Northern Ghana STREET FOOD!! Tannery & Market Tour of Tamale, Ghana

You like the meat? I love mixing it. Just like take off a piece of chicken. It's still super hot though. It's burning my hand. What's up everyone? This is David Hoffman from David's Been Here coming at you from beautiful Tamale, Ghana in northern Ghana. This is the third largest city in the country. One million people live here. Today my boy Isaac is going to take me on a tour of this entire city. We're going to go to a tannery. We're going to see how the leather is made. We're going to go to a market. We're going to try some fufu. What else are we going to do? We're going to see how they make the popular dress called smoke. Smoke. From Patakali in the north. That's it? This one. And they also make hats here, right? Yeah. So hats, clothing, and lots of leather, right? So sandals, shoes. You can see everybody here has leather shoes. I see it already. Pretty amazing. Tannery is literally right there. Let's go. Wow. Here we go. The leather is drying. This is amazing. Hey, what's up, guys? Everything good? Awesome. Wow, look at that. So if you guys don't know, this is sheep and goat skin. So this comes from the butcher. Yes. Then they go through an entire process, and eventually it is dried, right? And this is leather right here. Look, this guy's doing it right here. So I'm now going to second stage. You can see? Removing. We call it remover of the hair. So he's like soaking it in this water, which is like a remover. It helps remove all the fur. So once it soaks up enough, then he can take off all the fur, and then you just have the skin. Exactly. Change all the color. Soak the skin inside for two days. You see? The color is changing. We mix it with water. Our chemical is water. It's a local chemical, which will give us this color, khaki color. We get this color. This is the first color we have. We dry it. Maybe one hour or two hours. We apply granite oil. After applying granite oil, we now come to the changing of the skin for the red or black color or white color. This is the chemical for the red color. We pull it like this, into pieces. We pull it into pieces. Yeah, I'm going to change it to color for the red color. It's a dye for the red color. It's a red dye. See? This is black. Wow. This is brown color. So they got red, brown, and black. What is he doing here? Is he pounding it? Stretching. Stretching? Yeah, to make it very soft. The process to make leather is a little complex and it takes about a week. First, they get the skin, which they have right here. They let it sit in this chemical for two days. Then after that, he removes all the fur. Then from there, to dyeing. Yeah. Right? So how long does it take to dye? A few days? One day. One day? Yeah. And then after that, it goes here? After removing, we dry. And then after that, they stretch? They stretch. And then they let it keep drying? Yeah, keep drying. After drying, then we sell it. Perfect. How many do you do every day? A day, we use about 100. 100? Yeah. So they make 100 a day? Yeah. 100 pieces of leather? 100 pieces. Nice, man. So I'm going to go buy some sandals now. Some leather. Got to buy. Yeah. Where do you sell to? Local market. To the local market? Yeah, we sell it to customers. Our customers. People from Accra, Kumasi, Takoradi, Tamale, Borga. They all came down to Tamale, and then they buy. And we make sandals, bags, many things. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, you're the man. You're the man. This is amazing. I've only been to one tannery before. Yeah. In Fez, Morocco. Morocco, yeah. In Fez. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah, it's amazing. Like, blew my mind. Yeah, it blew your mind. Yeah, dude. Because it's huge, huge. They have like a million of those. Yes. With all the colors, you know? Yeah. So now we are going to the shop to see the various items they make out of these leathers. From shoes, bag. Also belts, no? Also belts, yeah. Yeah, belts are good. He's making the belts over there. He's making the belts? Yeah. Look at the belts right here. So here on the main street is his shop. They started pulling out a bunch of sandals. These are them, right? Beautiful. So they make them all right here? Yeah. Incredible. And they do a kind of recycling. Okay. So the base of the shoe is made from the old tile, car tiles. No way. Yeah. Look at this, guys. So car tiles is the sole and this area is all leather. Beautiful. I like the mix of colors, too. And it's very traditional here in Talale, right? Obviously because it's made here. Everybody wears sandals. And what do they cost? The price is 30 CDs. 30 CDs for this? 30 CDs. So what is that? $6, right? It's a good deal. And then they have many different styles, right? Different sizes. Are these all for men? Women? Yeah. It's for men. I'm going to try on a pair of sandals. Is this my size? It looks like it. Yeah, it's your size. It's like exactly my size. It's like men for me. Yeah, it's your size. Look at this. Non-negotiable, 30. But it fits perfectly. What do you think? It's great, right? Like it had to be for me, this one. Okay, I'll take it. But let me see if I can buy another one. It's good, but it's tight. You think it's good? Yeah, it's very good. Alright, so my friends here also brought in some leather wallets. Beautiful. 20 CDs each. Huh? They last a long time? I like the black one. This is nice. This coffee one. Coffee one. Brown. So 20 CDs, so 4 U.S. dollars for a wallet. This is beautiful too, but this is not... Snake. It's from snake? It's from snake. Is it? Yeah. I was going to say, it has to be. So the inside is the leather, right? This is from snake. This is snake skin as well. Whoa. So they gave me 10 discount. Okay, so 80 total? Yes. Okay. Okay, we take it. And put the pumps inside. That's a pillow? Yeah. You lie down on this, or you sit on this. Like this. What's the cost? How much does it cost? One is 80. 80 CDs. 80 CDs? Yeah. 120. Make it 1240. You know I give you the discount, I don't want to have this for you. I take it. So 210, I got three wallets, sandals, and two beautiful, beautiful pillows. Wow. This is wholesale. If you go to the market, he's selling it to the vendor at the market. They're going to add at least 25 to 50% on top. So buy from him. So here in the north, when the chief is sitting, he has this kind of pillow that he rests his feet on. So that's what he's showing to you. My friend, thank you. Thank you. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Two. Thank you. You're the man, bro. You're the man. Remember, come to this guy. He has all the best stuff. Thank you. I would buy more sandals, like for my kids, for my wife, but I just don't know their sizes. He does have, you know, kid sizes, females, males. It's a huge mix. I mean, a bag that's full. Each bag has a different product, and you can go shopping in there forever. One of my favorite experiences, seeing that. Beautiful. Take care, bro. Thank you. Next is the markets. We are going to start from Picona Hotel and walk through the central market of Damali to the culture center. Is it big? It's big. Big and busy. It's always big and busy. I love it. You cannot compare it with Mokola in Accra or KJTR in Kumasi. Yeah, obviously, smaller population, right? One million people here, down in, I think it's 2.2 in Kumasi and 3 million in Accra, right? It slowly gets bigger and bigger. And this is the city. Right in front of us, we have a mosque at the very end. Over here, we have a lot of different vendors. We have food vendors. We have huache. We have seamstresses. So, this big city is more of a rural city, okay? You would think you're just in a huge town going through here, but it never ends. It expands and expands and expands. We've driven like four streets, and I feel like nothing's changed. It's all the same. Now, this part of town is alive. It's like a billion tuk-tuks. This is the city of tuk-tuks. I haven't seen this many in any other city in Ghana. The tuk-tuk remains the big taxi means of transport within the city. And over here is the market? Yeah, it's part of the entire central market. Wow, so many things. They have like farming equipment. They have yams, clothing, and here it is, picorna. Picorna restaurant and hotel. From here, we walk. I love your hat. I'm getting one. Look at me. I'm boiling. Let's go. Okay, okay. Try to navigate through here. Too many tuk-tuks, people, motorcycles. Oh, my God. A few items here. Like the snail. We have the ground hornbill. We have crocodiles. Yeah, so basically animal stuff, right? This is a porcupine, right? Very, very wild. Over there, massive snails. Look at this snail. This is what I ate the other day. The same thing, right? Huge. Incredible. Oh, man, look at that. So basically, it has a lot of wild animals. The snail, the hornbill, porcupine. He also has elephant skin. A little wild. Crocodile skin, too. They use it for some rituals. These colors are used for some rituals. Some of them are medicinal, medicinal, but from a spiritual angle. Because for us, Africa, before we had the orthodox medicine that we have now, when you are sick, they go to a spiritualist. The spiritualist find out what caused your sickness and then what will heal you. So what caused your sickness, what caused your sickness will be found, just like we do in the orthodox sickness, take you to the lab. Here, they also spiritually check up. As you are sick, this is the cause and this is the remedy. So some of the remedies can be found here. This market is spread out all over the place, okay? So it's a little different from the ones that we saw in Kumasi and in Accra. Here, you have the yam section. You have over here some food. Over there, we have the medicine guy. So it's spread out throughout Tamale. That's where we're going. And this is called the Abu Abu Market. We prefer to be there. It's a new market. There's the old market ahead, so we pass through that place as well. But this is the new market, Abu Abu Market. Hello. How are you doing? Good. Here we have some hats, traditional hats. Amazing. The shiny head is covered. Oh, my shiny head is covered? Is it cool? What do you think? Is it a good color? Yeah, it is. Is that the color? I don't know. Let me see. Let me see the other colors. I don't know. I'm going to try this one on, guys. So it's a little tight. It's not so easy. But you have to, like, do it over like that, right? That look good? I don't know. There's so many colors. Like, even this one's beautiful. So it's traditional here in Tamale, right? Yes, yes, yes. It's traditional. You won't find this anywhere else. I haven't seen any other hats in any other city. Only in Tamale. Let me see. I like them all, though. All the colors are beautiful, man. Green, red. This one's, like, white and blue, right? Really nice. That's a flower. I take it. 20? Thank you. Thank you, too. Take care. Thank you, too. Our next vendor here has basically the same stuff. All medicine. Wow, look at this. Small crocodile. Oh, man. Can I grab it? Is it okay if I see it? A crocodile. Whoa. And he has crocodile skins here. What else does he have? He has the claw. This is wild. Over here. What is this? From what? Warthog. The one you saw at the park. So it's the warthogs like tusks, right? So most of the animals that you see here on the stand, some are dead naturally. Before they can pick this part or the other part to use it for rituals or for medicinal purposes. So they're not going out hunting them for this. They just find them as roadkill, basically. And over here we have the tailors, right? These guys are designers. They are. They are really designers. They get the strips and then they stitch them. Into hats, smokes, cloths, different, different kinds. For instance, like this. This is smokes. This one like this is the trousers. Okay. You know about history. Yeah. And they also have hats here. They have a few different styles. They have one like mine. Yeah. But they have one like yours too. Yeah. Which is like a short hat. And then he's sewing, right? He's doing it together. It's a short hat. Oh, wow. He's doing it right there by hand. Yeah, by hand. By hand. Thank you. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Every single shop here has hats, right? They all have beautiful hats. Wow. Look at this one. And this one goes over your whole head, right? This one is, yeah. Similar. Yeah, similar. So, it's like that. Okay. So, this is a style, huh? Yeah. This is like the style that's not going out of style. No. This market's very different from the one at Akra and Kumasi. It's way more spread out, but now it's become more congested, right? Over here to the right and the left, we have a lot of different beans, a lot of fruits. So, we have millet as well. We have beans. We have rice. All local rice. Pumpkin and oranges. They are all not produced here. They've been brought from the south. Well, that one, we've seen them make the butter. That's right. Yeah. The chicken market is where people come to shop for chicken, guinea fowl, turkey, ducks, and so on. And it's a huge market for the people. See the guinea fowl? Have you eaten some before? Have you eaten the guinea fowl? Yeah, I've tried it. That's right. This is the top. So, guinea fowl is a type of bird from the wild. You were saying it's sweet and it's gamey. This is a chicken coop. If you want to transport a live chicken, you put it here. Okay, so walking through here, there's more chicken, more guinea fowl, and there's turkeys over here. Massive. Oh, massive turkey. So many guinea fowl. I mean, I've never seen this many guinea fowl at a market before. I'm guessing there's a lot in the area, right? Plenty. Are we going to eat that today with Fufu? Guinea fowl and Fufu? Probably. Too many guinea fowl. Look at this. And they're really scared. They don't like chickens. Chickens stay here. Ducks stay here. Guinea fowl fly. Whoa. I'm going to cover my nose. Smells. So many. Poultry everywhere. My friend. Hey. Alright, guys. I'm going to try some papaya. Right? Good. It's one CD each. So, for a dollar, you get five of these, right? So, you basically get an entire papaya. Let's try it. Very crunchy. Yeah, I think it's not ripe yet. I think it's just like right there, about to be ripe. Usually, it's soft when I eat it. It's a little hard. People everywhere. Whoa. They're selling right in front of us. Just left the market. More guinea fowl being boiled. What an insane array of smells, flavors. What we're doing now is the meat market, where they slaughter sheep, goats, cow, and then they sell the meat. That's what we're doing now. This is the butcher shop. We've got 10 butchers, and every second, some new client comes in and orders something. They have beef. I think they have lamb and goat as well, right? Yes. Yeah, so you order, they cut it up for you. Just be careful. When he's cutting, things are flying in the air. And I love the sound. Yeah, watch out. It can hit you in the eye. But I love the sound. The smell's a little intense. Obviously, it's rotting carcasses here. You got legs, the ribs of the beef. You have over here intestines, and the guy just keeps hacking down. This is one of the places that is kept a bit neat compared to some other butchery I have visited in some markets. It's pretty clean. Let's continue. This market is unique. Very different. Very different from Kumasi. Kumasi, you can't even walk. This, a lot less people. I like this. Less people, less crowds. Plus in COVID times. There's a lot of beans. This entire alley is beans. Just vendor after vendor. They're cleaning the beans. Again, ready to go out to the market for sale, right? Because right here is not the actual market. This is like wholesale, and then it'll be out to the vendors. And this is another unique shop. So this is the shea butter. And here they have shea butter. So you just grab a little bit, put it on your skin, right? Right there. Moisturizer. Feels good. Very nice, my friends. So I thought this was the shea butter and that was it. No, every single one of these is shea butter. Look at this. So they have it in these plastic bags. They also have it wrapped over here. So much shea butter. Can I take a box? I mean, a whole thing? This is so unique. Never seen this before in my life. Shea butter factory here. They're packing it. He's packing it very uniquely. I mean, the bottom, is that the... So that's the calabash. So the bottom of the bowl is a calabash bowl with all the shea butter. And then he packs it. Like, I don't even know how he packed that. But he did a unique job there. You need to learn this. Yeah, it's a lot of skill here. I mean, he's probably been doing this for like 30 years, you know? Alright, let's continue. She's a great woman. She sells. She's one of the great women doing shea butter. She's the bunny. So same thing, shea butter. Shea butter. This is one of the shops. And she's telling me that I should let you know that that is her business. Since childhood, she lent it from her grandma to her mom, now to her and now her daughters and everybody is there doing it. And she's the shop owner here. And the whole shop is nothing but shea butter business. So you can turn back to her. She's the one selling shea butter here in Tamare. Come to her. She's really pushing her business. You want some? Yes. How much? He's spending 30 CDs, so like 6 US dollars, for a huge ball of shea butter. That's incredible. Dude, that's huge. Let me see. My auntie in Accra, she has been really worrying me. Anytime I'm going to the North, I say bring shea nut butter cream from the North. I cannot believe the price. You said 30, right? Oh, it weighs so much. Oh my gosh. Here there's like 7 women pounding the fufu. Look at this. So here the ladies are making fufu. There's 6 ladies at one time pounding the fufu. And over here they have the modern version, which is basically putting it into a machine and it comes out, right? They're also making a bunch of different soups. Over here is the light soup. This one has like a bunch of different organs, different things in it. What is it? Whoa. What's in there? Looks like tripe, like stomach, intestines. Looks really good. And I thought it was only one area. It's like it's never-ending. Look how many. Just never-ending pots. Everybody doing the same thing though, right? Similar stew and they're making the fufu. Over there, they're cutting up some chicken. The guinea fowl stew. That would be so gamey. But why not, right? We're here. They eat guinea fowl here, right? So we saw how they make their traditional food, which is not like fufu. It's a little different. It's made from corn. That's what they were doing there. They also had fufu on the side and they were pounding fufu. They always have both, right? It's fufu and then whatever they have in, you know, the city, the state. Here, they do one with corn. Just keep going this way? Dude, there was way too much smoke in there. I couldn't see. Smoke, right? Too much. Traffic jam. Yeah, traffic. Traffic jam, yeah. So this lady, she's a fruit vendor. A lot of pineapples, a lot of calabash, right? So this is it right here. Wow. I've never seen stuff this big. I know, but they haven't cut it. It's so huge. Bar soap. So it has the lines to be cut, but I've never seen it like that in its original form. So we're back on the street and I guess we're done. We're walking back to the hotel, Picorna, and there's our driver, Ben. And from here, we're going to go to a warmer place and then we're going to go eat some fufu. He's the best guide ever. Tamale, you taught me so much. My man, my man. Thank you. It's almost 1 p.m. and the crowds have come out. Before, it was pretty dead. Now, everybody's out walking the streets. It's hot. It takes time to start life and activities here. It's also not so hot in comparison to anywhere we were. Kumasi was boiling compared to this. And it's not that dry. It's not so bad. Tamale Cultural Center, where they have the art galleries, the art shops where visitors come for shopping. But unfortunately, it's very quiet now due to the fact that visitors, tourists are not coming anymore. Yeah, because of COVID, this place is pretty dead, but there still are a lot of vendors. We came here to find a few things. It's my last day of shopping and this is it. Lots of vendors. Sylvia here has a mix of things, right? She has baskets, wood carvings. She has the map of Africa, the map of Ghana. Which they used to make dresses like this. Yeah. And women also make the similar thing, but a bit longer. And then bracelets, you know, small little hippos. This is cool. Hippos, elephants, lions. So lots of wood carvings, but they also have baskets and they have leather work. Obviously, we're in the city of the tannery. So lots of leather wallets. What I was looking for was a beer opener. She has this one, which is like wood with the opener on top. But I saw one with brass that I was really interested in. Lots of good stuff here, my friend. This is too much. I would buy your whole shop, but I have nowhere to take it home. I'm looking for a big car. A big car? Yeah. I need a big plane. Thank you. This is the shop. Adongo Artworks. Every shop is very similar, but some have different products. No way, you found it. And here they are, guys. So these are beer openers. I like these, but I don't really understand what it is. So it's like a turtle and a croc or something. This one's cool. How much, my friend, for this one? $35. $20. $100. $100? Yeah, sure. I'm buying four bronze beer bottle openers. Really cool designs. His cousin makes it. He charges usually $35, but I'm buying four for $100. Nice deal. Thank you for negotiating. And I'm done with the cultural center. It's a great place to go shopping. They have a lot of leather stuff. They have baskets, wood carvings, those bronze beer bottles I just opened. And now we're going right here to find some fufu. Another fufu. Yeah. My last one. No, maybe tomorrow you'll get another fufu. Maybe, maybe. We're trying to find a fufu place. But unfortunately, right now, the one that's making it is taking a little time. So we're going to head out, look for one near the airport, have some fun at the airport. I'm taking off in about two and a half hours. So, Isaac, is all Tamale like this? Every single house is just one story? Because I don't see any, like, two- or three-story buildings. No, no. So, this is the, I mean, the heart of the town. But if you move to the outskirts, you begin to see those story buildings spreading out. In fact, Tamale is the fastest-growing city now in Ghana. No way. Yeah. So there's also like a CBD area, right, with towers and stuff? Yeah. Okay. So this is the old town where we are now. The real, the heart of the city, the beating heart, right? Right here. And we're going straight towards the airport. You said 30 minutes, right? Let's see if I can have some lunch around here. No one wants to have fufu. I mean, what's happening? We just saw Matthew making fufu, and now we can't see any serving fufu. We'll see. I'm sure we'll find one. There's like a billion fufu joints in Ghana. So we're about five minutes away from the airport. We stopped at this gas station to get some fuel. And right here, there's a chop bar. Let's see if they have fufu. If not, they might have some rice, some bitters. Oh, they have fufu. Yes, that's big. I guess it's good. Thank you. It's a lot. Look at this. Fufu with peanut soup and chicken. So every time you eat fufu, you gotta wash your hands. They always have this, right? Soap, some water. Does it work? Yeah. Kill all the germs, bacteria. So this is like a tiny chop bar next to the gas station. Right here, got the peanut sauce with some chicken. Like that, right? Just pour it all in. And the chicken. So I got chicken thigh and a drumstick, right? We're gonna have to move together on this trip. All that peanut sauce. Oh, it's like delicious, man. It's sweet, it's oily. Nothing better than the peanut. Just gotta drench this. And right here, piece of chicken, right? Peanuts also goes well with rice ball. Yeah, because it absorbs it, right? Nice piece of chicken. Still really hot. The peanut soup is boiling. You gotta be careful. Too hot. The only way you can actually touch it is if you get the fuku like this and you just drench it. And this one is not different, right? It's the same as the ones we had before in terms of corn, cassava. Explain to my viewers what fuku is. Fuku is pounded yam or pounded cassava mixed with plantain. We have different type of fuku. One from the yam, one from cassava mixed with plantain. Or even mixed with cocoyam. You boil the yam first, then you pound it in a mortar. Or you boil the cassava, cocoyam, plantain together and then you pound it in a mortar. That's what we call it. And it goes with any soup. Tomato soup, peanut soup, palm nut soup, lime soup, everything. And this one's delicious. I mean, it's so different, right? It's different. Peanut soup is a specialty of the northern people. And guys, if they give you too much, tell them to give you less. They gave him like double the portion. Peanut sauce. Oh man, sweet, oily. I just enjoy peanut sauce so much. I love mixing it. Just like take off a piece of chicken. It's still super hot though. It's burning my hand. Chicken, got a little bit of fuku, get some of that delicious peanut sauce. Sorry I say delicious so much is that there's no other better way to describe the sauce. Alright guys, that is it for tamale. We explored basically the main things to see, right? The tannery, the market, and then the cultural center. Those are the three things, right? So when you come here, head straight to the tannery. I see them doing that. Takes like 10-15 minutes. You see the whole process how they, you know, get the skin, take off all the fur, dye it, and then eventually stretch it out and they make leather, right? And then after that, walk around the market. The market's a little different from the one in Accra, the one in Mina, the one in Kumasi. Everything's more spread out. Different types of vendors everywhere. Like you have a butcher area, you have a poultry area, you have an area where you can... Butter area, you have the fruits area, you have all the smoke chalice area, village, who are making the smokes. Smokes, my art and my interest. But since we went to the market, we have seen So you can buy some stuff from the guys making leather. You can go through the entire market, buy anything you want there. Hat, smokes, other goods. You know, he bought a bunch of shea butter a bunch for like 6 bucks. Huge thing. Crazy. And then after that, we saw the cultural center. That's more of a touristic place where a few different vendors are selling craft goods. And then from there, straight to the airport. Having a quick fufu right here with delicious sauce. We don't want you to go with the plain empty stomach. No way, man. No way. And we're late. We're supposed to be there 15 minutes ago, but we're right here. I'll be on time. Guys, I hope you enjoyed this video of Tamale, the third largest city in Ghana. If you want to come, it's only a one hour flight. If you're driving, it's a long one. Hour and drive. Few days. Oh my god. No, it's like 12 hours or something like that, right? If you love the video, give me a thumbs up. Leave me a comment below so I can have more awesome travel content. And thank you, bro. I'm your climate friendly travel guy. This is my brother from Ghana, man. Yeah.