30-Nov-2007 -- After our tortuous visit to 10N 3W less than 48 hours ago, we had all about decided to forgo our planned visit to 11N 2W. We had a nice breakfast in Leo and decided to try and scout the territory for a future visit.
We drove south towards Ghana all the way to the police checkpoint just before the border. After a short map lesson and a friendly discussion, they suggested we backtrack a bit and look for a small path leading to the East on the other side of the street from the "school building". Thanking them for their time, we quickly turned around and had no trouble finding the path.
At the moment we turned off the pavement, we were only 10 km from the point. We were able to drive down a "donkey cart" path for quite some distance. At one point we were unable to make a turn in the path due to sharp stumps in the road. A young man happened to come up with a machete in just a few minutes though, and was able to chop the stump enough for the truck to get by. We were eventually able to drive to a little less than 3.0 km from the point, at which time the path became too difficult for the truck.
Looking at each other and our still blistered feet, we had a short discussion about the prudence of trying to hike the remaining distance to the point. It was still early in the day, it wasn't yet too hot, there was a small footpath leading in the right direction and we had plenty of water. We decided to push on!
Winding our way through farms of corn, igname, rice, and cotton, we were able to follow narrow foot paths to within 300 meters of the point. We walked directly into a corn and igname patch where a Mossi farmer was cutting down the dried corn stalks. He was quite proud to have his picture made and said he looks forward to others coming to visit him.