I read your report while thinking to myself "How could they not notice the change in handling once their panniers fell off?" Then I remembered the time I was bicycling back from the grocery store, both panniers stuffed full of Trader Joe's goodies, and one fell off a mile from home. It wasn't until I got off the bike and got ready to carry my groceries indoors that I noticed. Fortunately Bellingham is a sleepy little town, and I found it right where it landed.

So if that could escape my notice on a bicycle, where a pair of loaded panniers probably outweighs the bike itself, I can see where you might not immediately notice on a motorbike. But another issue concerns how we attach stuff which might inadvertently become detached in normal operation. On motorcycles, I habitually go with two means of attachment for each bit of luggage, just because sometimes one will fail (or I'll forget, or buckle/lock/hook/tie it wrong). My panniers are through-bolted twice apiece; same with my top box, and that dry bag on the back seat is both strapped and bungied into place. When I take shortcuts sometimes I lose stuff, although this is limited to water bottles, sunglasses, and the occasional flipflop.

Hope you're enjoying Ghana, a relatively low-stress place featuring history, culture, nightlife, and excellent beaches!

Mark

Markharf: Thanks. Yes, the panniers were big and bulky but full of lightweight stuff, particularly the big left side one, so not overloaded. It was a paved road so no real handling to highlight the loss.

Abidjan to Takoradi via Elubo

We set off at daybreak to try and avoid as much city traffic as possible. The ride went better than expected, probably because most of the traffic was coming into town and we were leaving. It was still busy but could have been worse. It was raining but it's so hot and humid whether you're wet from sweat or rain is somewhat academic. There was still the apprehension as although I now had a full set of documents, we hadn't had our carnets stamped in. There are many stories on the travel forums about needing all sorts of customs clearance documents to get out of Cote d'Ivoire. What would happen at the border we wondered. As it turned out, absolutely nothing! Approaching the border there was a building with Dounes written on it. A few uniformed guys sitting outside but no physical barrier to stop traffic. I slowed down, and as always, opened my visor to make eye contact. None of them motioned for me to stop so I gave a thumbs up, still no one directed me to stop so I rolled slowly past checking my mirrors, expecting to see an officer run out into the road. I wondered if that was in fact customs but decided to carry on. Next we came to some officials and the bridge. This was immigration. Really helpful, they stamped our passports, then wished us well on our journey and directed us towards the bridge. We rode across the bridge to Ghana. There you turn into a sort of compound and park up. Walk back to the first kiosk and an officer checks the carnet but doesn't stamp it. Instead he gives a slip of paper which you must keep with the carnet. Then it's immigration, quite confusing as there are multiple doors and desks, some inside, some outside but we found out what to do in the end. Then customs stamped the carnets. No problem. The money changer had helped as usual and we changed some money to Cedis. He also did sim cards so we bought one each. He didn't do top up credit but took us to a hut where a woman did lots of number tapping and eventually concluded that data credit had been added. Indeed it had so we were good to go. We rode out the way we came in, evidently not correct as the whole place and all the parking areas are a one way. Easily corrected (after we heard the shouting) we went onto the main road and promptly found out what that first slip of paper we'd been given was for. You need to hand it over with your carnet to a guy in the exit hut. He keeps the paper and returns your carnet. Then you're good to go. In amongst all that we also got money guy to take us to the insurance office as our ECOWAS brown card insurance was about to expire. That's another story and I'll start that as a separate thread as we've had conflicting information about this. We were in Ghana, all paperwork legally stamped. Everything up to date and reset.

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Takoradi to Accra

A very slow ride due to bad roads, traffic congestion, towns, speed bumps and general Africaness. We had found a hotel on one of the Booking sites and unfortunately it didn't exist in the advertised location so we had to choose something else. While riding around looking for the hotel though we passed a bike shop. A dual purpose shop, it was divided in two. Left part was body building supplements, right side was a small bike shop. On display was a Ducati Panigale. Not a bike I was expecting to see in Ghana. They also had a Motul stand and we restocked on chain lube. I'd lost mine with the panniers in Guinea and the chain was needing some TLC. We stumbled upon a guest house while looking for a second hotel which also didn't exist in the advertised google location. The guest house was fine and a short walk from a shopping centre. We walked up to get dinner. There was also a very good supermarket, first we'd seen in Africa.

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Accra to Lome via Dzodze border

Usual thing, we left early and headed for the border having decided to use Dzodze border rather than the main one at the coast. Reason was to try and avoid going into Lome and we also hoped a small border would be easier. Not sure that's true and I wouldn't recommend the Dzodze border. First we came to a whole lot of buildings which was clearly the border but nobody was around. We pondered what to do. Should we just continue.......but what if it was the border, no it couldn't be, there was no one there. We decided to proceed and came upon a building with three people in it. The window was awkwardly positioned to make it difficult to speak through but on enquiring the fat one demanded Covid and Yellow Fever certificates. We produced them and he said he wasn't accepting mine. Long story short he is corrupt and regardless of the paperwork he won't let you pass unless you pay him. In this case he claimed a Pharmacist can't issue a Yellow Fever certificate. Richard's is signed by an RGN. I asked him what an RGN is and he didn't know, but he was happy to accept Richard's certificate. We had to pay him to move on, annoying but what can you do at that point? The Togo entry and Ghana exit are done at the same building. On getting up there the first to accost us were some white coats. They demanded we go with them to an office, which I did. After some discussion and going round in circles I asked what they wanted from me. They said Yellow Fever and Covid certificates. I told them I had already done that and paid and wasn't doing it again. Moving on we were told to follow an official who would stamp our passports. We walked round various offices with him. He eventually chose one and directed us to sit down. Optimistically we assumed this would be a quick stamp but no, he needed to open every draw, look at every rubber stamp, test every rubber stamp, check alignment of rubber on every stamp, retest ones he had already tested, check the colour of the stamp pad........... you get the picture. A long time later carnets were stamped and then the whole process started again for the Togo entry. Hours later and we were in Togo. We followed the Lome bypass, it's on Google maps but not on the Garmin maps. Richard and I both have updated Garmin maps on different Garmin models and neither had the bypass. We've found Google to be far more reliable than Garmin for navigation. We found a hotel and checked in, satisfied that another border crossing was complete.

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Lome to Cotonou

Another day, another border crossing. Easy ride to the border along the coast road. The border crossing went well, the best one to date. We were done in an hour or so. As we stopped at the first hut, a couple of young guys came up. This is usual and I just look for the money changers. These guys said they could do that and I agreed I'd do money after everything else was complete. These two were super enthusiastic, running to show where to go, who to see, answer questions etc. They didn't actually do the money changing but their friend did. At the end we changed money and paid the two guys directly for all their help. They didn't claim to be fixers or ask for payment but without their help it would have taken us a lot longer I'm sure so I had no problem offering to pay them. They were happy and we'd set a new record for our shortest border crossing. We rode off to find a hotel in Cotonou.

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Cotonou to Papalanto

We left Cotonou at 7am. The road out of town is mainly dual carriageway and mostly paved. Small bikes everywhere but that makes it easy to follow the traffic. Roads became progressively worse once we had left the city limits and at one point it was mud tracks and puddles on a detour due to a closed section of road. We had decided to take the more Northerly border rather than the coast road border. We wanted to avoid going into Lagos and after getting our Cameroon visas in Abidjan there was no need to go to Lagos. The border isn't far and it wasn't long before we found ourselves in yet another small chaotic village but this one had a rope across the road. That means it's the border. The usual crowd surrounds the bike as you stop, all wanting something. One was a money changer. These guys are really useful as they want your business and will guide you on where to find Customs, Immigration etc. In this town, full of shacks and ramshackle buildings we needed help as customs was just a metal grill opening in one of the buildings about 1km before the rope barrier. No signs to say customs, you just have to know or let a helpful money changer show you. The customs guys were helpful but weren't sure how a carnet needed to be stamped but they let Richard into their office to show them while I checked the rates for changing money. The app gave a rate which I use as a guide when checking the rate a money changer offers. In this case he offered significantly more than the app said and I remembered being told there is a black market rate and an official rate. Use the black market rate! The money changing was done and the two guys were happy to continue showing us where to find the next office. We cleared immigration out of Benin with a friendly helpful officer. Then to the rope barrier where another guy in a hut wanted to see all our paperwork again. We showed him and were told to pay him 5000 CFA each. I asked what it was for and he said tax. We paid but I insisted on having a receipt. Eventually he returned the bank notes instead. Then it was over to Nigeria. First some guy told us to follow him. Round the back of the building was a table, he sat down and wanted our Yellow Fever cards. After that we went back to the bikes. Then it was immigration. Our new money changer friends showed us the way to the office. Three officials poured over our passports while asking us to shown them bank notes with the Queens picture on. An imaginative way of asking for money to be fair! Again after lots of scrutiny and writing stuff the passports were stamped. Then it got weird. There were tables outside and we were directed to sit down. A smartly dressed guy, not in uniform, proceeded to ask a barrage of questions about where we were going, exactly when we would be in each place, who we were seeing, why and how we would get there. The two of us sweating in the heat wearing biking kit with overland bikes clearly in view didn't seem to give this guy any clue as to why we were there and what we were planning on doing!. It got a bit fraught but eventually he said welcome to Nigeria before directing us to a woman at the next table. She wanted passports so we got those out, again. She said she was narcotics and wrote our details down.
Then it was off to customs. A friendly guy in an air conditioned office was happy to stamp our carnets. No problem there. We were ready to go through the barrier and surprisingly that was it. The town on the other side is the usual African array of shanties. Our money friends were still with us as we needed petrol. They arranged it at their preferred station. Was only about 79p litre. Next up was sim card which our new friends also helped with as special ID was required. Then we were off into Nigeria. The road was just one roadblock after another. We went through at least 20 roadblocks so progress was slow. One was immigration and checked our passports yet again. All friendly, no problem. Another wanted "something for me", another wanted water, another just wanted to check out the bikes. The road was smooth in places, heavily damaged and potholed in others. We rode up to Papalanto but couldn't find the hotel at the location given on Google. After riding around for a while, through back streets and the deep potholed main road we stumbled upon a hotel, not the one we were looking for but at that stage anything with a shower was good enough. We had been through dirt water holes, mud pot holes and dust. We looked a mess and were done for the day.

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