It won't come as any surprise to know that at last today has come with a bit of relief. No more sleeps until we are out of **** D'Ivoire. We have the night flight tonight and the day begins by saying goodbye to the place by the sea. It hasn't shown up on my map - I did try but I kept coming up with San Pedro's in South America so gave up. We are about 20 km to the east of Liberia in a port town full of cacao factories. I have had little sleep again as when swi...

Just as you thought things couldn't get any better, they have! We spent the equivalent of driving from London to Glasgow yesterday but we're still upbeat for our early morning visit to the park and the chimps. All set and prepared for wading through leech filled swamps in my size 3 gold pumps, i waited for the ranger. We had been told 7am so were all patiently waiting, to be told he was still in bed. An hour and a half later we were off. 300m down the road we s...

A happier start to the day as I find that after counting my cereal bars, I can have 2 today and 2 tomorrow plus still have one left over! It is 28c at 7am as we leave to go to Tai National Park. This is to the very west and is in Cote D'Ivoire / Liberia. It is somewhere I have wanted to go to for ages as it is 40 km square (is that big, I have no idea?) of original rainforest and jungle, with tons of birds, Pygmy hippos, chimps and leopard. We have had to take a ...

Today did not start well. As you will probably gather we are not staying in the Ritz or even the Travel Lodge of Cote D'Ivoire and I got up only to whack my head on the corner of a piece of wood. This was swiftly followed by going to the loo barefoot and nearly stepping on the grandmother of cockroaches leering at me. We have yet another massively long journey ahead, the reason being Ritchie, because this country has about 4 main roads with 2 towns having the cr...

As there is no wifi here, I am using my iPad to make these notes. Somehow or other I went back to yesterday's entry and found just a snowman emoticon and a party popper. So I have just had to rewrite it all. There has been a flying ant invasion here overnight and there are literally carpets of them everywhere about 3 deep. Another change of menu perhaps. We are back to Yamoussoukro today, the weird capital in the middle of the country. This is where cassava and ...