the search continues...

We're now in the Volta Region in eastern Ghana, and just spent a couple of nights in a beautiful mountain-top village called Amedzofe. It has its own dialect which is only shared with seven neighbouring villages – so in total only about 30,000 people speak it. They also speak a better-known regional language, Ewe (which is fairly common in Togo as well), and English (if they're been able to go to school). Our guide, who originated from the Central region could speak Twi, some French and Ga, and another one I can't remember – so about seven languages in total! And we thought the Dutch and the Swiss were impressive...

Apart from the lovely climate, the beautiful little mountain and the waterfalls, the other cool thing about Amedzofe is its community tourism project – you stay in a spare room in someone's house and some of the money you pay for accommodation and guides goes to the whole village. I think this is why we found people were very laid-back about us yovos/obrunis – they were quite friendly, but without the usual thing of asking for your address as soon as you say hello. We stayed at a house owned by an ancient woman called Mathilda, and went to the house of another very old woman called Betty for meals – she has worked as a caterer in several different US embassies in West Africa, and I think (it wasn't easy to understand her) she said she's cooked for the Marcoses and Bob Marley, although we didn't think he'd been to West Africa (surely we would've heard about it by now!) so Dave thought it might have been a diplomat with a similar-sounding name. Anyway, she served the most massive portions of food which almost defeated us.

On our first night in Amedzofe there was more torrential tropical rain, which started in the afternoon this time. There was a bit of lightning and distant thunder but it didn't really seem like a serious storm was close by... until I was sitting next to the window and suddenly heard a sound like an earsplitting gun shot that seemed to ricochet off several buildings, accompanied by a bluish flash. Turns out lightning had struck nearby – not next door as I first thought, but the TV transmission tower which was still pretty close. Mathilda came to see if we were okay – I was amazed she hadn't had a heart attack!

The drive up to Amedzofe was terrifying, because not only was it the kind of narrow, windy mountain road with a steep descent down one side that I hate, but there were more potholes than bitumen (apparently there was some funding to seal it properly a few years ago but the construction company absconded with the cash). AND we were in a tro-tro, the main public transport here, which is just a large decrepit van stuff to the gills with people and goods. Fortunately I was distracted by an interesting conversation with a man called Owen who wanted to know what Dave and I thought of the Iraq situation, given that we both come from countries that supported the war. Of course we both relish hearing what people here think about that, and since I've been in Africa it's become more clear how the whole Iraq issue has stirred anti-US feelings just about everywhere in the developing world - even in a very Christian region like southern Ghana, which receives a lot of aid from the West (although admittedly the vast majority from Europe), it's pretty unanimous.

The drive back down was with a good old classic Beninoise-style 'taxi-brousse': a Peugeot station wagon (estate car) with an extra row of seats in the back. In Benin it was relatively comfortable to squash together in the front seat of one of these - at least, preferable to the more common situation of being jammed in the back seat of a smaller sedan with at least two other adults – but it's not a patch on the relative luxury of tro-tros. It's a corny thing to say but the road trips are sometimes the most interesting part of the journey here. This time, our door didn't close so we had to hold it, and the tyre blew out on the way and we rolled the last few hundred metres towards Ho... so it was a pretty typical journey. But on the plus side, we've rarely had to wait more than 20 minutes to for the next tro-tro/bush taxi, even for long trips.

Now we're off to try and make it to Kumasi by tonight - two trips totalling 7 hours. Wish us luck...