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Mark Moxon's Travel Writing

Ghana: Trucked Off

One afternoon, as I was lazing in a beach hut on Kokrobite Beach, the trucks rolled into town, and from the instant they started disgorging their sweaty contents, I was fascinated. For these trucks weren't just any trucks, they were trans-African tourist trucks, and they blew my mind.

Truck Life

I only watched the trucks and talked to the participants, so there was no way in which I could really experience what it must be like to be cocooned on a trans-African truck for so long, but there's no doubting that they're part of a slick operation. The trucks themselves are monstrous, with huge tyres, copious spares on the back and engines that shake the ground in a way that means business. The 19-person red truck was pretty basic, with the back cabin covered by a domed tarpaulin and precious little else, but the blue truck was a step up in luxury (though it also held ten more people, so perhaps 'luxury' is the wrong word). It had two floors, one in the rear and the other just behind the top of the front cabin, though whether this created any more space, I don't know; everyone seemed pretty crammed in when they arrived. Both trucks were smothered with lockable compartments containing all sorts of things like tents, cutlery, cooking utensils, the herb rack and so on, and by this stage the entire crew knew where everything was; trucks obviously have routines.

Truck Off

Sadly the trucks only stopped in Kokrobite for a few days, and they soon raised anchor and floated off down the coast for Christmas. I'd rather enjoyed talking to the truckers, but possibly more interesting was the attitude of the other guests at Big Milly's towards them.