87:Austin, Tx:Killed by cheap lager….
Ah, the bliss of a bed that isn’t wrapped in plastic like the one at the hostel. Josh had gone out early leaving me his phone number and his key. I hope he checked my references :p I took a shower, read for a bit and then found out where he was a drove up to join him. He was in some cool co-op supermarket/café near the University and on the drive up I decided I not only liked Austin, I could possibly live there. Would just have to get past the whole stupid American work ethic and I could be quite happy. Maybe I should see the place in the searing summer first though. It’s a major, MAJOR University town so the place is packed with students and the cool places they love to hang out in. It was a breath of fresh air after driving through the hick towns of the south and I got myself a Tempeh Burrito and coffee and we sat in the sunshine checking the local free paper for bands to see.
81:New Orleans:Don’t look down
I got up with a minor hangover and it been so long since I’ve been drunk I thought I might be ill! Just a mild case of not remembering to drink water before I went to sleep. needed to use the laundry but I guess it could wait for a while. Since Jeff was on his way to South America for 5 months I offered and gave him a copy of my Spanish Language class. I hoped he would make a bit more use of it than me since I was being rather lax in that department. It was usually so much hassle to connect up my laptop in the car that I just did it and set it playing whatever was random in the playlist and forgot to study some Spanish as a matter of course. I was coming up to a month left and knew it was going to be interesting when I finally hit the border with a tiny vocabulary and bad accent. Still, this wasn’t the time to worry about it and I should concentrate on enjoying my time in New Orleans since I was planning on leaving the next day.
67:Savannah:Spooky Savannah
Next morning I set off on a proper touristy day to check out Savannah. This is an old town for the States, a bit of a tourist trap really but full of old and interesting architecture and compact enough, for an American town, to walk around and see most of what it has to offer in a day. I drove in, pulled out my camera and set off to explore. There were plenty of trolley tours going around so I grabbed one of their maps to give me an idea of what to go and look at and then just wandered at random. The northern end of the town had garden squares all over which was really nice and rather unusual too I thought, horse drawn carriages ferried tourists about (mostly American) and the town had a aura of understated wealth about it. Old money they call it.
65:Florida/Georgia:Heading up the coast.
I knew there had to be something fishy about the scuba diving and I was right, pardon the pun. I went over to the office for my change from the night before and to ask about diving and she said no problem, and it was actually only $1.07 now. Great I thought, walked out and then walked back in to ask and find, no, it didn’t include equipment! Bleh. I should have known. Hey ho. After that I had no desire to even go snorkeling since I knew it was going to be freezing so just saddled up and headed north. I stuck on the back roads as usual and I started to wonder about the wisdom of this. Sure you see more than you go on the Interstate, but you’re starting and stopping all the time and what is there really to see? Maybe I was just getting a bit bored. I found a fun radio station coming out of Miami which was mostly a Liberal Talk show and they liked to take the piss out of the stupid callers but that soon turned to static. I was back on the road alone again.
66:Jacksonville:Heading out of Florida
I knew there had to be something fishy about the scuba diving and I was right, pardon the pun. I went over to the office for my change from the night before and to ask about diving and she said no problem, and it was actually only $1.07 now. Great I thought, walked out and then walked back in to ask and find, no, it didn’t include equipment! Bleh. I should have known. Hey ho. After that I had no desire to even go snorkeling since I knew it was going to be freezing so just saddled up and headed north. I stuck on the back roads as usual and I started to wonder about the wisdom of this. Sure you see more than you go on the Interstate, but you’re starting and stopping all the time and what is there really to see? Maybe I was just getting a bit bored. I found a fun radio station coming out of Miami which was mostly a Liberal Talk show and they liked to take the piss out of the stupid callers but that soon turned to static. I was back on the road alone again.
62:Florida:All girls are freaking crazy! :p
Miles traveled : 4,000.
We woke to the sound of the thundering traffic. Miriam froze most of the night, myself not so much. She’s been in Florida too long and away from her native Seattle. We stumbled down to the car to make breakfast and coffee. We planned on going for a swim and then whatever but Miriam had a minor shock when she phoned her friend so we could sing happy birthday to him and found she had somehow lost a day. Was probably a good job she found out as it might not have come up in conversation :p I pulled out my guitar for a quick strum and the guy that had come and sat on the bench near our site saw his chance and moved over to make conversation. Seems he knew a few chords himself but it made his fingers hurt. It was enough to get him onto our bench though so we couldn’t ignore him. Miriam told me off for saying he was a hillybilly but if you sound and look like one the cap fits. I did a few Beatles tunes from the book and he asked if we were a traveling band :p Bless! Its not a bad idea though. He asked Miriam if she sang and it’s the first time I’ve heard her shut up. If he only knew about my little Opera singing jellyfish’s talents!
59: Tampa Fl:Meeting the locals
The weather died down the next day and I was off and away by about 10am. It certainly is nice to be able to sleep until whenever I want again, however this means it easy to be a bit too lazy. Maybe I would meet someone who was on the road like me later on at the party and they would be waking me up…?
Florida: Mark and the Mechanics
Security or not I managed to get a good lie in, even sleeping on a raised platform in my minivan wouldn’t stop me from doing that. The back windows have privacy glass, which means they are quite dark, but not really dark enough. Maybe I would have to make some curtains… But later, I picked up a few things from Walmart (its so handy) and fired up the beast…. click… click… click… Uh oh. My battery was flat! Maybe I was charging something the night before and left it on a bit too long, but this wasn’t a good sign. I asked some helpful guy for a jump start, grateful for my foresight of parking away from the main entrance so he could get in near enough and left it charging up for a while. Maybe it was time for a new battery….? I had a look at what I had and went back in the store for a look. I came out with the largest one they had and a $2 adjustable spanner and proceeded to swap them out… Um, rather I stood there cursing as the bolt that locked the battery in refused to budge as it was rusted shut. I went back in and resisted the temptation to buy a $40 toolkit but opted for a can of WD40 and $4 set of cheap spanners. This was better but try as I might it still would not move, even after a good drenching of oil….
Titusville, Fl: We have lift off
When I woke up I was surrounded by cars and the fans were making a slight noise. My battery was dead but I had made it. The skies were slightly cloudy but it was sunny, warm, and looked pretty good to me. However Im not a rocket scientist! I said ‘hi’ to the 3 retirees in the car next to mine ‘um, can I get a jump?’. Thank god I had bought some leads for $8 the day before. ‘Sure’ said the guy and pulled forward, popped his hood and …. no battery. It was under the back seat for some reason. The guy in the big SUV saw what was going on and jumped at the chance to help out, despite nearly losing his spot to some cranky woman as we got connected. It fired up ok which wasn’t my previous experience at jumping cars (last time I was messing around in the work car park for 2 hours getting the damn thing going). I left it charging and put on the radio, seemed like there was some ice build up somewhere which might cause a problem. I chatted to my fellow viewers for a while ‘no Im not from London’ and made myself busy tidying up my car. There was stuff everywhere and it was going to be annoying if I couldn’t find something. I sorted out my cameras, set up my point and shoot on the roof on 10 second interval mode and watched the sky and the now rapidly filling grass verge.
New York : Tensing for the sprint south….
After the excitement of the previous night we weren’t up until late, Marie went out to buy a new phone while I lazed around. We went out for bagels in a cool little store nearby and decided what to do with the rest of the day. I wanted to go to a legendary camera store which was closed the previous day so we set off to walk most of the way there. It was hot and sunny again and, despite my protesting feet, another perfect day to spend in one of my favourite cities in the world. I was really going to be putting the miles in on those shoes, new or not. We took a subway a few stops since the store was going to close reasonably early and its a good job we did. The place was a mad house! Its jewish owned and run, which means its closed on Saturday so it was full of local shoppers who packed the place out. It was a huge store anyway and they stock everything. I got given a catalogue on the way in which was 3 cm thick and despite the masses of staff still had to queue to ask questions. I had wanted to buy a big telephoto zoom but I was still waiting on my last pay cheque so decided to hold off. I did pick up a nice point and shoot though which will now live in my pocket when I need something convienient to take with me. The store has a set of tracks that deliver the items to the assistant within a couple of minutes that is a wonder to see. They didn’t have the elusive backpack I was after though, that will be a job for ebay I think…
Boston MA: I fought the law and….
Well, it didn’t work and they called the cops. Looks like I might be deported and my car impounded for not having plates. Disaster!
Boston MA: Master forger….?
The minivan was mine, Eric turned up Monday night, we did the paperwork, he counted the $2200 (in $20 bills) and I finally had a vehicle. Tuesday was the day to get everything together. I hit the net and phoned a few places, I also called Nicholas, the French Guy, who had just completed a 10k journey around the states for the address of theinsurance place he used. It was pretty far away, he also told me his car had been towed in Boston, twice! Tickets I can live with (and ignore) but towing was $100. Still, a snip compared to the £600 you can get charged in the UK. I checked the phone book for somewhere local and walked up to Mass Av to check out place with 7 insurance companies. Turned out it was the same place and he told me to get insurance I would need to get a Mass Licence within 30 days. Bleh. A few doors down I walked into another place and they seemed fine with my EU licence, with one minor, or major caveat, my counterpart to my plastic licence was in my missing small bag. No licence, no insurance, no road trip. 3 weeks to get a new one and I was a car owner with no way to get going…
I can’t wait for the weekend to begin
When I was working all the time weekends were either spent on the job or cacthing up on sleep, my social life was a disaster and a constant stream of no-date Saturday nights was boring and depressing. Since I left all that has changed and I am so happy with life right now. Maybe people will think its just superficial nonsense, meeting up with strangers, having drinks with people I met on the internet but its so much deeper than that. Everyone deserves to live, travel and have an interesting life and the people I meet are either stuck somewhere and saving to go away or living their dreams of moving around the planet. Couchsurfing is definetly the way to live you life, I love it!
Dancing in the Dark
Today was a great day in Montreal. After going to bed at 5.30am (gulp!) I woke up at 11.15 and set off for my cycling date with Daniella. I had been playing poker the night before with the Montreal boys and the time had literally flown by. How they all manage to stay up until that time and not worry about work I never found out, although I suspect Louis and Yorvis are secretly millionaires, Mikhael was between jobs and Andres was working afternoons. Never found out what Ben was doing, but in the morning he was gone. I only lost $10 over 2 games though and didn’t buy in, so I think my gambling problem is under control and now I have had a good practice for Las Vegas!
Noodles, Drums and bad vibes
We managed to get out the Bates Motel for just after 11am, which was good, I just hope I get my $300 deposit back on my card sooner rather than later, ie not getting it when Im in Montreal. We cruised up to the backpackers but I couldn’t get in until 1pm so we headed up to Kensington Market to get some coffee and chinese food. Might have to go back and buy some clothes, they have lots of pimping gear up there. The backpacker look is so last year, vintage 70s gear might be the way forward.
Tried a couple of ATMs with my card but they all wanted to charge me a couple of bucks per transation. That was ok for me at the airport but not in the city, I found the RBC didn’t charge me later on so I will be sticking to them. I was broke though so I couldn’t treat Britni to the lovely mangosten they had in the chinese fresh food stalls. Im sure I can find some in Chicago, although at nearly three pounds a pound they were very expensive. Thailand has spoiled me 
I got dropped off and we said our sad goodbyes. Really great girl, I hope she gets back to doing what she loves, photography, as soon as she can, I could do with some lessons Was gonna be a long ass drive back to Chicago and she drives like a maniac so I hope she made it ok! She taught me a trick or two, and Im not talking about her singy-songy southern accent! More importantly I hope she doesn;t get sacked, first time she has had a sicky but it was Niagara Falls dammit with some great company, she had to come.
I moved into the Canadania backpackers which is downtown and then went for a walk around. I’m getting my bearings now after driving around the city for a couple of days looking for random things, I spotted the Toronto branch of the Mountain Equipment Company and made a mental note for the next day. Not that I can carry much more, I only really bought a sleeping mat and now it seems like I have no room and the damn thing fit on the outside! The beastie boys are playing this weekend too, but looks like I will miss it as hopefully I will be in Montreal by then.
Kaydi had invited me to the last drum circle event of the year so I got cleaned up and we rode the street car west to the park. Its nice she can take some time out of her last years study to show me a few things. The park has a big bowl in it and it was packed with hundreds of people playing the drums and maybe a thousand in total. Fire jugglers, people with glow sticks, people dancing… We met a couple of Kaydis friends from saturday and sat dinking wine and laughing at the girls in front of us grinding away at each other. Too dark for photos despite my camera, I really needed my flash but I wont make that mistake again.
They finished up at about 10.30 which Im sure the local residents appreciated as a hundred drummers tended to make a lot of noise. It was kind of strange to listen to it too as it was completely organic, Im not sure anyone was in charge and it slowly changed into different rythms as you sat there. You could hear melodies in the pattern too somehow. Very strange. Very cool. I walked west with the Kaydis friends back to their place which was over the Pizza Pizza as I was meeting some couchsurfer friends in a local bar although I was very late and I got my first sense of bad vibes on the way.
Some well built white guy with a mohican was walking towards us, minding his own buisness and it seemed like when he was 5 meters away he saw my camera on my shoulder so he looked at me, touched my arm as he passed and started saying ‘Hey buddy, can I get…’. I felt like I was about to be mugged, but I ignored him and just kept walking as he ran out of ideas of things to ask me for. I had no cigarettes and I wasn’t going to give him any money so why should I stop? So he could find an excuse to smack me?
We got to the bar a while later and I met up with Mark and Megan again, sadly I had missed most of the other people as it was a bit late but there was quite a good group still there and we even had a couchsurfing barmaid working the bar. A bit later she was very glad we were there. I also met Dave Smaller who said he was going to Montreal on friday so looks like I can get a cheap ride share there. The guy in my dorm room said it cost him $90 which seems a bit expensive.
Eventually there were just three of us left and we went out for a cigarette with Dani the CS barmaid and during the constant stream of panhandlers one of the other guys in the bar came out and started telling us his story which was kind of bizzarre. He said he had been back in Toronto 4 hours as he had been deported from the the UK for asking his clients in the defense industry where the WMDs were. His cousin had recently been killed by friendly fire and he had had enough. Seemed like a bizarre story, but the guy was very drunk and kind of emotional. I mostly believed him, but then he said he didn’t have any money for his bar tab, insulted Dani and lied to her about lending Mark $50 and lost any respect he might have just gained.
I guess if we see him on the news in a few days killed by the CIA there might be something in it. He was writing it in a blue binder about the general and the dutch protistutues it was his job to buy for them with his platinum mastercard. Very strange story.
These couchsurfers area lot mroe hardcore than the Birmingham lot as there are meetings planned for Wednesday and Thursday too. I can hardly keep up! Im not getting much sleep as it is, and despite being in a dorm in a comfy bed I had the usual dubious pleasure of beeing woken up by some noisy German who wouldn’t stop snoring. He would stop when I would kick the underneath of his bed but soon started again. At least I wasn’t up since 5am like the english guy in my room. I need to organise my pack and dig out my ear plugs….
Longest Friday
What a hectic couple of days, lots to do, things to sort out, post, put up lofts, computers to fix, relatives to see… felt like it would never end. And then I go to sleep at 4am, get up at 9am, run around madly for the last few hours, make it to the Airport 3 hours before my flight, walk through customs in 5 minutes and then sit and wait for my flight. Ane wait. And wait…. still no gate assigned but it says there will be one in 25 minutes. They have been saying that for the last 2 hours.
I checked my insurance I bought this morning and it doesn’t have delay cover. Damn! Im sure there is someting about a flight being delayed by a certain time in the EU travelling outside the EU means you can et something. Maybe I should go and ask because its going to be at least 3 hours delayed. A cancellation and days delay would be good, I can get a last crack at the post office and burn some more DVDs.
My main concern now is somewhere to stay, as couchsurfing turned up nothing, I didn’t bother with Hospitality Club and all the hostels are either very expensive or full. Well, very expensive being £30 for a room, which considering I spent £50 in Dublin isn’t too bad. I need a different mindset now though, I have to cut costs as much as possible to stay on the road for as long as possible. How long I can manage this in the first world will be interesting to see, but camping, sleeping in Walmart car parks and hopefully getting some hosts will help. If Im haerroraging money I will be out of the country quick smart and GW can find some other sucker to prop up his ecomomy.
I cant believe the Euro and US cash machines in the airport have the gall to say they are commision free. The rate is shocking, 1.34 and 1.86 respectively. I will be getting $2 for my pound in the States Im sure, which is a nice 8% better rate. Its a good job too as I have things to buy. I need a laptop which will last me and let me blog, surf, organise my site (as well as a couple more) and post process all the photos Im duty bound to take. That itself is a rather scary idea, nice camera and a itchy finger means I could well be having to deal with hundreds of photos everyday. I will have to get myself organised and work out a good workflow for them otherwise I will be stuck with an impossible task.
That is a good idea for an outsourcing business that I may have to investigate, send your photos off to India and let them label them, crop, rotate, correct the colour, delete the dross and generally tart them up before mailing them back or putting them on your website. Just a place to upload the stuff I take onto my site will be another challenge I will have to overcome. Im sure the US is chock full of free wifi spots but what happens when I get further south? This is why I shouldn’t be so lazy about maintaining my contacts in Sweden where super fast internet connections for *uploading* files are mega cheap.
I will also be pricing up a couple more lens’ which are a bargain in the Stateas compared to the UK. The advantage is though that when my money runs out I will/should be so good I can come back to the UK and earn a mint as a wedding photographer. Nothing like a couple of years taking photographs of anything that moves to get you proficient with a camera. I even have my old SLR which cost me an absolute fortune in Autralia and is now essentially worthless as a backup body. I would rather that gets snatched in the ghetto than my beautiful digital body. I have to pick up a compact camera too, probably one of those groovy Pentax waterproof ones. With my phone and video camera I will be overdoing it a bit! :p
And then there is the issue of a car….
The flight was fairly uneventful, I spent half of it trying, unsuccessfully to get my GPS to reconnect but I think we were going too fast. It seemed to work fine until at least Ireland and then it lost the connection and never got it back. I hardly think its a huge problem, Im not intending to take any flights for a very long time.
So glad I hit the toilets before I got on the plane, after a 3 1/2 hour delay we enventually got under way about 5.30 and the reason was that they had been having problems with the toilets. I sat by the window, occasionally chatting to the middle aged scouse couple who say next to me (she constantly gave me gum, Im sure I brushed that morning… :p), watched Oceans 13, 90% of Shrek The third, the last bit of that ice skating comedy and wild hogs on a terrible TV in the ceiling. Not sure if I slept, it certainly didn;t feel like it. Im not sure if I should write to zoom and complain, I dont really think it was too bad, but by western standards it wasn;t good. If you’ve ever spent any time on Chinese trains your standard tend to slip a bit.
When we eventually got into Toronto 4 1/2 hours late (head wind for an extra hour) I sailed through customs and after a longer than average wait for my bag was in Canada. It was a bit damp but as I sat waiting for it I was imagining it was covered with bits of broken toilet and god knows what else.
Now I faced the dilema that I had force myself into, I had no guide book, no hostel booking, no map and had never been here before. The hotels looked pretty expensive and if I booked in would I even be able to get something cheap the next day? After 20 minutes wandering and looking for a working ATM I asked how much the Hertz rentals were. Well, no compacts but I could get a mustang for $47 a day… hmmm. Would be nice but not great for sleeping in, although would it mean I could go to a bar and pull with a cool car….? Theoretically…
I opted for a mini van, figuring I could just find somewhere quiet and stretch out. Only after I had paid did the guy tell me 90% of the company was on strike and there was a picket line for the cars. Great! but I thought it was simultaniously kinda cool, I would have to break through the rioting workers, getting hit by placards and getting spit on. Not quite as cool, I collected my keys and sat in a queue of cars waiting for the barrier to be lifted. After 20 minutes (which let me get changed in the back, get my GPS working on my phone and find a cool radio station (“the edge” is really good)) I was at the front of the line chatting to the Indian Security guard until my 5 minutes were up.
So now where? Hotel? Camping spot? Jail? I hit the gas and repeated my mantra about driving on the right choosing a random direction by following the majority of the cars. It kinda reminded me of a nighttime xbox driving game in my sleepy state, without the cops or crashes. I drove for 1/2 or so, bought some random groceries and drove a bit more to find a big car park and got my head down. You can see all this on the GPS map! Cool eh??? /zzzzzzzzz :p
Last 2 days at work, or what is wrong with the western world.
Karl sent me a text on Wednesday morning to say that he was shocked and my line manager wasn’t happy. Maybe she wans’t happy about the fact that everyone else in the building got the news the same time as her. Other people were placing bets on whether I would come in the next day but I did. I had holidays booked up tight and couldn’t have much more time off, certainly not my last four 12 hour shifts.
I was asked to come to my leaving interview in the morning, which was a barrel of laughs. Lots of questions about the company and scores for various aspects of the place, salary, holidays etc. I had it with my immediate ‘manager’ and the manager who put in the new shift pattern. He always was pro 12 hour shifts but even though he used to be in my dept wasn’t going to have to work them. Even when we talked about the whole concept couldn’t grasp the idea that someone actually didn’t like staying up all day to reset their body clock.
So an interview with the 2 managers who really didn’t like me (which is ok, the feeling was mutual) and who directly lead me to resign was a pretty stupid concept. Or a brilliant one, since I was rather reluctnat to tell them directly that they were both a waste of time (Im sure the feeling was mutual there too :p). They asked me questions and made notes, god knows what they put down as my answers. It would have been infinetly preferable to speak to my direct manager and really tell her the truth, but I guess it was her call.
Still, I was leaving and didn’t really care, my problems with the company were hopefully over. As long as I was getting my last 2 month salary it was all good. Even so, they didn’t even ask me directly *why* I was leaving, it wasn’t on the sheet, so it didn’t seem to matter. It mattered when I said my holidays were just ‘good’ and not ‘very good’. Again, no concept of anyone elses perspective, ask an opinion and then argue with the answer. Last year I had three one month holidays, which I would class as ‘very good’, now it was not so good. Ok, its good if you want to go to Spain for 2 weeks, but where is the fun in that?!?
It was all fine until the end of the interview, first they said I had handed in my overtime applications too late. They were from February but I had phoned HR and asked if it was too late, they said no, but the policy had officially changed the week before. Secondly I was told the one days holiday I had left would be docked since I didn’t come in a few weekends before. Actually I had an interview booked the same day for my recent poor attendence, but it seemed a bit silly to discuss it since I was leaving in 3 days. Next the bombshell about the bank holiday monday incident when I did some printing for Martin and the ink ran out. I forgot to cancel the print and the next day there was 2″ of Polish Hare Krishna translations with my name all over them. Busted! 
I had been told off by the facilities manager on the tuesday, I could hardly deny it and you can see who prints what. You dont see what they print, but its pretty traceable. Everyone does it, printers are such a rip off so a nice colour printer at work is a perk of the job. I usually just used it for scanning things but my generosity got the better of me and I told Martin I would do some prints for him and this was potentially disastarous for my plan. What if I was sacked that day, I could lose the cash I needed for my trip.
You could see they both loved this, no overtime, no last holiday pay and we might sack you. Great. The final knife in the back as I walk out the door. Well sue me for saying your shift and stupid new policies are suck so bad Im leaving. They just felt pissed that I had taken the gift of my seven week break and used it to get out quicker. And why shouldn’t I? Did I really want 8 weeks of them maybe screwing with my shift pattern, maybe telling me to do another job and maybe messing me around as my time ticked down? No, one week notice before my holidays was fair and above board, if a little sneaky They were also pissed about the fact that they had things to do before someone leaves and I left them little time to do it.
All this made me wish I had not bothered giving my notice at all and just gone and not come back. They probably would have kept paying me too which is always good. My more dishonest idea was claiming I had been in a car crash and then sending photos of me with plaster casts on my arms and legs, stuck in Mexico and unable to come back, even to recupperate. I was more worried about getting sued for fraud when they eventually found out (as Im sure they would). No, play by the rules, even if you use them to your advantage and keep your karma… the knife in the back sure was itchy.
My line manager hadn’t said anything to me all day, but its not unusual for her to be pissed off about something and it wasn’t nessasarily me. I went over to apologise for the abrupt departure and she was ok, I think a whole day for her to mull it over had mellowed her somewhat. She said she thought I was mad for going on my trip, but thats only because she’s not hardcore like me Shame really, sitting by a hotel pool is fine for a week but hardly life affirming, Im sure she would love a big road trip, but wouldn’t dare.
And this is why I wasn’t doing it, what kind of life is it being tired all the time, having no social life to speak of, earning a good salary and thinking you must spend it on a nice car to show off but you only drive it to work everyday. Fuck that. Adventure. Excitement. Really wild things. Being English in England is truly depressing. When Im abroad Im unusual and interesting, I am a unique snowflake! Pretending to be Swedish in the UK just doesn’t cut it :p
My letter to O2. It worked :)
Sir
I called late Friday afternoon to complain about the fact that you were planning on changing the terms of my contract and that I wanted to cancel it. During the first call I hadn’t actually got a copy of the contract in front of me to prove why I could legitimately do so and said I would phone back.
On the second call to a ‘marco’ I explained the same thing and that I wanted to cancel, this time referring to the 8.4c clause in my contract. After 10 minutes of attempting to sell me a new contract and point out all the benefits to it and disadvantages of leaving (which I patiently listened to, occasionally repeating I wanted to cancel) he then informed me that I would only be able to do so on the 1st of September. We had the same conversation a few times, me quoting my contract and him saying I could not cancel yet. I then asked for the address I could send my cancellation in writing to which he refused to give me. I asked for a manager and he said everyone was in a meeting. I asked again for the postal address and he refused. Then he rather rudely said ‘we are going around in circles and I will be hanging up very soon’.
I honestly don’t care that he wasted my time trying to sell me things I didn’t want (that is his job) but to refuse to give basic information to a customer is completely unbelievable. I wasn’t asking for anything I couldn’t just get from the Internet anyway but I am sure I will now be told I sent my cancellation letter to the wrong place… I sent it recorded delivery on Friday which was the 24th, so I expect my PAC code to arrive this week and my contract to be terminated on the 24th of September. If this is not done (and if I call to check in a few days that my 30 days notice has not been acknowledged) I will be making a complaint to Ofcom. I will also be cancelling my direct debit to ensure I am not charged.
I also expect you to teach your staff some basic manners.
Mark Towner
Salty Dogs
I got up at 11am and packed, checked out at noon but was pretty hungry. I woke up with a pain in my stomach though, it felt like there was a brick in my stomach, obviously something I had hadn’t agreed with me. I had a bit of a headache too, but no fever. Still, it didn’t seem like such a great idea going on a ferry for a day and a half if I was going to be ill. I generally don’t get ill when Im away, I had a few loose ‘movements’ the week before, but nothing to stop me from travelling, I was just getting used to the water and the food.
I needed a cash machine and breakfast so I started walking up the road into Adabraka, it was pretty warm but ok, even with my backpack on. I found an ATM but it didn’t take my card, by now I was 3/4 of the way to the Orangery so I popped in for some breakfast. Something was bugging me on the way, and I looked in my little backpack and couldn’t find my money belt. While I waited for my food I checked my big
backpack but it wasn’t in there either. Im not suprised as I never put in there anyway. I had locked all my stuff in a locker in the room, including my money belt but couldn’t remember taking it out. I ate and took a taxi back to the guest house, and it was propped up in the locker. Phew. It was getting on for 1.20pm or so now and I had to get to the ferry for 5pm or so, but plenty of time as I figured it would only take an hour or so to get to the pier. I got another taxi saying I wanted to go to the barclays ATM and then to the tro-tro station to Akosombo, I asked which station it was and he said he didn’t know but he gave me a price of 25,000 so I said ‘ok, you can ask someone on the way’. There aren’t that many stations in Accra and how would I know since i was the tourist.
We got to the ATM, the traffic was pretty bad but of course he didn’t ask anyone. We went around the block and I asked where he was going, to the STC station he said. I may be a tourist but I knew there was no bus going there so I insisted we go to the tro station. Past the ATM we went again and off to the Tamale tro tro station. The stupid driver got forced into the station by a bus right up his arse only to find it was the wrong station so then we had to turn around in the chaos and wait to get back out. Seems like it was third time lucky and we went to the station in the market and there was a tro to Akosombo. I gave him 30,000 and got out while he protested. He got out and started shouting at me, ‘uh oh’ I thought, but the people around asked what I’d been charged and where we went and agreed with me. Typical man, too macho to sak for directions but I’d be damned if I was paying the 40,000 he wanted, 25k was probably too much as it was.
The Tro was half full and now it was 2.30pm after taking an hour to drive about 3 miles (well, 6 miles with the route he took). I got a seat and sat there sweating with everyone else. The bus started filling up slowly, but not as fast as I’d like. Some guy got on and started giving a speech in English about how he was HIV positive and lost his wife to the disease and how his daughter was also infected. Ghana has lots of posters all over the place saying that people with HIV shouldn’t be stigmatised as it could be you next. Some people listened, most just talked and ignored him, i guess its a pretty regular thing in ghana to get a lecture on AIDS prevention while waiting in a bus. He said some weird things though, like telling people to take their own scissors to the salon when they got a haircut…. a razor, fair enough, but I dont think you can get HIV from dirty scissors.
After about an hour the bus was full and we pushed our way out of the market tro station, the place was like organised chaos but we got out somehow. Another guy got on the bus, I had to move seats to make room for his briefcase and as we worked our way through town and now the guys starts yelling some nonsense I couldn’t understand. ‘Amen’ everyone shouted back at him a few times, he told them a few jokes and got everyone laughing. Then, bizarrely, he pulls out some condoms from his pockets and gives a lecture and demonstration on their use. Wasn’t a complete demonstration of course :p Everyone was laughing, and even more so when he pulls out some femidoms and demonstrates their use too! Lord only know what he’s telling them, but eventually the lesson ends and he pulls out a big sealed box and starts going on and on about them. Heres me thinking they are the AIDS meds he as to take everday or something, but then after 15 mins building them up people start buying them all through the bus. He sells nearly the entire box, probably 30 small boxes at 15,000 each (£1). I get a look at one and its caffiene and ginseng energy tablets. They lap em up, can’t get enough of them. Then he pulls out some boxes of deworming tablets, gives another 10 minute spiel and sells one box. Something wrong with the balance of sales i think. Then he jumps off the bus and goes back into the city. I guess he makes a pretty good living.
The bus wasn’t running to the schedule I’d like though, it took an hour to get out of Accra so at 3.30pm I only have an hour to make the ferry, and I need to buy some food if I assume Im not getting anything on the boat. But the guy is not exactly breaking any speed limits, he keeps stopping to drop people off and then we have a 5 minute break as they pull all their shopping off the top of the bus, sacks of yams, new bicycles (the lad who got it was so pleased with his dad) but what can you do but wait and hope you make it. I saw a few mileage markers to Akosombo and amuse myself by mentally working out how fast we’re going, I figured it might be pretty tight as the pier isn’t actually in town but a taxi ride away. After multiple drop offs we finally get to the tro station by the market, I get a taxi to the pier at 4.30pm. Barring any major mishap I was going to make it and 15 minutes later, 15 minutes before the scheduled departure I walk up into the second class floor and meet Anna and Tua again. I guess they were getting worried I was going to abandon them, but it was not the case.
I dumped my stuff and went back out to buy a straw mat to sleep on, some bread, red onions, tomatoes and tinned sardines. At least I wasn’t going to starve now, and I wasn’t the only person with a brick sitting in my belly, we all had the same food the day before so it wasn’t malaria after all! The girls were sitting in the galley area, but it was pretty busy and pretty stuffy. I had a look upstairs on the bridge deck where all the cabins were and there were a load of ghanian soldiers and about a dozen tourists. Seems that was a better place to sleep so we moved up there and set up ‘camp’. I needn’t have worried about leaving on time though as we sat there for more than an hour loading more stuff up. I had charged my mp3 player with my new £25 charger (my third since I got one off ebay that broke and one from maplins that would have blow up all my gear if I had plugged it in, pile of crap) but it wasn’t up to the job and despite saying 100% charge only lasted for 10 minutes, same with the second set of batteries. The girls were gutted, but at least they have me for entertainment! Tua sat and wrote her diary while I played cards with Anna, and despite her assertion she was a poker champion I won every game. Shame for her she wasn’t playing poker :p
We set off and it was pretty flat, no wind, still no mosquitoes (Ghana was great for that, it was so dry there weren’t any, much better for my malaria paranoia) and down went the sun and away went the cards. Took them about an hour to turn the light on up on the deck so there wasn’t much to do. I sat and read on my phone, having a backlight is great for that. They started serving food downstairs and we went and got some, rice+tomato sauce+boiled egg; the staple of the galley. It was ok, and cheap plus they had cold drinks but it got a bit tedious after 6 meals of the same. We were promised omelette for breakfast the next day but that wasn’t to materialise.
I had told the girls to get the west side, i.e. the left so we wouldn’t have the sun in the morning but they had a blonde moment and had claimed the right side. No biggie I thought, I had a sleep mask anyway, but then the wind started picking up. It got quite blustery, and you could feel occasional prick of water on your skin. Rain or a bit of wind swept surf from the bow? 10 minutes later we got the answer as it started raining! Doh! We grabbed all our stuff and ran for the back of the boat where they had a big canopy, typically the German group on the left side (our side dammit! :p) just moved their stuff to the wall and stayed put. Our side got soaked! We sat at the back cursing our luck and after a while the rain stopped and the wind died down, but the side of the boat was soaked. So much for an early night! Still, nothing you can do, just hate the people that got there early and got a cabin (with AC!)
We had to stop some Ghanian woman from stealing our mats twice, cheeky cow. We later learnt Sandra from Holland wasn’t so vigilant and had hers pinched. She even accused me! Of course I wouldn’t, but we made it a joke later when I kept apologising for pinching it. I wouldn’t have minded sharing mine with her though, she was lovely! The deck dried out a bit so we reclaimed our places and sorted out our gear, it was only 9pm but everyone started getting ready for bed. Looks like we timed it right as soon after they killed the light. Wasn’t easy to sleep, it was so early still. I read for a while while the girls played 20 questions. Seems they only knew pop stars and actors, all too easy, so I kept them going for 15 minutes with Neil Armstrong and Einstein. They were so puzzled by a person know for his travels and couldn’t pin him down to a continent :p After about 2 hours of annoying everyone else on the deck we went to sleep.
‘Local Madman kills tourist’.
7.30 was when I ordered my breakfast for the next day and at 7.30 they knocked on my door to tell me to come get breakfast, but was there any breakfast to be seen….? No. Grrr. F**king tell me its NOT READY and i can go get a shower and sort myself out instead of stitting there like a TOOL for 20 minutes! Or put it on the table at 7.30 and let it go cold if Im not there. I mean, what was the point of telling them the night before… There was a change of plan in the days routine as apparently the pygmies would be going to the market so we should see them first. Since they try to keep themselves to themselves and apparently have nothing to sell and no money this didn’t make much sense, but I wasn’t going to argue. We set off on the bike with Joseph driving and as nice as the guy is I will still feel bad for stating he is a shit driver. We wobbled and swayed about, the roads were pretty bad but he had no confidence. At one steepish rocky part I suggested I walk and I turned around and he had dropped the bike. I suggested I drive. I did a better job than him and we got up to the part we would walk from no problem. The bike was weird, it was like a moped but with a clutch, so the gear shifts were the wrong way around and caused constant confusion whenever I came to change gear. We walked up through 500 year old lava fields towards the village of the pygmies, looking at birds on the way as Joseph recounted various facts and touristy information. After a bit of a hike we made it up to the ‘village’, more a collection of huts. The Batwa (as they are local known) are indigenous forest people but have bee evicted from the jungle over recent years and now hold themselves seperate from the local population, living on land donated by sympathetic people and growing some small crops and keeping a few animals. They live in mostly tradition houses and they were shockingly poor. The kids were running around in rags and no shoes and they had tiny filthy huts. Joseph showed me around and said that when they die they are buried in their huts forcing the survivors to build anew. Other people arrived from nearby and they did the usual expected tourist thing and put on a bit of a song and dance for me. I have no idea if it was traditional or real, but they seemed to enjoy it and all worked up a sweat. The local ugandan boys who looked after the cattle watch in amusement as their batwa friends danced. It wasn’t exactly the most comfortable situation to be in, the poor people dancing for the rich white tourist, but what could I do? ‘I guess I’ll take some pictures then…’. They danced and sung for a good 20 minutes while the ‘chief’s wife banged a drum made of an old metal tin with some leather strapped on the end. Of course I had the usual problem of hw much should I give them. I had to give them someting, and there were a lot of people there, i guess… you can only believe what the person who speaks english tells you, but I dont think it was a scam. I gave them 50,000, since I didn’t have any twenties, about £14, which was probably 50p each. I dont know if it was too much, they seemed very happy with it anyway. They all started dancing again and all the men shook my hand. Was pretty sad. I wish they could all just go back into the forest and everyone would leave them alone. Including me. We hiked back down to where we left the motorbike and i gave Joseph a 10 minute lesson on how to take a photograph. He kept taking ‘a good one’ but since I put the flash on and hadn’t seen it was taking nothing at all. For a guide with lots of experience you would think he would know how to push and hold a button…
t be continued
The Gorillaz – kids with guns
My taxi driver warned me several times to be ready at 5am, he would be knocking on my door! I was up at 4.50, brushed my teeth, grabbed my gear and waited! typical, had he ran off with the deposit I had paid him or was he just useless? I called his number, nice waste of £2.40 to hear him say he would be there in 1 minute. Bleh! My mobile provider had also finally mailed me to say they wouldn’t unlock my phone as agreed theh day before I left as it was second hand. C**nts! He showed up and off went down some very poor roads. Very slow and no chance for any extra sleep on this leg, there were potholes and rocks galore. 5 am was a pretty stupid time to leave since we were there a good hour before time, I got him to play me some African music on the way up and he didn’t seem to mind the same 6 songs repeating about 10 times. At least it wasn’t Michael Bolton!
I bought him some breakfast, it was about a quid each and we waited for the other 7 people to arrive. Eventually a Australian Couple, Darren and Amanda from Brisbane showed up with their driver. Dressed in nice new jungle gear too! :p They took a lot of holidays too since they both owned their own businesses, and were usually independant travellers but this time they had opted for a tour. Fair enough, not many backpackers would be splurging £200 on an hour with some gorillas anyway! However I got the impression this wouldn’t be the kind of trip my mother would find easy, and the group we would be visiting were the newest and potentially most challenging to get to. The other 5 people never showed up and after a quick pep talk hired a couple of porters to carry our stuff and drove about 4km to the path. I guess I could have asked for my $25 park entrance fee back as I never actually went into the park because the gorillas had recently moved just out of it. They weren’t sure why, possibly because of competition with another nearby group but they were still pretty close.
We began the hike down the rather steep trail to the bottom of the valley passing through fields and past a few houses along the way. The gorillas are all guarded to protect them from bush meat poachers, and also keep them away from the locals who, as you can imagine, woud rather not have to deal with huge 200 pound apes eating their bananas and terrorising them all the time. We were also protected by a couple of guards carrying AK-47s, which was reassuring since we were only a few kilometers from the Congo, and a few years ago several tourists were killed in the same park by Congolese guerillas. Lots of dangerous types then! With straining knees we reached the steam on the valley floor in about half an hour or so, crossed over and walked for another 10 minutes to where the rest of the guards and guides were waiting. We could see their camp nearby and passed through a few old gorilla nests where they slept before. They were waing in a recently slashed and burned area on the hill side and we dropped our coats, staffs and non essential items, got hydrated and went gorilla hunting!
Well, it didn’t take long, about 30 seconds and there was a gorilla sitting next to the clearing munching away on leaves! He didn’t seem at all bothered by us, quite happy to sit and eat, posing for photos. Darren had a nice digital SLR with a good zoom, and I reckon he got some great shots. I blasted away on my little canon. 2 minutes of playing model was enough and he rolled into the bush in search of better food and less attention. We crossed over a rather tiny plank over a small gully into the uncleared jungle and found another gorilla under a bush also eating. I guess thats what they do best :p We got pretty close, about 3 meters and the guide hacked us a better path so we could see him better. There were other babies in the tree that we could also see, not too clearly but making a lot of movement. We moved back down the valley in search of the boss. We saw him briefly along with a baby, but he disappeared quite quickly and we carried on to the stream below. It was great fun, the jungle is no barrier if you’ve got a big machette and dont mind getting dirty. We were slipping down near vertical slopes and pulling ourselves through thick bush, sploshing in bogs and trying to avoid big holes as we clambered over big fallen trees. There was another gorilla up the other side over the river and we could see the bushes move as he pulled leaves from the branches but we couldn’t see him. It was ‘too steep’ to get up and have a look, but it wasn’t that bad. We set off back the way we came looking for the dominant silverback we lost just earlier. The babies were still swinging away, but you couldn’t get a good photograph.
We hacked a new path and found a way to the boss, Nkuringo, you could just see him through the trees. Our guide from the office, the little guy with the machette and Darren up in front about 5 meters away from us while I was gallantly helping Amanda through the brush when there was a mighty roar and Nkuringo stood up and confronted the 3 guys in front! I was glad I wasn’t in front as a fully grown male gorilla showing his teeth and lungs to you is probably not the most pleasant experience! Darren aparently got quite a shock (but no photos :{). The video was going and although I didn’t capture it I certainly got the sound! The guides were not too bothered though and just roared back at him, I guess they knew not to take any shit :p After we changed our underwear we sneaked up a bit more and found him happily eating away again in the clearing and you could see more movement in a nearby bush. We snapped away as the hour was nearly up and boy had it gone fast! We edged closer and Nkuringos son came out and started to play in front of us! Tiny little fella was rolling around and beating his cheat just a few feet away with his father watching patiently in the bush nearby. Cool!
We snapped away like mad until Amanda and my memory card ran out. Thank goodness for the video, which was better in the low light anyway. I had stupidly forgotten my tripod. At least I had spare batteries though! Eventually we had to go and left them in peace. Those gorillas are raking it in at £200 an hour, but what a great job! :p We hiked back up the hill, and I regretted hiring a porter but they made out it was miles and really difficult, which it wasn’t. Still Amanda had a hard time of it and they both had quite a trek to go as they had optioned a 2 hour walk through the NP rather than drive 5 hours around it. I was kicking myself for not being prepared for a lift north as they were heading my way. I had thought it possible but with my stuff everywhere and laundry being done it was not possible. Oh well. We got to the top and I went with them to the start of the trail in their 4WD, sending my taxi driver back to the office to wait for me. We had swapped emails and I promised to send them a DVD of the gorillas in exchange for their photos. Which is good because I suspect my photos were rubbish! They set off with their armed guards and since i haven’t heard about any tourists being kidnapped assume they arrived safe and well.
The cheeky s.o.b. of a taxi driver had accepted my suggestion I buy him lunch to the tune of 7,500 schilling, and told me there was nothing left to eat. I can believe it, the lying git would have cleared them out *if* he had eaten anything. It was impossible to spend 7,500 on lunch so my intention of tipping him went right out the window. Pity, I intended to give him more than he swindled out of me, pity for him anyway. And he cost me about 9,000 since i rang him when he was late! And he sealed his fate when we arrived back at the hotel and I struggled my bags, coat, sandals and various stuff off the back seat while he just sat there. When I managed to get it all in my hands he offered to help, nice one, goodbye….muppet! Back at the hotel, after i got over my heart attack over how much they had charged me for doing a few items of laundry I was soon tracked down by Joseph and we hammered out a deal for the following day. Local pygmy village, climb up a old volcano and off to see the fish otters in the nearby lake. We’d have a motorbike, I could drive if I wanted to.
And he’s off!
Last tuesday I decided on my plan,, which was to suprise my parents in Dubai, sleep on their floor for a few days and then head off to Uganda to see some wildlife. Tibet was too much hassle and far too expensive if I was going to need 2 single flights, the burning man festival in the US wasnt a good idea with all the hassle in the states, Japan was too expensive, Cuba just didn’t seem right. So I abandoned all my tentative plans and got a cheap flight to Africa with a free stop in Dubai. I was working Sunnday night as usual ad my flight was leavig at 9.10pm, which would have been fine if not for the new security restrications. Luckily it was quiet and Phil let me go a bit early, so I managed to get a shower and finish packing without too much stress. The Aitport was pretty busy, they were very strict on hand luggage; a good job I didn’t take my little suitcase on wheels as I planned. Getting there 2 hours before my fight was a first for me but I was still waiting in the departure lounge for an hour. So turning up early was a waste of time, and then we waited ages at the depature gate, finally boarded and had to wait another 40 minutes for the stuck stairs to be detached from the plane! I sat next to a kiwi woman returning home so we had a good chat, I watched the Incredibles in French (!) and slept most of the way to Dubai. We made up our time in the air and I sailed through customs and jumped into a cab for mum and dads hotel. They had no idea.
Beep! beep! went my alarm the next morning but in the background the noise of
rain meant I had a legitimate excuse not to get up and go and see the Cape
Coast castle. These slaving forts are the African equivalent of Asian temples
and you need to see a few before you can be considered a tourist, but this
one would have to wait. I wasn’t sure what time the bus would be leaving but
I guessed it would be best not to hang around too late, being Friday and all.
I am a foolish boy and should have bought my ticket the day before as the 1pm
bus was full, as was the 4pm bus! Damn, no Irish pub for me! Luckily Peter
and Renet from Holland also needed to get to Accra as Peter was flying home
the next day so we shared a cab. Half a Million it cost us! Big bucks. It was
worth it, its a 3 hour ride in a cab, 4 in the bus (if it bothers to turn up)
and god knows how much in a tro-tro. I hope I never find out. They were a
interesting couple having lived and worked
in Benin for a couple of years for
the EU and as a teacher and we had a great chat as we followed the coast road
back to the capital.
In Accra there was no way I was checking back into my dump of a previous
hotel so I decided the best thing to do would be to go to church! That’s
right, lots of churches have guest houses attached in Ghana. I got it
slightly wrong in that it was slightly more expensive than the dump I first
stayed in, but it was another quid well spent as it was nicely tiled, TV,
window (!), fridge, cleans sheets, nice bathroom and AC. Praise the Lord! I
had trouble finding it and as per the usual rules I asked a passing white guy
who chatted away in Ghanaian to some local women and got a kid to point me in
the right direction. I said I would buy him a beer at Ryan’s Irish Pub if he
was coming down and he told me there were free drinks at the museum across
the road where he was having the opening of his art exhibition at 5.30pm. I
said I would be there, but first I still needed a charger for my gadgets.
You would think the main market of the capital city of a very large country
would be able to provide me with one, but no dice. I had a good walk around,
got slightly lost (easily solved by getting into a cab) but didn’t find
anything remotely suitable. I went home in defeat, I didn’t even see an
unsuitable one like the millions they had in Cape Coast. After my third
shower of the day I headed over to see the exhibition. 5.25pm, they wouldn’t
let me in. God damn jobs worths! I hung around for a bit and went it for a
look. Hey, I know nothing about art but I know what i like! Adrian Jeans was
the guy for future reference, and the Prof. Akram. A cross cultural exhibition
with Ghanaian and British art. They had the British Council guy there and a TV
crew. Doesn’t take much to make the news over here! It was quite busy and I
hung around to see something new, snagged a Sprite and headed off into town.
Checking my email confirmed Anna and Tua were still in Accra and would be up
for a Guinness or 10 later. Nice, you can’t celebrate St Paddy’s Day on your
own. I quickly had the worst curry I had ever eaten (ever heard of putting
some curry in the curry?) and went down to the pub.
The place was heaving, there must have been every white person in Accra there
and plenty of locals, they had a live band playing along and a few people
were dancing already. I went into the bar and grabbed a beer, no green dye
though, bloody heathens! I must be able to smell Swedes as I started chatting
to a guy at the bar and guess where he came from? Probably the only one in
there too. Tua and Anna were no where to be found so I propped up the bar,
laughing and chatting with all the people trying to get a drink from the
inept and horribly overworked staff. I hope they got a good bonus that night
because people were shouting at them from all sides for drinks and they
couldn’t keep up. I met another Anna from Leeds too, its good to make friends!
Swedish Anna and Tua were outside with some local guy they had picked up (or
vice versa) so we sat out there and chatted. A guy called Jeff from Canada
tried to get Anna to dance while Tua was off battling for beer but she wasn’t
ready for the dance floor yet. Or she wasn’t ready for Jeff! Eventually we got
up to ‘shake our boom-boom’ as the Ghanaians so quaintly put it and stayed on
the dance floor until they closed. The music was western pop covers and
African. The band was good, but they looked as miserable as hell from playing
the same set over and over. They let people from the crowd up to play the
bongos and its always fun to listen to singers whose first language isn’t
English interpret classic songs and get the lyrics all confused. The girls had
kicked off their flip flops and then I was making everyone else dancing with
us take off their shoes. We had quite a pile! And after an hour of dancing on
concrete my sandals felt like satin slippers when I put them back on.
They introduced me to Jo too, a Manchester girl on a trans-africa trip, jammy
bugger. Come midnight the band stopped playing (and didn’t heard a single
Irish song all night) and a group of us stumbled off for a beer in Osu on the
main street. They wanted to closed their street side bar too, but I think the
sight of 15 people after beer appealed to their wallets more than sleep and
we got served. Jo had had a few rides with a danish guy called Peter who had
his own car, I thought he sounded like a German prison guard :p We sat
talking for a good while and people started to leave. It was too early
though, it was only about 2pm by now and the night was still young. Anna,
Tua, myself and some other guy decided we were still up for it, but we
didn’t know a suitable club. Of course the taxi drivers were full of
suggestions and we ended up at a place called Jokers. Bit of a notorious spot
in Accra I think.
The cheeky buggers wanted 100,000 (£6) each to get in, but
you could drink outside so we sat there for a while talking to some Rasta
guy. We wanted to dance though ad eventually the price dropped to 50,000 each
and we went in. Bit of a dive, but not bad. They had a dance floor and I was
recognizing more and more African music now and some of it was great.
We had a good boogie, I think Tua liked the guy were with but he got accosted
by a lady of the night and was chatting to her for a bit too long, suddenly
the girls were going home. Bah! A woman scorned is not s thing to trifle
with. We then stood outside for what seems like ages to my alcohol sozzled
brain talking to some rasta bloke (why is it always the Rasta’s?? ;p) about
god knows what, probably the usual about white and black both being red
inside and we’re all Africans (apart from the soulless GW Bush). The
conversation turned more serious when he said all gays should be killed or
something, and we were forced to adopt out usual liberal white position of
saying we shouldn’t judge anyone. Homosexuality only came up in conversation
3 times when I was there and i get the impression its not popular. Shame how
such ordinary friendly people can be so intolerant sometimes, but who am I
to judge? The girls piled into one taxi, the boys in another and we headed
off in different directions. It was 5am, not a bad night!