Flight 49 : Tamale, Ghana to Banjul, Gambia

Date: Monday January 12, 2009

Departure: 09:50 AM

Routing: West-Northwest across Southern Mali and Guinea

Aircraft: Air Catalonia Q-400

Altitude: 24,000 feet

Miles: 1,072

Arrival Stats: 3.7 hours is nearly 290 mph!

Notes: Flat, Tan, Open Desert ... Okay, so the first 2.5 hours was really pretty dull (other than a surprising number of little no-name airstrips scattered about the desert). Then I started seeing little tributaries of the river Gambia and that was much more to my eye's liking.

Flight 48 : Yamoussoukro, Ivory to Tamale, Ghana

Date: Friday January 9th, 2009

Departure: 06:45 AM local

Routing: Southeast to Accra, then north to Tamale

Aircraft: Air Canada Jazz

Altitude: 5,500 feet

Miles: 567

Arrival Stats: 08:30 local time but there must be a time change 'cause I was airborne at least 120 minutes. I figure 2.75 hours or 206 mph.

Notes: After a pretty quiet day in Ivory Coast I turned in early so that I could get up early Friday. It was still dark as I made my way back to the airport and an out-of-place livery. I may not get a better excuse to fly the JAZZ colors so why not here, on the sub-saharan savannah-lands of Ghana? The sun was just peaking over the horizon as I departed to the east and turned towards Accra. As the light grew I noted that there really wasn't much to see - until I reached the Atlantic Ocean at Accra. Then I turned north and flew over the giant lakes into the Capital of the Northern Provinces, Tamale. Not the most modern of African cities but with over 300,000 residents there certainly was enough to keep me here over the weekend!