriving at the foot of the hills we began to ascend . it was tough going , with tangled thorns and big boulders , but as we got higher a wild exhilaration began to rise in me . after weeks in the flat plains of tamale it was exciting to be climbing and my guides moved through the terrain at a challengingly rapid pace . i was determined to keep up with them . the view over the surrounding countryside was incredible . the whole structure of social and economic organisation was revealed in the pattern of field boundaries and arrangement of hut clusters .

from the top we could see for hundreds of miles . once again my compact binoculars came into their own . indeed they made such an impression upon my guides that it was suggested i should make a present of them . but i think even they realised this was pushing it and there was no argument when i firmly declined . i tarried there for perhaps half an hour , reluctant to descend . but the shadow of the hill on the land below was lengthening and i didn’t fancy going down in darkness .

once we were back on the flat the expected requests for dash started . i gave what i assessed as the minimum acceptable and emphatically resisted further requests . i felt increasingly dispirited as the demands continued and really just wanted to get away . therefore my heart dropped when it started to emerge that returning to bolga was not going to be easy . it was the evening and there would be no more vehicles . the spectre of being dependent on these people for overnight accommodation and prey to further fleecing was not attractive . mercifully , after an hour or so , the manager of the local quarry hove into view in his pickup . i have rarely been so relieved to see a car . of course , there were many others wanting a lift into bolga and i had to hand out copious dash to secure a place but i hardly cared . the quarry manager was an intelligent and kindly man from the south . a catholic . he spoke scathingly of the locals and their “primitive” beliefs . what’s more he was familiar with the camborne school of mines , a splendid institution situated about five miles from where i grew up in cornwall , which delighted me no end .

after another day in bolga i returned to tamale for the last time .

: cH