Bolgatanga (Sheena's northernmost point)

It’s the 7^th of July today, so happy birthday to my dearest mummy. Yesterday was spent at Bolgatanga, the northernmost point of my trip here in Ghana. It’s a regional transport interchange between Tamale and towns further north (Paga the crocodile town) and further east to the border with Togo. Unfortunately, I was one day late and missed the market day. That’s when the town comes to life I guess. When I reached Bolga (as the locals call it), it was about 10 am in the morning and boy was it almost a dead town. Nothing was going on and apparently, there have been quite a few drastic changes in town since the Bradt guide people last visited it in 2004. I got quite lost in my first 15minutes there but later asked some ‘sisters’ (that’s how you should address the ladies here) and got directed to the market. It was dead quiet with only traders selling the absolute essentials of fruits and veg and spices. Unfortunately, what I was interested in, straw baskets, leather goods and traders with straw hats piled on high on their heads and Fugu shirts (stripped shirts) by the Frafra people were no where to be seen. So, I decided to just look for the bookshops to find at least 1 good novel to bring to Mole for light reading since I’ll be there from Friday till Tuesday. Unfortunately, all the mentioned bookshops were no longer in existence, neither was the forex. So, I had a really long lunch at the diplomat, next door to the former Readwise bookshop. But on my way there, I found a shop selling some leather bags. They’re not the usual designs you get back home, unless you’re talking about Camden markets. So, I browsed a little and later went back to buy 4 bags and 1 cowboy hat for 200,000 cedis in all. Not too bad for genuine pure leather. Yeah, that was about all and off I went back to Tamale after a mere 5 hours at Bolga. I should have been there one day earlier. That would have made much more of a difference.

 

Anyway, rather excited about Mole from Friday! Tamale has lots of cheap things to buy and they’re useful too! Imagine, plastic lunch boxes for US$0.25???? Yeah, we got one each for packing lunch J Alright then! Take care everyone! And to the chi, look out for a card coming your way (via Lishan).

 

-Sheena

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