We're having a lot more trouble finding decent internet connections on this trip so far than we did in Borneo, so I'm afraid that our blog entries are appearing on a slightly eratic basis at the moment. Stick with us! It can only get better as we head deeper into the Ashanti region! Everyone has a real laid back atitude to everything and the place were staying at the moment has a fantastic looking Internet Cafe with 7 or 8 state of the art monitors and keyboards but when I went in there this afternoon I couldn't get any of them to work. I went and asked at reception if anything could be done and was told to pop back in at 6:30 and it would be sorted. Well its 9:00 now and nothing has changed!

After our Jamestown jaunt we went back to Crystal Hostel, which is beginning to feel like home now, and after chatting with some of the guests decided to go to the Osu part of town and try out a restaurant recommended by our guide book. The Buka is a must for first time visitors to Ghana as it offers a range of traditional Ghanian cooking. We thought that sounded good but they closed at 6:00 on a Sunday so we had to get a wiggle on. We are starting to get the gist of haggling with taxi drivers now so we picked a good one and I beat him down from 10 Cedes to 8 and set off feeling very proud of myself.

Its worth a word at this point about the taxis in Accra. I said earlier there are loads of them. Well that's an understatement, a massive understatement! I said to Mandy that I thought that half the cars on the road must be taxis, she said that she thought that the ratio was higher so we had a little wager on it and for twenty minutes as we drove to Osu she counted all the saloon cars that passed us, going the other way and I counted all the taxis. I can't remember the actual numbers of cars but the ratio was two taxis to every private car. Sounds hard to believe but that's not the slightest exaggeration.

The pavements are as crowded with pedestrians as the streets round Twickenham after a rugby match but you don't have to flag a taxi down, as a white person you stand out like a dandylion on a cricket pitch and the drivers are shouting at you the moment you step onto the pavement. " Hey! Obruni, Obruni" (that's "Whiteman" but not intended to be derisory in any way, it's just that they know you have money and they don't) We have not had to wait more than 30 seconds for a taxi any time we've needed one, but we have found that it pays to try and pick a nice one as some of them are absolute heaps. In fact the taxi that brought us back from Jamestown conked out in the middle of a busy junction and the driver and several people who came to help got under the bonnet with screwdrivers and seemed not to notice the cars and buses screaming past in all directions. while we just sat there for five minutes or so. There were no apologies from the driver either, it was just one of those things!

Anyway we got to Osu in about half an hour, 8 Cedes is less than £4 so pretty good value, and our driver eventually found the restaurant we were looking for. It was delightful , situated on an open veranda on the first floor of a smart building next to the old American Embassy. I ordered a Ghanian Salad and Goat Stew and Mandy had Ghanian fried chicken with fried yams. Just befor the food came I was told that there was no Ghanian salad left as it was the end of the evening so would I like peppered Gizzards instead. I didnt quite see the connection myself but thought it would be good to try and I'm glad I did. It was hot and spicy and quite chewy but if you ndidn't look at it too much it was great!

When we left, although we were up a fairly deserted back street, it still took less than the standard 30 seconds for a taxi driver to find us and he had a fairly smart Renault Clio. I haggled again and this time got him down to 7 Cedes as I commented there would be less traffic which he seemed to agree. Any way he got us home in about 20 minutes following a completely different route. Interesting because his route took us past the open air Accra Market, an area about twice the size of Stockbridge containing wall to wall stalls, each one the size of a large parasol. I would say there were more than 2,000 stalls selling everything from fried plantain to mercedes wheel hubs and each stall had at least 3 or 4 people inspecting their wares. What made the whole scene even more remarkable was that the whole area was in darkness and only the very occasional stall had a parafine lamp or in some cases a brazier, it goes dark very suddenly at 6:00 and the time was about 6:45. I found it incredible that anyone could buy anything in the dark but we did discover later that usually the stalls had electric lights but at that time there was one of the many power cuts suffered by this amazing city

So the end of our first day drew to a close and after sharing our experiences with our fellow travellers in the hostel compound we retired to bed at about 9:00 thoroughly worn out.