At midnight the temperature went down to only 35°C- impossible to even think of sleeping and half of the night we turned around on our matresses sweating. The next day we set off at sunrise being rather tired. At 10 am it was already too hot for us to continue cycling. We were also in constant fear about the insulin. Most of the villages we drove through had no electricity and we were unable to buy the much needed ice to cool the insulin. Hendrik had a special system to cool his insulin in thermos bottles but in this heat he needed ice to prevent the water from boiling. Another problem was food, in these small villages the only thing we could buy were mangos- very small and not yet ripe ones. The drinking water from the local dwells seemd like a bacterial-virological bomb, since the life stock was getting watered right next to it. Though we filtered the water of course, we were unsure about it.
We were lucky and managed to organize a transpot towards the border (Hamile/Ghana).
Ghana welcomed us with a big “Welcome to Ghana” signpost and rather relaxed and friendly immigration officers. Though Ghana is much wealthier than Burkina Faso there was only a hotel with bucket showers and toiletes squat styles without light.

Gradually the heat showed severe consequences for Hendrik´s health, his circulation went crazy, he had bad stomach pains, nausea and diarrhoea. Therefore we decided to continue by bus. First we went to Kumasi, the second biggest town in Ghana and the former capital of the Ashanti, where we were able to get decent food again. By now both of us felt too weak to cycle. 200km before Kumasi we finally left the Sahel area and went into the tropics, which was rather frustrating because everywhere you see only left overs of the once rich rainforest. Nearly all of the rainforest has been cut.

When we reached Cape Coast the former capital of the British, Hendrik was so weak that he had to stay in bed for 24 hours. First nausea, then diarrhoea and finally fever (it was difficult to measure the body temperature when it was so hot outside). Malaria? The next day we went to hospital where they made a malaria and typhus test, which was luckily negative but they couldn´t help any further.

By now it was hot and humid, cycling was unthinkable, therefore we took a taxi (like nearly all (used) cars this was a German one still with the country sticker of Germany on it) to get to Accra, the capital of Ghana. Hendrik was still not doing well, just getting the bikes into the taxi was too exhausting for him.