Part I: Farewell to Mad fish and Tearful crocs.

We woke early, as is becoming usual for us now. It gets light just after five and it is quite normal for us to be wide awake by then. Everybody else is up and about by then, too, including the guy feeding the Mad Fish outside our door. This is a very noisy affair with the thousands of fish splashing and gulping. Mandy reckons he does it several times during the night as well although I haven't heard him.

We went down to breakfast. John has finally learnt his lesson with the eggs and stuck to toast and Imodium. I had jam with mine. We said our goodbyes to the still disappointed Croc's and waited for our taxi. John is sure he saw one shed a tear as we left. M

We had booked Kwamie to take us to Bosumtwe. With my dicky tummy and the rather unpleasant journey on the bus from Accra still fresh in our memory, we had decided on a little comfort for this journey. Kwame turned up just after eight, more or less as arranged and we set off, a luxury ride to Lake Bosumtwe, air con and all, although no sooner had we got on the road Kwamie asked if it would be ok for him to pick his little girl up and drop her at school. Of course we agreed, and he stopped at his shack about a mile up the road. Shortly he brought out a beautiful little girl, about 2 and a half years old. She was dressed in an immaculately clean, bright orange uniform and her face turned to pure horror when she realised that there were two obruni in Daddy's car! She eventually settled down to a game of the international favorite, "peek-a-boo" and very soon we had dropped her off at her school. We made another short but interesting diversion then, into the grounds of the nearby Cape Coast University, where Kwame told us there was a cash machine. There was a small problem here as presumably this was a machine for students and the maximum payout was set at only 90 Cides.

We rolled Northwards along what is listed in our guide book as a good road connecting two of Ghana's largest cities, Cape Coats and Kumasi. The road was about the width of a good three lane British A road flanked on either side by low jungle and occasional villages of tin and mud and concrete shacks. In Ghana you are supposed to drive on the right but I think this would be better described as "you are supposed to try to pass oncoming vehicles on the right but if you can't it doesn't really matter". The rules of the road are fairly vague, which is good really as it is difficult to stick to rules when the road is full of three foot potholes. We often spent three to four minutes on the wrong side of the road avoiding holes or piles of sand, or rocks and I might point out that the road was far from quiet. Mandy for once realised the futility of worrying and simply concentrated on her book, while I sat fixated by the passing scenery and trying to absorb every last feature of this unfamiliar world.

There was a fair smattering of broken down lorries littering the road which had simply given up the ghost, trying to pull the massive loads with which they had been laden. These weren't the sort of lorries with which we are familiar in the UK, but huge rusting monsters capable of hauling two or three times the current legal maximum at home. They look as if they have been plying their trade here for thirty or forty years or more. Often we spotted a driver or mechanic lying underneath the expired hulks trying to breathe new life into them with a crowbar and a big hammer. On one occasion we saw a car that had been unable to avoid one of the huge potholes and had completely lost a wheel, leaving a trail of debris for a hundred yards behind it before it had finally come to rest. After about two hours Kwame announced that he was going to stop at a nice place for a rest and pulled into a large parking area. There was a large "Chop Stall" (Ghanaian fast food shop) serving fish or chicken stew with cassava or maize porridge in plastic bowls. Drivers were taking their food to eat at tiny tables and chairs set out under some shady trees. The heat has really diminished our appetites and I opted for a plantain grilled on a charcoal barbeque. It was a little bland but delicious none the less. Mandy opted for a camel, not cooked, smoked! We watched the comings and goings for a while as our driver had his food. There were dozens of girls carrying the usual huge trays of snacks and drinks on their heads and every time the traffic stopped to negotiate the nearby road-works they rushed into the road and sold their goods to the waiting drivers and their passengers.

Well rested, we pulled out of the "Ashanti Rest Area" after about twenty minutes and in another two hours we were in Kuntanse where we turned left towards Obono, the only town on Lake Bosumtwe. As we drove down the steep decline, which is the only road into this impact crater (It must have been a hell of a meteor that made this!) the stunning views over the 25 square kilometer lake set in a perfect ring of forested mountains announced to us that we were arriving in a very special place. We were nearly at the bottom of the hill when what little tarmac there was on the road ran out and the road became a rutted, muddy and rocky track along the shore of the lake, passing through three villages looking even more impoverished than any we had yet seen. A further two miles or so along a very bumpy track, much of it driven at less than walking pace, and without a single complaint from Kwame, and we arrived at Rainbow Garden Village. I can't imagine Judd Savage, our taxi driver from Stockbridge doing that journey without a grumble.