Tamale

We reached Tamale at around 11.30pm & so were a bit worried about finding a place to stay. We'd been calling various hotels from the bus but hadn't been successful. This was partly because we were just unable to get through on some of the numbers which was due to the fact that the area codes had changed throughout Ghana recently. (We were later able to find a list of all the area code changes for future hotel bookings). Luckily there was a lovely girl on the bus who knew of a hotel, Al Hassan hotel, where there'd be rooms available & she led us & a few other backpackers to it. It turned out to be in a great location as all the other hotels needed cars it seemed.

There is no clear reason to stay in Tamale, just a stopping point to go on to Mole National Park, but we spent a couple of nights here anyway.  

Tamale is just a four lane highway for a person with a backpack. The city sprawls for about 10 kilometers. The hotels are generally for NGOs and the other hotels on the outskirts of the city are more like motels for "other activities"

Our room

Door to our room. The lock was actually hanging on a thin piece of rusted metal.

Fan Milk guy-a kind of ice cream sold from a cooler which you suck out of the corner of a sachet.
It is the perfect thing for cooling you down.

Open drains run along the sides of the roads. Children bathe in them, animals eat from them...

Goats...always..everywhere

 Obama everywhere

Pre fire festival celebrations. The local lads march through the town waving machetes!

We did not see many cows

Water girl-Drinking water from sachets is a lot cheaper than bottles, about 3 cents per sachet

Very typical-newspaper given to you for a few cents which is tossed around the room after use for the ants & flies!

On a bus journey you will never go hungry

Road to our hotel