Hey Andrew, Hell I tell you this morning we couldn’t get out of bed…… The stress for me in particular (ironic from the right seat I know) knocked the socks off me and I was dead on arrival at the hotel. Slept like the dead is what I would call it.
Tracking back a bit Luanda is a proper sh!thole. Much like Maputo…. No offense to anyone but I am glad to have got out of there.
Landing at Accra in the dark was quite something. We came in at around 10pm, hit some clouds and wind that shook us around quite a bit, but the massive, brightly lit runway was hard to miss and Mike performed like a true aviator! It was a great moment of relief and triumph for the both of us.
Finding Avgas in Accra is proving to be a bit of a problem. Only three people in the country have it and they’re selling it for R65 per litre (US$6.50). So thanks to Andrew doing some research and making some phone calls we met up with Sam Winful(a super huge thank you to Sam, we couldn’t have done it without you!) from Mish Aviation who helped us get Mogas. But……. the only way to get it was to go back and forth with a few 25 litre canisters to a place half way to Cairo with no car so we only finished fuelling up at around noon. It was too late to take off for Dakar so we decided to stay and do some work on the engine – change the oil, reset the prop pitch a bit finer.
By 4pm we were exhausted, having woken up this morning at 5am (got to bed around 1am). And just when we really wanted nothing but to get back to the hotel to rest up for tomorrow’s flight, this Rambo customs official wouldn’t let us through and we spent the better part of an hour trying to convince him that we were pilots and that we weren’t in the country illegally. Eventually he let us go. If anyone wants to get through customs easily, remember to wear your pilot shirt with the Epaulette’s showing. This morning we were wearing them and the customs officials let us through without even checking our passports or crew cards. This afternoon after working on the engine we were back in normal clothes and they treated us like scum… The right clothes get you places. So from now on we’re not going anywhere without our pilot uniforms 😉
Other than that, Ghana seems to be a really nice place with very friendly people. I highly recommend a visit.
