After changing the date of our honeymoon twice so that I could have a week of intensive French tutoring, our bags were packed and we were finally on our way to Ghana. We had done our research and were assured that a bus leaves from our closest “city” to Kumasi once a week. We had even seen this STC bus with our own eyes and Josh talked to the driver about leave times and all. So we were very confused when we giddily biked into the bus station and found no bus. We asked around- one man seemed confused as to the possibility of a car to Ghana at all, one man told us it didn’t come this week, and one said it would be here tomorrow. Desperate and determined to get to Ghana today, we started asking every bush taxi we could find about where they were going and how we could get to Kumasi. Luckily, the second car we asked was going to a nearby village where we could get a car to Ghana. Not exactly what I had spent hours planning, but as long as we got to the glorious land of English and beaches I was ok. We deposed our bikes and almost immediately left, a rarity around here, to the nearby village where our closest neighbor volunteer lives.
There we waited, and waited, for the car to fill up. After an hour or so the driver turned on the car and we started driving- Finally!- only to stop just out side the market area and wait for almost another hour. By this point I had hoped to be hours into Ghana, but, hey, what can you do. When we finally left it all seemed like smooth sailing from there. Josh and I were sharing the front seat and we were squished, but at least we only squished by each other. There was no stopping at the border, we realized we had left Burkina and were in Ghana when I started noticing power lines running to mud-brick houses and street signs were in English. Glorious English! After about a 20 or 30 minute drive we hit a paved road. After 45 minutes to an hour we were in Bawku, where the bush taxi dropped us off and a man was waiting for us with tickets for a bus to Kumasi. Apparently the taxi men work with the bus men and had called ahead for us and a few other people, reserving us spots. We had just enough time to go to the bathroom and try to buy water and a snack, only to realize we only had big bills and could buy nothing, before the bus left. The drive to Kumasi takes several hours and I was glad to get going. Things were looking up.
After about an hour or so the bus stopped. Most of the people got off, but not all, and there were food ladies and whatnot on the side of the road. Not knowing what was going on I tried to see where the people were going- was this a check point or a food break?- and that’s when I spotted a boarder guard, and he spotted me. He signed for us to get off the bus. As we walked up to him he asked for our passports; that’s fine, we had gone through painstaking measures to get visas 2 weeks before. He leafed through them and then took us to his boss who was resting in the shade under a tree. He leafed through them and then asked us where our stamp was. I pointed to the visa. No, the stamp, the entry stamp, that you get at the border? What entry stamp, you are the first Ghanaian officials we’ve seen, there was no border? He seemed confused and told us we had to go back, to wherever we came from, and get a stamp. Go back where, Bawku? He told us we had to go back to the border to get our passports stamped, we couldn’t do it in Bawku. I tried to stay calm and explain to him where we had crossed and that there was no checkpoint, no immigrations, no police station, nothing. It is a small road that is used daily by villagers to cross between Ghana and Burkina. We also told him we were Peace Corps volunteers and lived there, not tourists in Africa. He took us into a practically empty, of anything, office building and another man brought out border papers while the boss man made a phone call about the situation. He explained to the phone that he had 2 PCVs that had come into the country on a village road and did not have their passports stamped, could they stamp it there? The phone said no, we had to get off the bus and turn around. You have got to be kidding me! This means we not only have to go back from which we came, but go all the way to Ouaga and back down to Ghana on a different road to the main border crossing to get this stamp, an 8 or more hour detour. I am almost in tears, I just want to get to the beach. Josh asks the officer to help us get our money back for the expensive bus ticket and an officer escorts us back to the bus to talk to the driver. As the officer announces to the entire bus, who is waiting solely on us, that “he is very sorry for the wait, but the white people don’t have their papers in order and have to get off the bus,” the other officer gets a phone call with the authorization to stamp us. Thank God! He leads us back to the office and we fill out a small pink paper that barley asks for anything but our signature and the man stamps the date into our passports. All of that just for this? Good grief! The entire bus glares at us as we sheepishly take our seats, and we’re off.
After a few hours, about halfway to Kumasi, the bus gurgles and stops. A break down. Everyone piles off the bus and finds shade along the side of the road; there is literally nothing around, we’re in the middle of nowhere. I’m not too worried though, we’ve done this drill before when our bus was rear-ended or the time we got a flat tire- we’ll wait in the shade while they fix it and in a short time we’ll be on the road again- and I’ve got a book. Worst case scenario another bus will come to get us. We wait several hours and no one seems to know what’s going on. People start sleeping along the side of the road. Josh starts getting worried and goes in search of information. I’m fine, I’ve got the Henry Miller book I’ve been saving just for this trip- I’m good. Josh comes back with the news that they can’t fix the bus, and can’t decide whether to call in another bus or send for a mechanic from Kumasi- either of which is several hours away. I keep on reading. Finally, after an absurd amount of time and far longer then any person wants to be stuck on the side of the road in the middle of a foreign country, another bus rescues us. It takes another 3 or 4 hours to get to Kumasi, but at least we made it there.
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