The Africa Nations Cup kicks off in Ghana on Sunday. The BBC's David Amanor is keeping a diary of his travels around the country during the month-long tournament.

I have just washed my hair and the water was red from the all the dust - I wish the Kumasi barber had cut it shorter.

The car too has been transformed. It is no longer red from the Mole National Park road and has been transformed back to shiny black.

There's no RAC or AA breakdown service here

Ibrahim, the driver, has also managed to get it fixed - fingers crossed.

Wa, like Tamale, is flat but dominated by a big white mosque that stands on higher ground.

Down in the central bustling market I find few Nations Cup souvenirs and have only seen one football poster in town, but people assure me that tomorrow, the place will be transformed with everyone in the Black Stars' colours.

I find a gun trader in the market who says he gets his European-made arms and ammunition from Accra.

The guns are for hunters, he says, and whenever there is inter-communal violence he shuts up shop.

My driver, Ibrahim, wants to go to Wa via Bolgatanga. It's a longer journey, but has a tarmac road. I stubbornly insist on going through the Mole National Park - one of remotest areas in Ghana inhabited by the Gonja people.

In Damango, the main stop before the park, I buy hard boiled eggs and bread from the side of the road, to settle my stomach for the rough road ahead.

The red road ahead to Wa

Twenty five kilometres into the park, I realise I've left my glasses in an internet caf� we visited earlier, so Ibrahim goes off to fetch them while I sit atop a hill with a laptop on my lap editing a radio report looking down at a herd of elephants.

Glasses found and report filed by satellite phone, we get on the bumpy road again, with the sun low in the sky we're anxious to get out of the park fast.

Within minutes of getting out and on to a tarred road, our trusty four by four lets out a groan and we grind to a halt.

No RAC or AA breakdown service here, but this being Africa, there's always help at hand. A man in a loaded pick-up truck comes to our aid and tows us with a 2m rope to Wa.

It's a hairy experience... but Ibrahim skilfully keeps the rope tight and we manage to hide our car when passing through police checkpoints by turning off our lights, and speeding up when through - in case of any fines.

Tamale is flat - and what hits you are all the different modes of transport here. Bicycles everywhere - women on scooters, men on horses and even people on roller skates.

Problem number one is to find the wheel

First off, we leave the building site and successfully manage to find more suitable accommodation, but as soon as I sit down to prepare a report for the BBC's Focus on Africa programme, which airs at 1500 GMT, the electricity goes off and I'm told it won't be back till 1530.

A taxi to an internet caf� solves my problems. And when the electricity returns I return to work at the hotel to file a report for the morning programme, which I intend to send by satellite phone.

Yet despite it being flat as a pancake here with open skies and bright stars I fail to find a satellite signal. With the unflagging assistance of hotel worker Hana, we carry plastic chair, laptop and satellite dish around Tamale's streets, wearing reflective armbands, from midnight till 2am, when at last we get through.

Ouch - we refuel our tank costing $84 - but it should get us to Tamale and beyond.

However, the drama of the day is just about to begin. Travelling down a hill at about 100km per hour on the way to Kintampo, there's a loud noise, the car veers and to our bemusement we see our front left wheel rolling off into the bush.

After the Black Volta River the landscape changes

Thankfully, there were none of the usual loaded lorries coming the other way and the driver, Ibrahim, skilfully guides the car to the untarred verge using the handbrake to bring the vehicle to a halt.

Problem number one is to find the wheel - which the driver finds after a 10-minute search. Number two, where have all the bolts gone? Ibrahim reckons the mechanics who changed all the tires a few days ago mustn't have screwed them on properly - so he heads off over the crest of the hill on a bolt hunt. An hour later he reappears with two of the six bolts and we decide to borrow three bolts from the other wheels.

Problem number three turns out to be jack related - it doesn't work and only lifts the axle a few inches. Ibrahim's ingenious idea is to stop a passing vehicle to borrow a cutlass and dig a hole beneath the axle to fit the wheel.

After two hours we're miraculously on the move again and make it to Kintampo - see its beautiful waterfall before pushing on to Tamale before nightfall and armed robbers cause us problems.

I ask the organisers if they're expecting an assassination attempt

We cross the Black Volta River, which is clear and blue, into the Northern Region where the landscape changes to flat savannah and the houses to clay huts with thatched roofs.

Tamale is a hive of activity as we arrive during a political rally - this being election year. I call our hotel to get directions to be told that our booking has been cancelled. The premises - where the South African team is staying - is not ready.

But after some pleading and a fruitless search for other accommodation, we are allowed to stay amidst the incomplete wiring and newly laid cement... the race is on to get it ready before the South Africans' arrival on Friday!

In Kumasi, Ghana's garden city and host to Group C teams in the Nations Cup, tickets have just gone on sale in post offices and banks for the their opening matches next Tuesday. One person has proudly shown me his ticket - a bargain at $4 for two games.

Accra has more banners celebrating last year's 50th anniversary of independence than the forthcoming Africa Cup of Nations

The stadium looks beautiful - done up with red, yellow and green seats with a black star in middle of yellow rows to represent the Ghanaian flag. As well as a VIP section there's also a VVIP one - a "very very important person" suite for the president and the Asante paramount chief, complete with bullet-proof glass. I ask the organisers if they're expecting an assassination attempt. "No," they assure me - it has just been built for "all eventualities".

There's huge disappointment here, given all their preparations, that the city will not get to host the semi-finals.

But there is no denying the excitement of the unofficial Samuel Eto'o fan club, found down in Adum business district, that Cameroon is playing in Kumasi. These guys, who sell the usual selection of groceries, have pictures of Eto'o plastered all over their stalls and are crazy about the Cameroonian and Barcelona striker. And if the Lions meet the Black Stars in the finals? Well, Ghana, of course, should win, but Eto'o, they say, should come out as the tournament's highest scorer.

In the evening, desperate for a haircut before heading up to the dusty Northern Region, I go to the Golden Scissors barber down the road.

"Your hair is too beautiful," Akwasi, the barber, says. "Beautiful or not, please take it down," I instruct my brother. But I notice as we chat that he's taking it down little by little, obviously loath to chop it all off. "Please be brave, cut it lower," I say, but in the end I leave with a high top and accept it as a compliment.

Four hours later than planned, my driver, Ibrahim Bentil, and I set off on our month-long tour leaving behind Accra which seems stuck in a time warp - with more banners in the capital celebrating last year's 50th anniversary of Ghana's independence than the forthcoming Africa Cup of Nations.

On the road at last, unlike Stephen Appiah injured out of the squad

First off we're heading to Kumasi via Nkawkaw, but the sight of a sobering minibus accident makes us wary of speeding as do the newspaper headlines: "Cup of Nations claims its first victims" - describing how four street hawkers selling Black Stars souvenirs were killed by a careering car.

In Nkawkaw, which sits at the bottom of the spectacular Kwehu Hills, it is a busy trading day and chatting to people about the forthcoming football extravaganza it is surprising to find that many little about match times, tickets availability and prices.