Ghana Day 16

July 17th - This morning of course we were back at the hotel in Accra. Mid morning I got a call from the front desk that "immigration officers are here and want to talk to you" which sounded pretty alarming, though they added "its just a routine check."
   This kind of routine check had never happened to me before. Just in case I was about to get disappeared I texted Arne to tell him, and he wrote back that he got the call too.
   Down by the lobby there were three middle aged men and one slim young woman in avocado green army uniforms with (blue and yellow?) aguilets (the knotted cord running through the epaulette and under the arm). The men all had the same closely trimmed mustache that extended just to the edges of their mouth -- the woman did not. They wanted to see my passport and ask a few questions, and they also had other foreign guests of the hotel coming down for similar questioning, including Arne. I tried to figure out which of them was in charge, their insignia were inscrutable but I think the quiet one with sunglasses and no rank insignia at all was possibly training one of the other ones because once he seemed to tell him to do something he seemed to have forgotten. Anyway it wasn't a bad experience just odd since I've never had immigration call in at a hotel before to check everyone.

   Courage showed up with a new driver and car (the previous one, Usman, was based in Tamale). This driver seemed instantly more likeable (Usman was just a bit tooo cool and aloof for my liking), but I instantly loathed being in his car -- the back windows were so heavily tinted it was tedious to look out them, and the weird orangish muave color they gave to the outside world was vaguely nauseating. I thought it was just me but after we endured this for two and a half hours and arrived here in the town of Ho Arne reported feeling about the same. I think it took me at least an hour to recover -- I wasn't just traditional car sick but left feeling really out of sorts. It was similar to the effect being near a TV too long that is displaying mindless content has on me, which is a general grumpiness and intense desire to be away from the cause of irritation.
   Anyway halfway along we stopped to look at some baboons along the side of the road, that was fun.
   I'd been looking forward to seeing Lake Volta. For some reason it's a lake I've always wanted to see, maybe just because of the cool sounding name. Our drive took us across a bridge across a narrow southern bay of the lake but of course my view through the window was just a dark mauve view of it. Obviously I could have rolled down the window and in retrospect I wish I had, especially knowing now that Arne had felt similar, but at the time I thought everyone else was enjoying being in a quiet climate controlled car and didn't want to inflict an open window upon them.
   Also we kept encountering, passing us headed the other direction, short motorcades of three or four glossy black landcruisers with red and blue flashing siren lights embedded in the front grill. The first such convoy I thought I must be seeing the president or someone similarly high up, but by the eighth such convoy I was wondering exactly how many ministers rate in importance for such cars.

   Reunited with Courage and his staff here in Ho after not seeing them since Yendi Friday afternoon, which I guess was only about 52 hours earlier, but it was good to seem them again. He's assembled a really fun set of folks and its been a pleasure to work with them, I'll miss them after this (already our thoughts are beginning to turn to "after this" -- its somehow the last week already!!).
   Looks like once again we're at a hotel with barely any internet. And also rock hard beds.