Driving at Night!

Last week we visited friends and in wanting to avoid traffic we drove home after 10pm. It seems that 10pm is the witching hour...after that you have police checks all over the place. It should make you feel safer because they have had problems with armed robbery so they are cracking down.

It is an incredible challenge to keep your sense of direction in the daylight but at night it is beyond possible.

Thankfully Tony is comfortable with asking for directions. Every few minutes we would pull to the side of the road and he would yell "hey boss" to any guy on the side of the road (there is always someone on the side of the road). The people are always willing to help...although they don't always know what they are talking about. It was these many good Samaritans who helped to eventually find our way home.

The police checks are a little intimidating, they shine a flashlight into the car while a big rifle is hanging from their shoulder. While Tony was asking one police officer if we were following the right route he reached to point the way and his gun was swinging close to my face....I prefer to sleep over and leave the night driving to somebody else!!

Many of the confusing situations on the road are actually signs of progress. There is construction all over the greater Accra area...once it is finished the roads will be nice (but I'm sure the drivers will still fit 3 lanes in one).
In the meantime, they don't maintain the temporary roads and they just move them around any obstacle. Sometimes it seems you are driving in a circle...or navigating two lanes of traffic between concrete walls and the space is only slightly wider than a sidewalk.

Maps here would be relatively useless, the roads change all the time and there are circles and round-a-bouts with several branches.

Every once in a while you will see a sign board with the direction of the next large town posted with an arrow..but you might get a ways down that road and someone will tell you "oh you shouldn't turn that way because the road is too rough"...so you have to turn back and find your way to an alternate route....once again "Hey Boss"!!

The first time Tony asked a guy for directions he started in English then switched to Twi (the most popular language in the country/outside of the captial) then Ga (the language of the capital) and instead of giving directions the guy said "Hey, where are you from??"...too funny...:)