Border controls

In order to see a bit more of Burkina and not to rush straight to the sea in Ghana we took the long way down. The road to Leo (town not person) is as many Burkina road rather uneventful. Leo is a small market town at the border. Almost immediately after Leo the road became a dirtroad after about 15 k we came at the border control. To our surprise the Ghana side of the border! We missed the Burkina side and drove 15 k through no-mans-land illegally. So we had to go up and down the same road again.

How can this happen? A short explanation. In most african countries there are police controls throughout the country, as is the case in Burkina. Here most posts consist of a sign in the middle of the road, or at the side and a policeman (sometimes accompanied by friends) sitting, hanging, drinking tea or lying down. So when there was a small sign after Leo and no sign of an office or even an official we assumed that this was a police post. The customs guy was very surprised; how could we have missed the 20 year old sign 20 meters from the road on an ordinary building? It is a shame you have to be polite to these people and humor is often not appreciated, so we gave a hint the a bigger sign might not be a bad idea.




























The Ghana customs of cause laughed at their Burkinabé collegues and took their time giving us a stamp and papers for the car. Because I forget the letter from the embassy I had to pay a small fee for the car papers, luckily we could pay in Francs, so we got 1 pound worth of change in Ghana Cedis, which at that point was our only local cash.

We were prepared for a lunch on the road so no problem. From part of our fortune we bought a local (sweet) bread. The next small town did not have money changing facilities either.
After a reasonable, but bumpy road we arrived in Wa, not a bid deal, but they did have cash machines. Nowadays you can pin with your Visa card in all of Ghanas bigger towns.