The first time I cut my own hair - a true story from January 2012

James and I were planning the trip of a lifetime. We had 2 weeks to toss the ideas around, and then 10 full days of solid planning. With that much dedication, that much research, what could go wrong? Everything it seems, everything that could go wrong. And so right at the same time. In hindsight luck was on our side.

Madrid was our location, Accra was our destination and 6 weeks was our time frame.

Overland was our passage.

Mum left Madrid on January the 7^th 2012. And I had organised to be in Accra, Ghana by early March. James, as James does had a brilliant idea. We would travel by bus and train, overland from Madrid to Accra, where he would see me off, then he would continue traveling through Africa alone, and meet me back in Accra 5 months later, where we would journey back to Europe.

Mum was in tatters when she said goodbye at the airport. No amount of persuading could stop us, no amount of mum’s advice could deter us; we were set and ready to roll. With no idea.

We checked into a small hostel in Madrid, about a 10 minute walk to Plaza del Sol and the rest of central Madrid. I really enjoyed Madrid, more so the second time around. I found the city to be an architectural delight, the food was wonderful and of course, the sun was shining.

We had a fairly decent list of to dos before our departure. The first job, to purchase a lonely planet guide, or equivalent for West Africa. What countries would we be travelling through? Where exactly is Ghana? How long will this take us? Sierra Leone? Cote d Voir? Holy shit, we’d heard about these countries from movies like Blood Diamond, were we actually serious about travelling through there? Don’t they carry machine guns? And chop people’s hands off?

That can’t be everyone, there’s gotta be some nice people around. I mean, look at those beaches! Look at the scenery. We can’t not go for the sake of a couple of stories we’d heard.

So after the initial shock, we decided to have a look at stories from other travellers, where had they gone, what had they done, what had they experienced?

We found a few blogs and websites by some travellers in recent years. 2 guys from Denmark, I think travelled overland across Europe and down through West Africa down to South Africa for the 2010 Would Cup. They seemed to have an amazing time, their journey, their stories and their advice was really quite helpful.

We found a few more stories, tips and advice. We read through it in the evenings sitting in the little café come bar below our hostel. The more we read the more confident we got, why couldn’t we spend 8 hours crossing one border in the Sahara? And the ideas grew, the more we learnt about the possibilities, suddenly we were going to take the Iron Ore train 12 hours right into the thick of Mauritania, across to Timbuctoo. Then trudge our way through the dessert into Mali and onto Burkina Faso, then south into Ghana and over to Accra. What happened to the beaches?

By the request of mum, we checked government travel advice websites. The Australian Government website had West Africa as a NO GO ZONE, completely in red. We checked why and they listed a kidnapping somewhere in the middle. The British Government website had specific areas not to visit, don’t visit Timbuctoo, 2 Brits were kidnapped and murdered in this area.

Ok so Timbuctoo is off the list. Thanks mum.

Through our extensive research, it seemed all visas could be gained at either the borders or at the capital cities on our way through. From what we read, it all seemed a piece of cake. We would get the Ghana visa in Madrid, as that was the most important one, the one I needed for the longest time, and James needed to use his to re-enter.

We found the Ghanaian embassy after a monstrous trek. The Madrid train line, changing trains and navigating through what can be best described as the international business district. I remember, we asked the concierge outside quite a swanky hotel if he could direct us, he just waved us off up the street; another a little further up took us inside to their information desk and showed us on the map where to go. The building, as I remember, was almost completely unmarked.

I have walked into many unmarked buildings on my travels looking for something; a hostel, a doctor, a person, a café. My memory, which could be off as it is more than 3 years ago that I am writing about, we walked into this building which only had the street number outside, no indication it hosted the Ghanaian Embassy. We walked into this building and I think it had a large sign indicating its occupants, the levels on one side and who was there on the other, level 3 or maybe 5 was the Ghanaian Embassy. My memory shows the scene from Men In Black, the headquarters, a man sitting in the corridor and a large exhaust fan at the end of the hall. My memory makes me feel that sense of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, intruding on someone else’s life and happenings.

When we found ourselves in the little room on the right floor we were struck by how much it really wasn’t anything like any embassy we had ever seen before. Not that either of us had frequented many embassies, thank god, but this one seemed more like a makeshift shelter, a halfway house of sorts.

We were under the impression we would fill out a form, get a stamp in our passports, a lollipop and be on our way. How wrong we were.

From memory, as this whole story is so I will stop saying that. The form required passport photos and proof of the yellow fever vaccination. We were sent off with our tails between our legs to complete our duties and return with the required documents. We were told that once we had submitted the documents it could take 5 working days to be completed and returned to us. 5 days! We wanted to leave tomorrow, get on the road already.

Maybe it was mum, maybe it was a requirement from some other source, but for some reason we trudged ourselves over to the Australian Embassy, or was it the Commonwealth Embassy, with Australia hosted on one of the top floors? Now, that is what I call an embassy, woah, an enormous shiny high rise building, adorned with flags and car parking, even a sign out the front, not just a street number. We walked into the foyer, had our bags checked through gun airport style security and spoke to the receptionist, who directed us to a machine which printed out a number and we were escorted to the elevator by a security guard. Up, up, up to the top. We were suddenly looking out over all of Madrid, I could recommend it as a tourist destination for a great view. But it is exclusive to Commonwealth Passport holders.

We waited our turn, and asked our questions, I don’t remember what. They gave us their leaflets and we were on our way. I have a feeling we were asking about recommended doctors in Madrid who could vaccinate us against Yellow Fever. We should have been asking about travel advice.

We found the doctor surgery, spoke with the doctor and were inoculated all in one session. I think I got meningitis then too. James got a few more than me, we both got our forms confirming our vaccine. They gave us advice about malaria. Yes, you should take the tablets, how long are you going for? Yes, well one a day. She was a nice lady, with little English. The street that house the surgery reminds me so much of Acland Street, or even Sydney Road in Melbourne. The colour of the shops, it’s hard to describe but I see those streets in place of what my memory sees. She sent us to another surgery, closer to the centre of Madrid, a small alleyway, a little surgery. Apparently the only place in Madrid to sell malaria tablets. I remember trying to ask for as many as we needed, we walked away with piles, bags full of boxes of tablets. We were set right? No yellow fever, no malaria, no problem.

Now that we were a little more prepared for our travels, we headed back to the Ghanaian Embassy. Back to the unmarked building, back to insecurity. We handed in our documents and were told to return the following Monday. Monday! That’s almost a week away. Plus they had our British Passports.

James wanted to keep planning, I wanted to think about something else, but there was nothing on our minds. We continued to frequent our little café come bar in the evenings. We’d eat our plain poor man’s pasta for dinner than go for a pint. We’d take my diary and our lonely Planet Guide. We’d read stories of other travellers and dream.

James wanted to be as prepared as possible, I didn’t know what to prepare for. We went to an adventure shop and got water purifying tablets, mugs we could clip on to our packs, mosquito nets, you name it. One night, about 3 or 4 days before our departure, I straightened my hair for the last time, had a few drinks, put my hair up in a ponytail on top of my head and chopped all my hair off. Ulrike had taught me this about 2 months earlier, it works perfectly she said, perfect layers, you can’t go wrong. Maybe I shouldn’t have had that extra beer, maybe I should have had one more. Chop, chop, chop with blunt scissors. I didn’t want to have to maintain long hair in Ghana or on the way to Ghana, so cutting it off I would have less to worry about, less to deal with. Well woops.

Above: Christmas with Mum and James 2011, in Gibraltar 

Above: Me, less than a month later with a new 'do' January 2012, Western Sahara 

Monday came around and we were back at the embassy. We were called into the room to have an interview regarding the visa. Why did we want to go to Ghana? How were we planning to get there? How long were we going to be there for? You’re not a Spanish citizen, why are you here applying for the visa and not in London or Australia? You know you can’t get a visa here. You have to go to London. Why did I think I should be volunteering there, when Ghanaian people don’t go to volunteer in Australia? What kind of volunteering will you be doing? You know they don’t speak English there right? How do you plan on communicating with them?  OMG my head exploded at this point WHAT! Yes they do, I read they speak English, that’s why I chose Ghana and not one of the French speaking countries that neighbour Ghana. I sat still, looked at James and said something about learning the language. Will you marry me, maybe just a kiss, I will give you the visa if you give me a kiss. I didn’t know it was possible for my head to explode twice everywhere all over the walls, but it did, what is this guy on? Ok maybe just a date then, will you let me take you on a date? I don’t remember what my response was, but he gave us the visa, and I didn’t have to kiss him, date him or marry him. Thankfully.

The time between the weirdest most inappropriate interview I had ever had and getting on the bus out of Madrid is a blur. The bus pulled out of the station around 10pm and we’d sat at the terminal at least 6 hours chatting, playing cards; waiting. The bus to Malaga took 8 hours. We chose that bus to replace a night’s accommodation. It would have been wiser to have a full nights rest before entering another continent, but we wanted to save a few bob.

We arrived in Malaga at 6am, just in time for a 7:30am ferry ride across to Tangiers. I should have known then, at the ferry terminal the toilets were a little different. It was just a whole in the floor with grip pads on either side for your feet. Weird. (Little did I know, the style of toilets I was in for over the next 5months, it was only going to get weirder). The ferry was an experience in itself. We sat there, out of our heads with sleep deprivation trying to take everything in. I went to the toilets on the ferry,  but there was no toilet paper, I realised before it was too late, and walked back to get a tissue from my bag, as I was leaving the cubicle, I told the lady who was on her way in, she looked at me funny, and went in anyway. Strange for me, normal for her.

At the other end of the ferry in Tangiers we jumped on the bus into town and worked out our next stop. I had written down a few hostels in Casablanca that we could stay in, but I hadn’t booked anything as we were unsure how far we would make it on the first day. We did make it from Tangiers to Casablanca that day. At the train station in Tangies we bought our tickets, a banana each and some local pastry treats, one was sort of like a samosa and the other was like a Baklava. They were both amazing. And wow the banana, talk about organic, real, fresh, amazing. None of this Woolworths, Tesco, freeze dried, nitrogen crap (or whatever they do to it).  We still talk about those bananas like they were they highlight of the trip.

Coming out of the train, into the station in Casablanca we were really aware of hagglers and ‘being taken for a ride.’ Not having a clue about Casablanca or anything beyond the fact that the main language in Morocco is Arabic or French, or scammer, we were quite at a loss. We were BOMBARDED by taxi drivers, carrying two BIG packs, very white, red hair like the evening sunset, eyes hanging out of our heads. We stood out. I remember essentially ‘picking’ a driver to take us. He asked out destination and we handed him my diary with the address scribbled in. Now the next part is our biggest mistake. He asked if we had booked and we said no. Oh, he said, oh, well then, you don’t want to go there, oh that is not a very nice part of town, oh, no, I know a much nicer area, oh you will like it so much more. Wow, we thought, this guy knows the deal, why not trust him?

This is the part where either I continue rambling on for another 2,500 words or leave it and start a new post so you can have a break from reading about our adventures. 

Yeah, you’ll need to stay tuned for the next post if you want to find out more.