Go Ghana Cycle Challenge: Return to Accra and home

Sunday 9^thOctober: 

This morning I take my final wash in a bucket in Tafo.  At lunchtime we return to Aburi and visit the botanical gardens. There is a derelict helicopter amongst the trees.  Nothing surprises me in Ghana. We also see Peter and Jessica, back in their restaurant and looking far more relaxed than the previous week on the road. 

Later, killing time before our flight home, Claire, Suzi and I gatecrash Tim and KM’s luxury hotel in Accra (they are travelling on the Togo and Benin).   As we enter the enormous marbled lobby a waiter in white shirt and sky blue shorts rollerblades across the hall and out of the glass doors at the far end.  We follow him to a vast swimming pool, surrounded by loungers and staff dedicated to moving umbrellas to provide the perfect angle of shade, and skating round the pool to deliver cooling drinks and hot food in double quick time.  The contrast is bizarre and absurd.  But we are mightily comforted.

If you have read this blog and would like to contribute to the clean water project for Kwahu-Tafo, you can still sponsor me at the following link

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/AlisonParkes 

I thank every one of my sponsors for their valued support.

Post script. Now I am home. And very happy to be so. The challenge was exhausting covering over 400 kilometres and, I’m reliably informed (thanks Neil), involved cycling up hills equivalent to the height of Kilimanjaro, much of it off-road and all of it in equatorial heat.

I’m proud that I took part in this challenge and delighted that the money raised will help those in Tafo. This was my 8th and last cycle challenge. Please, please don’t ask me to do another.  You will be met with a polite but firm refusal.