A taste of down town Tamale with a two night stay at the Picorna Hotel affording a glimpse of local street life. Then some shopping and passage home to Kumasi – February 23 and 24, 2013
PICORNA HOTEL
A step up from Asempa, the Picorna Hotel (billed as ‘the home of happiness’) is located in the downtown Tamale business district across from a bustling market and featured some interesting life-sized sculptures. No donkey poo, though. Bob joined the band of slightly bemused musicians shortly after sunrise.
BLENDING IN
We’re afraid we like to pose with hotel art. Camille fit right in with the speak no evil, see no evil, hear no evil monkeys. Not… And Jeremy’s favorite sculpture stands right outside the front entrance, maybe it’s “Feed No Evil”.
SHEEP AND SCOOTERS
One major difference between Tamale and Kumasi is the prevalence of sheep, motorcycles and bicycles. And lack of potholes. Kumasi is more about goats, cabs and tro tros. Friday night must have been mutton market night because the street outside of the hotel was full of small herds of sheep. We watched, incredulous as they loaded selected sheep onto the tops of tro tros and took them away. Surely they would fall off. we thought and yet, the animals seemed quite comfortable on their perch and the streets were not littered with fallen sheep. When we saw this tuk tuk coming up the street towards us it looked like they were hauling a house but it turned out to be only two large couches.
PEE AND ORANGES
No correlation. Unless Leonard Cohen’s song, “Suzanne” comes to mind. Seriously, this is just two random photos taken minutes apart. One minute we were wondering how badly one would have to go to make use of this public facility and the next we were impressed by the confidence and balance of a woman peddling a bicycle with a pan of oranges on her head.
ART MARKET
A little bit of fun and shopping at the local art market. We picked up baskets, jewelry, sling shots and more. Bob and Amy chatted up a Rasta artist named Idi, On the right, Bob tried on a ceremonial hat of the same type he donned nearly 40 years ago.
COLWOD
We heard about the organization that provides education and employment to women in distress; Collaboration with Women in Distress (COLWOD) and drove out to see what they were up to. They had a neat little store full of crafty things so we purchased as much as we could carry. Fabrics printed in batik with elephants and horses, aprons, head bands, purses, wall art, and some very fun pairs of colorful pants. Nothing high tech about their methods either.
BEGINNING AND END
The trip home took ten hours as our plane tickets were useless against a jet fuel shortage and we decided to take the first bus out of Tamale Sunday morning. This saga earned three blog posts on Plastic Farm Animals. Read about it here: Part I, Part II, and Part III
HOME TO OUR OWN BED
After a week away we were more than ready to reach our own bed. As a reward for patiently awaiting our return, we introduced our old bed to a new patchwork coverlet that we purchased in Tamale.
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[Latest] * [Troutsfarm] * [Green Ranch] * [FS2BD February] * [Journey to Asempa] * [Mole National Park] * [First Two Safaris] * [Final Safari] * [Meeting Savannah Plants] * [Mbanayili Village] * [ Tamale]
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