While plans are made to be broken, sometimes, just sometimes, it would be nice if plans actually played out the way we envision. But as the saying goes: TIA. This is Africa. And that means plans -- even the most simple, basic ones -- will never play out the way we want them to.
With that in mind, we set out on our 'vacation' to Ghana...
The main border crossing at Lomé/Aflao is crazy. Nuts. And seeing that we wanted to visit Kpalime (a beautiful town 120 km's north of Lomé) it only makes sense to cross to Ghana from Kpalime. We heard that the border was quiet and calm, unlike the chaotic madness playing out to the south.
So we drove to Kpalime, eager to get our 'new' Land Cruiser on the road. We stayed at a fantastic hotel, Chez Fanny, which also serves a mouthwatering dinner.
After a leisurely breakfast, we filled up the tank and rode off toward the border crossing. As the road got narrower and narrower and the potholes became larger than the rest of the road, we wondered if we were on the right track. But sure enough, eventually the border post came into view.
And sure enough, the guards were relaxed, friendly and smiling. We were stamped out of Togo with remarkable ease and made our way to the Ghana entry point, where the guards were equally casual.
As we were filling out our Ghana entry forms, the guard in charge of vehicle entry meandered up to us and asked if we already had our entry stamp in our passports. No, we had not yet gotten that far.
"Good. I'm sorry, but we can not let you enter."
"Um. Excuse me, could you say that again and elaborate? What do you mean you can't let us in? Is there something wrong with our papers?"
"No, all your papers for the are in order, except the Ghanaian Government has changed the procedure for out-of-country vehicles entering Ghana. We used to take down the C59 temporary import information and send it to Accra, but now everything must be done by computer, and we don't have the computer. In fact, the only crossing is at Aflao. You'll have to turn back."
"That's a 3 hour drive -- and we just came here to AVOID that."
"We really are sorry, and we wish the government would give it's own workers the tools they need to do their job, but we can't. Please tell everyone you know that the Ghanaian government is not taking care of their own workers. It embarrasses us that we need to turn people away. Please tell everyone you know."
With that unfortunate news, we turned back to the Togo border post, and got stamped back into Togo. (Upon closer inspection later, it turns out they used the exit stamp and stamped us out a second time.)
And so, what was supposed to be the most easy, relaxing border crossing of all was beginning to turn into a quagmire.
About a kilometre before you reach the border crossing at Lomé/Aflao, you can sense the chaos about to unleash itself. People are everywhere. Lorries waiting for their paperwork to be processed line the already narrow street. As soon as you step out of the vehicle no less than half-a-dozen people offer to be your handler.
A handler at a border crossing? How hard can it be? Stamp this, sign that, paperwork this, and exit -- right?
Wrong.
No building is labelled. And so, we did indeed need the help of a handler to find out where on earth to get our passports stamped. And then, while money changers hissed at us, we navigated our way to the vehicle registration building.
A lady who was stuffed into a uniform much to small for her stature rolled her eyes as we entered the stuffy office. The male officials were off watching football on TV. She took our entry forms, took our photos and mumbled something incoherent.
"Excuse me? Could you say that again?"
She sighed. It sounded like she was saying 'such a bother, working.'
"Go ... office ... wait there."
"Uh. You want us to go to that office and wait there?"
Another sigh.
A few moments later, an imposing dishevelled looking middle aged man with lots of stars and bars on his rumpled and unbuttoned uniform entered the office. Without a word he grabbed our passports, and was fumbling through the contents of his desk drawer, presumably looking for a stamp pad, when his mobile rang.
He ignored it at first, looking determinedly for the stamp pad, but the customized tune won out, and he frantically groped himself looking for his phone.
He found it just as the caller hung up. Speaking for the first time, the border guard, who knew we were North American decided to show off his Westernized English using a vocabulary comprised of four-letter words. You'd have thought he just shot himself in the foot, not a missed call.
He then proceeded to drop the phone. And let loose again.
Passports stamped, we exited the no-name office. It was now that we realized that money sellers have no memory, either that or all pale skinned folk look alike. TSSSSSSSSSSS! You need Cedis? We have Cedis. You buy.
"We already said no. Why are you asking us again?"
It can't be that we all look alike, we were the only two Yovo's in the area. With the money changers still in our faces, trying to push wads of Cedi's up our nostrils, we made our way back to the Land Cruiser. We noticed that our handler had gained an accomplice.
Though she wasn't so helpful as he was. She quickly insisted that it would cost 1,000,000 CFA ($2,000) to register the vehicle and that we should give her the money so she could begin the process.
We asked a bored official where to go to register the Land Cruiser.
Go past this building, walk past the next one, you'll see a road, walk down that road till you see a sign to the revenue office, look right and you'll see a building with big flags. That's the one.
Are you kidding me. This is THE border crossing. Why are the offices not in one logical straight line?We did find the office, and managed to lose the handler's shady cohort -- we left her with the bored official, who was giving her an earful in Ewe after we happened to mention, with a directional nod, that
someone told us it they would take 1,000,000 CFA to register our vehicle for us.
'It's only 10,500 CFA ($20)-- a far cry from one million -- and we are to do it ourselves,' he informed us. A helpful, kind person. Little did we know how rare those were at this border.
We step up to the counter and hand over all the paperwork -- still in the same order as when the guards looked at it in Kpalime earlier that day.
"Where is your insurance card," the guard barked.
"The insurance sticker is in the window, where it belongs."
"NO, WHERE IS THE ECOWAS BROWN CARD," he hollered. There was no football game muted on the TV here, a TV preacher was blasting as loud as the poor speakers could handle.
Why did the other border guards say we had everything in order, if the brown book was missing? We called Robert, and asked if he knew anything about such a book. Indeed he did, it's a document that he forgot to give it to us when he gave us all the paperwork.
"I'm sending someone to the border with it right now. But you may have some explaining to do, even with this. I hope you get across."
Great. It's dark now. IF we make it across, we'll be driving in a strange country at night. And what did Robert mean, we'll have some explaining to do? We waited, mulling over our options. Maybe we should just give up for the day and go sleep in our own bed. It's only 20 minutes away. We've been at this border for over 2 hours already, if we give up now, we're liable to never come back, because it is such a hassle.
The ECOWAS BROWN CARD arrives, and the potential problem is glaringly evident. Insurance in Togo sticks with the vehicle -- it's more of a useless formality than actually providing insurance -- and while the insurance company knows the car has been sold, they won't give out a new booklet until the old insurance expires. But plastered all over the brown card booklet is the previous owners' name.
Confidently we stride up to the counter and pronounce that the Brown Card is here, and we're ready to go. The guard painstakingly analyses the contents. Great. He's seen the name.
"Who is this," he demands, jabbing his finger at the name.
"It's the previous owner of this car," I say, jabbing my finger at the line that shows the licence plate number. "See, it's for this car. And it's valid," I reason, jabbing at the expiration date.
"But it's not you."
"But it's for this car."
"But it's someone else."
"That someone else used to own the car, and the insurance is for the car, not them."
"But it's not yours."
"The insurance company won't give us a new booklet until this one expires," I say, jabbing at the date again.
"It's done differently in Ghana."
"I know. We're Canadians. We think Togo's way of doing it is strange, but what can we do.. we have to follow their rules."
"I'm sorry, I can't let you in."
And round and round it went, until Natalie -- who had been unnervingly quiet -- piped up.
"We're coming to Ghana to buy plane tickets so we can see our families. Do you want to keep us from our families? This is Christmas time, and we're all alone," she proclaimed, her lip trembling and her eyes watering -- capitalizing on the fact that family means a lot culturally.
His eyes narrowed, he sucked in his breath and with one last sideways glance at the name on the brown card, he stamped the C59 form and sent us off to the revenue office.
We sat at the revenue office for 20 minutes before anyone noticed we were there. Oh, there were plenty of border officials, but they were all eating dinner. Guards of a lower rank were busy delivering flats of Coca Cola and Fanta to their superiors.
One man finally took us to his office and typed the particulars of the C59 form into his computer (this is the part of the process that kept us from entering Ghana from Kpalime) while regaling us with tales of great Ewe cuisine.
We waited another 20 minute in a mosquito infested room surrounded by massive columns of ledgers. Upon closer inspection, these ledgers contain all the vehicle and driver information of people travelling to Ghana -- including licence plates, passport numbers, occupation, and contact info. Good to know it it stored safely.
The cuisine expert hands us the form with a bill, which we take to the ECOWAS bank building next door, pay up and then take the receipt from that transaction back to the building with the flags and the grumpy hollering guard.
Grumpy stamps the form once again, and says the words we've been waiting to hear for four hours -- "OK, you can proceed to the exit now."
We race to the exit before anyone can change their mind. But Ghana won't let us get in that easy. Turns out grumpy lied.
"Where is your vehicle inspection stamp," the guard queries, shining his barely functioning flashlight into our faces. "You must go back and have your vehicle inspected."
"The officer at the customs office told us to come here," we plead.
"No, you must go and get your vehicle inspected. Turn around and go back to the beginning."
It sounds disheartening, and our hearts did sink to our toes. But what the officer was saying in African English was that the inspection office was back at the beginning. As in, the beginning of the border chaos, back where we got our entry passports stamped. A fine testament to the insanity and incomprehensible lunacy of whoever designed the border crossing.
At the inspection office, we are greeted by a friendly, familiar face that is twisted in shocked confusion.
It's the friendly guard who pointed us in the right direction earlier and saved us from dealing with the handler's corrupt cohort.
"WHAT are you still doing here," he queried empathetically.
"Your border is a mess. We've been here for four hours, and while all our paperwork is in legal order, we're dragged from office to office and denied and delayed to the brink of insanity," we honestly tell him.
Without moving from his wicket, the guard breathed an apology for his incompetent colleagues, stamped the form one last time and bid us a safe journey into the warm Ghanaian night. Little did we know the adventure was just beginning.
