And We're Back

Aight so I forgot to mention a few things about Mali before I tell you of some stories in Togo. The first is I'd like to describe to you the tourist office in Kaye. First of all Kaye does not have any tourists. Not one person I met tourist. There were journalists and PCV's and people who call Kaye home. I am pretty sure that myself and the two lovely ladies that were traveling with me were the first tourists in Kaye history (exaggeration). Anyway the tourist office is run by this real nice guy who likes to say my name a lot and has the cutest little Malian boy who enjoys running around with just a shirt on or just underwear on, never both. A true no pants freelance fan. The rains in Mali although much appreciated for the pause in terrible heat and filling the river it also caused terrible flooding. The flooding seemed to center itself around the tourists office. So the Malians set up cinderblocks and rocks in a row above the few inches of filthy water to jump across to safety in the tourist office without falling into the cholera or dysentery that you can get by just looking directly at dirty water for too long (sarcasm). It was just like Mario. When finally getting through the
obstacle course and kicking Bowser's ass we met with some Malians and had this delicious Senegalese style meal with rice and sauce and goodness that we ate in one large bowl. I ate like a horse but they made enough to feed an army, an army of hungry horses. So i did my best to finish the entire bowl while my girly travel companions gave up early. We spent the rest of the meal watching the little boy stick spoons in his mouth and throw rice on the floor. The Malian who ran the tourist office, with help from a PCV, gave me the only brochure that I saw in the Kaye tourist office and it wasn't even for Kaye. It was a brochure for Timbuktu.
*Side note: Reminds me of a funny Kevin Nealon joke I heard while visiting my Bro at Lehigh. "There is lots to do in Bethlehem... You can go to Philadelphia, New York..."*
It was kinda like that but more like "Here is where you should have gone." Timbuktu looks like a sweet place and I wish we took the 8 hour hot smelly bus ride to see it, but ehh maybe next time im in Mali. And I could say "ya ive been to Timbuktu. What? You've never been?"
So we returned to Kaye and the ladies convinced me to go shopping. I wasn't thrilled but I wanted to see the market in Mali and compare prices to Ghana without buying anything. I ended up buying a Bubu (It like a dress but for dude). It is bright green and pretty baller. After that we ran to the airport in Bamako and got all the security guards confused yelling at them in English to let us in the airport and then boarded Malian Air on a flight to Lome, Togo. Yes, I was a little nervous boarding the official airline of the third poorest country in the world.
We made it though without any worries and there was an in flight meal. I didn't even know they had food in Mali let alone individual size packages of the stuff.
Lome was easy enough getting into and the cab driver had a brand new car and well posted fare prices in the parking lot of the airport. We stayed at a hotel about a 10 minute walk from the boarder of Ghana and a 2 minute walk to the ocean. Our hotel was of course the business, and just our luck that night we were there they had a live band who threw down some funky jams while we kicked back some wine. Overall though the stretch of bars on the beach in Lome reminded me of Rocky Point in the winter time. There is so much potential for a huge spring break rage fest but no one is around. The infrastructure is their the thousands of drunk college students is the only thing missing.
Seeing the Black Star on Ghana's border made me feel so happy that I could literally run to a place were they sometimes speak my language, and it truly felt like I was heading home. I also felt rather lethargic and my body ached all over. Krista (one of my foxy companions) diagnosed me with Malaria. I tried to protest. After a cold sweat and debilitating headache I finally agreed to just take her word for it rather than go to a hospital I just took some of her anti-malarials that she had left over from when she had malaria, and she became my doctor. I then got on a 3 hour tro tro ride back to Accra that was terribly painful and I had to go pee the entire ride. I dont remember much of the ride since I was hoped up on malaria prophylactics but it wasn't fun. We eventually made it back to Accra were I set us up at the Coconut Grove Regency Hotel for free!
So that is all for now. Next time details as to why I'm still in Ghana to write this blog, my new job, and probably a joke or two. Happy to be back. Daps to the fam and friends.