Arriving in Ghana

"Akwaaba!" "Welcome to Ghana!"
Sorry, your luggage is still in Johannesburg!
Eish. 

The flight between Durban and Johannesburg had some of the most spectacular cloud formations I have ever seen.  We flew above the cumulus nimbus (right, Kell?) in bright sunshine.  The white of the clouds was squintingly bright and it felt as if we we flying through clouds of cauliflower. Not wispy clouds but well defined and static.  Then the different shades of grey (ha ha) off set the white to make me feel as though I was flying through the grand canyon of cloud mountains.  Emma would have described this much better but I was blown away by the beauty.  A photograph could not have done it justice!

Coming in to land in Accra was another memorable sight.  It looked as though the sea had slowly evaporated and as it receded, people were building houses (and half built houses - PLENTY of those) on the flat land left behind.  A small tsunami would wipe out the whole of Accra!

On arrival at the airport, we were quite quick through passport control and then rushed to get our luggage after a long day only to find the same luggage going round and round on the carowsel (as they say in SA) but not ours!  You know how you keep looking and looking and wishing that maybe your eyes were deceiving you and your items would suddenly appear?  But no such luck - nothing!
So after a long explanation in the heat and crowds of Ghana, we managed to explain the problem and obtain proof that it had been reported. Everyone is so friendly and seemingly helpful but being in a strange country and not knowing the culture, it is quite daunting to completely trust anyone.  Porks had gone off to look for the SAA representative and I was left behind at the Baggage claim counter. After 1/2 hour a Ghanaian chap came to fetch me to go to his offices, so I tentatively followed him and he took me outside to the parking area on the way round the back of the building where all the taxis were and I stopped.  I said sorry, I cannot go there, my husband won't find me and I took my papers back from him and went back to the Baggage counter.  It turned out that that was exactly where I should have gone and he was completely trustworthy but I could not take that chance with the history of our country, sorry Ghana.
After a phone call from Kelly and help from Andrew who smsed me all the SAA contact details, we managed to speak to a lady in SA and she assured me that the luggage is under camera surveillance and will arrive on Thursday evening. (There is no flight from SA today!)

The very irritating part to this whole venture is that in Durban, we asked for our luggage to have "priority loading" stickers put on as the change over in Johannesburg was only 2 hours but Nosipho told us that she wasn't allowed to do that because two hours was enough time.  If only we had followed our instincts and insisted!

We had a reasonable nights' sleep but missed our own pillows which are sleeping by themselves in Oliver Tambo airport, and then went to the Accra Mall this morning. (The one still standing, not the one that collapsed last week.) It turns out that the cloud DID have a silver lining after all, and I managed to get my bbm working, SA adaptors for my electrical appliances, batteries for my camera, a change of shirts, etc., all fairly easily and see a little of flat Accra as well.

We spend another night here tonight, a day tomorrow and hopefully fetch our luggage from the airport tomorrow night at 10pm!  If it arrives, we sleep again and fly to Kumasi on Friday morning.
(That is if my luggage hasn't lost any weight along the way.)

I'll keep you informed!