My Flight to Tamale

I woke up this morning at 5:45 a.m. to finish packing (aka put away the pj’s I was wearing and pack my laptop I let charge overnight). I got down to the lobby around 6:20 a.m. and kicked myself when I remembered breakfast starts at 6 a.m. so had I woken up at 5:30 a.m. I could have had one last omelet.

They ushered me to the van that took me to the airport. My flight didn’t depart until 9 a.m. and in Ghana, they advice you to be there “30 minutes before your flight departs!” That’s nothing like the U.S. But, we had to leave early because of the traffic. The driver seemed to know a few short cuts that would shave off some traffic time. The wildest part was this one intersection where a side road joins a large, major road and we’re turning left into three lanes. So guess how many lanes the side road creates to get into three lanes before the light changes? I counted 10! Talk about a jaw dropper- 10 self-made lanes of traffic trying to get into three lanes- craziness! No worries, I made it to the airport alive!

We got to the airport and he dropped me off and as I started to go in, I saw a sign that said international flights and checked with someone else and then walked the street awhile to get to national flights- just because I’m packing heavy doesn’t mean I’m not just going for a two week trip! I get into the airport and this is what I saw:

There are large double doors but aren’t automatic so you have to push your way through- luckily someone was in front of me that held it open. As you enter, there are about 100 (so I did the math and know there are about 96) chairs for people waiting to sit. There are the doors to two restrooms and then when the room opens up, there are about eight luggages check-in areas. They have portable signs and put out the sign of your destination so you know when to bring your luggage up.

While waiting, I got hungry and went to the one little food stand and bought a meat filled pastery to eat- it was pretty good. I also noticed that about half of the passengers for all the flights I saw go out, were Wersterners. It was also freezing cold because they have so many stand up air conditioners that the go everywhere and are cold! They start accepting luggage about 45 minutes before departing. When the time comes, they call your flight to board. You get in line to walk over to the one security/metal detector. All you have to pull out is your laptop- you can take as much liquid as you want and you can keep your shoes on. Once you get on the other side, regardless of the beeps, you are patted down by someone of your gender.

You can grab your bags and go sit in another cold waiting area. I noticed that the only thing being confiscated at check in were aresol cans- which aren’t meant to fly anyways. I thought they take them and whatever but then I noticed they checked to confirm who owned what cans (three men’s shaving creams and one hair spray). I’m not sure why they did that or what ever happened to the cans but the flight staff seemed very accommodating.

When they say it’s time to flight, everyone piles into a van that drives you to the plane. The plane is sitting on the runway and is unlike any puddle jumper I’ve ever been in. It was small but had open propellers(?)/blades instead of wind turbines with the blades enclosed. Once we loaded the plane (oh at no point in time did they ask for my id nor are we assigned seats- you sit wherever lol). Also, my luggage was overweight (not surprised) and the lady told me and I couldn’t do anything about it so she said it was supposed to cost $50 but she would charge me $10 (I thought it started to seem more like a bribe but a cheap one). Then the lady sitting beside her said something and she said nevermind, next time they would charge me. I had my wallet out ready to pay but okay!

We boarded and after we take off, they come around with refreshments. Each passenger got an adult size juice box, a small bottle of water and a sandwich (they said chicken, I call it bologna). I was shocked! The U.S. would give you half a coke and maybe a packet of pretzels for a 1.5 hour flight!

We hit some turbulence and the guy next to me grabbed by arm- I don’t think he likes turbulence, I thought it was entertaining. So once we land (pretty good landing) the plane drives until it stops and everyone was taking their seatbelts and getting up before it was completely turned off- one of the only people I saw wait until the pilot turned off the seatbelt sign (besides myself) was the flight attendant! Then you walk down stairs and walk to the smallest airport I’ve ever seen. For those with reference, it’s maybe half the side of the big red barn on the south side of my parent’s house. For those who can’t relate to that, I’ll try to take a photo when I fly back to Accra Nov 4th.

Then I watched as some guy put all of the luggage on the luggage line by hand. Real kicker- it wasn’t an electrical belt- it was just metal rods side-by-side and the luggage man would have to hand-push the luggage down since it was too heavy to go on its own. Some guy stopped me to confirm I was ADVANCE and then we loaded in the vehicle and headed to the office. Literally when you walk into the airport, you walk straight to where you pick up your luggage and then there are two restrooms and an open door that goes outside. Wam, bam, thank you ma’am! I was so sad my camera was buried in my backpack!