Traveling in Ghana

Ok, so I was writing about my weekends (mainly in accra) when this annoying pop-up came to tell me that I was running out of time. Now I’m back in the hills. Thank god, Accra is a terrible place if you are tired (which I was after Friday) because everyone is talking/shouting to you and everyone wants something from you. If you are tired you just want everyone to back of shut up and let me pass in peace and calmness. That’s not going to happen though. Man, I have to learn to limit myself to one subject. Ok I’m back in the hills were there’s a nice and quiet internet café which charges a hour so I don’t have to hurry to finish in time. Back to my weekends: The first time I went to Accra was with Patrick to see a place were he could stay during his computer course in the capital. We found the place were he could actually live for free and it looked pretty nice. It was with the family of the woman that cooks in school. Up until now Patrick hasn’t been there though because his mum wants to see the place before he can go there and she has been to busy to visit it. In a way that is nice because I spent a lot of time with him and it would be very lonely/boring without him. After we looked at the house I forced Patrick to walk a huge distance through Accra so I could see the city (which he didn’t enjoy that much). It didn’t feel like a huge city with loads of people and were there are always things happening (now, after a few weeks in the hills it does a bit). Still there’s quit some poverty although there are not to many beggars and they aren’t aggressive. Accra doesn’t have many interesting things to see, it’s actually pretty limited to tasting the atmosphere and seeing the market. After this first trip to Accra I’ve been there again for two TPA parties, once because it was on the way to our next destination and once to live in a super fancy mega luxurious hotel. Let me tell you that story. Jamie, an American girl that arrived about three days after me had her birthday and her mother had given her a stay in La Palm Royal. It is the most luxurious hotel in Ghana and it looks absolutely fabulous (especially after a couple of weeks of Ghana). I’m sure they have a website were you can see the huge bathrooms with bath, shower, hot water, big mirror and imitation marble. Then there are the perfect beds, complete cleanliness and, last both most definitely not least, the swimming pool. We all (amie, alex, Jamie and me) felt a bit out of place (that is an understatement) wearing flip flops and shorts in an 5 star hotel. After we arrived me and Alex had a walk through the hotels gardens (the hotel consists out of a big garden/grass with several little blocks with 6 rooms each). That was were I experienced my first (and up until now only) culture shock. It was just so unreal to walk through this island of luxury in the middle of a third world country. Reading a “please keep of the grass”-sign doesn’t make much sense when you know that on the other side of the wall there are no carbage cans and the gutter is filled with al kinds of smelly stuff (it’s not to bad on the other side, but compared to this). I felt uncomfortable being here, it was just unreal. The swimming pool in the evening followed by a hot shower, nice bed and a tv made me happy anyway. The next day we had breakfast and it looked awesome. There were pancackes, croissants, chocolate filled pastry, perfect meat and ham. I would have eaten plates and plates if it weren’t for the rock I at the afternoon before. (I had some pastry at the tro station because I was feeling hungry and although it was only small, I didn’t feel hungry for at least one day) After breakfast we went into the town again and explored accra some more. It felt a bit good going back into the real world although at the end of the day I really longed for the peace and quit in the hotel. Over all it was a very nice weekend with the swimming pool, hot shower and proper shave (with a mirror with light and hot water) being my highlights. After taking my last hot shower on Sunday morning I realized that that was the cleanest I’ll be during these 6 months in Ghana. Still I was glad to be back in the hills were we may not have al this luxury, but we have peace and quit, nice people and a real world. Although, no luxury, I’m really good of with my shower, which hasn’t worked for 2 days now. Another volunteer wanted to go home fast this afternoon because he suspected that it would rain and that would mean he could take a shower in that shower (finally I understand why we call a shower a shower). I feel a bit of a fraud/halve volunteer with my wc and running water.

I’m not sure about which trip I should tell you next. I might already have written about the trip to the boti falls. It was a bit of a disappointment that the waterfall was missing the pretty essential water but we had a nice hike and it was funny to fill up an entire tro with white people (the Ghanaians must have been pretty stunt). I’m quit sure I told you about the akosombo dam which we couldn’t really visit because you needed to buy a permit and rent a car and we are cheap. But we did have a nice canoe trip although I almost broke my back while jumping in the water. My last adventure real traveling (as far as you can really travel in a weekend) was a trip to cape coast and kakum national park. Well, this is what happened: Amie, Alex and Jamie went to Accra early to get on a STC bus (which were suppose to have airco and proper chairs) to Cape Coast so they could see this city before going to the national park. Faisle and me went to accra that afternoon to get on a later bus. This being Ghana, we ended up on the same bus because the girls couldn’t get a ticket to the early bus anymore and had to buy one for the bus to Takoradi (so we had to get off before the last stop but had to pay the full price). Well that bus went of on time (which ment only 15 minutes late) and although it didn’t have an airco and they fitted in one seet more as they do in Europe they did make an effort to match our standards. The way they did this was by appointing chairs to everyone (of course everyone just sad were he wanted except for a grumpy up tight guy) and making a passenger list (god knows why, they sure as hell wont wait for you when you’re late). After over two hours on the bus Amie and Alex started panicking because they thought we had already past cape coast. This disturbed Faisle and me in the middle of a real good song on his mp3 player which we were playbacking (we wanted to do some proper karaoke but the bus was so quiet and we didn’t want to be kicked our of the bus 30 km before cape coast, or past cape coast who cares). Faisle and I couldn’t really be bothered, apparently Takoradi is a very nice city too, but after some pressure put on his by the girls we asked and (of course) found out that cape coast was still an hour away. In cape coast amie got us to a guest house as quick as possible were the owner refused to let us sleep in 2 double beds with five people (the room was for 3 people max). We talked to him for about 10 minutes, threatened to find another hotel (which Faisle and me were quit willing to do, but the girls weren’t in the best mood) but our efforts were vain. We had to get another room, but we got it for a better price. That evening we had a typical Ghanaian experience in the hotel’s restaurant. We were given a nice menu which offered rice, boiled yam, yam chips, plantain, fish, meat and chicken. So everyone ordered what he wanted and five minutes later the waiter was back again. He ran out of plantain and fish, would we like something else? We ordered yam but the man told us that the yams were finished to. So we asked him what was available which of course was rice and fried chicken. Rice and fried chicken are always available. So we wanted to order again but then the guy has to call someone else. He comes back with her, we start ordering again and they walk of again. Then the girl comes back and finally she takes our order. After about 45 minutes (which isn’t that long for Ghanain time but if you’r with three exousted, hungry and grumpy girls it is quit a while) the first two people got their food. Another 5 minutes later number 3 and 4 got theirs. Ofcourse one had a chicken which she didn’t order so we told them we’d give this chicken to person number 5 (who still didn’t have anything) and they didn’t have to bring her a chicken. When the girl arrived 5 minutes later with her rice (which of course wasn’t the rice she’d ordered) a chicken came along. So we tried to explain that this wasn’t what we’d ordered. After a few minutes of talking the girl took up the chicken and walked away pretty pissed off and the guy came to the conclusion that maybe we had made a mistake with the order. They still have to learn one or two things about service here in Ghana. Another nice example of this (I know I’m not really sticking to my story, but who cares) lack of service was shown to me last Friday in accra. I asked the woman of a shop if I could have 8 sachets of water. She said “Eight?” and when I confirmed her friendly question positive she set of to the fridge with a look upon her face that said something like “bloody obrunis, asking for 8 water, they will take halve of my stock for Christ sake. Now I have to put new sachets into the fridge…”. But back to the evening in Cape Coast. You’ll get a very detailed description of this journey so you have a bit of insight in traveling in Ghana. Faisle and I wanted to spent the night in the rain forest upon a tree platform (we found out later that the only “tree” about it was that it was made of wood and in the forest on the ground) and the girls didn’t (well Jamie did, but she had come with the girls so she didn’t want to leave them). We decided to split up. The next morning we woke up early, but since we had been talking half of the night faisle went to bed again and I got bored. Around 10 we finally took of to see cape coast. This might sound early to you, but for Ghanaian standards this is really properly late (especially since I woke up at 7). Cape coast turned out to be a very nice, relaxed town. It was nice and calm and the people were very friendly, not like the busy accra at all. The girls had a bit of a different experience that afternoon (they went to the park in the morning) when a couple of guy kept herasing them. I think this had more to do with three girls traveling by them selves then with cape coast. By the way it is not that Ghanaians are unfriendly towards women, it’s more that the man might be a bit to persistent in trying to get a white girl. So we walked around cape coast but didn’t go to the castle which used to be a big slave trading point because we didn’t feel like it. In the afternoon we went to the park to arrange that we could spent the night down there. A guide showed us the platforms which were maybe 300 meters into the forest which still looked like a normal and not like a rain forest. Spending the night there costed 40.000 and you could get a matras for another 30.000. Ofcourse we didn’t do this, so we spent the night lying on some wooden planks. Then we went to a hotel nearby were the girls were suppose to be. They had set of for cape coast though, so we just pretended to have friends at the place and played some pool and table tennis. Then we set down above the crocodile pond, looking at swarm of birds in the trees and eating our dinner. This hotel was by the way one of the only places in Ghana were they did understand service. After finishing our meals, which took a bit longer than expected we tried to get back to the park. The few tros that past by didn’t stop and all the taxis charged ridiculous prices like 100.000 so we decided to start walking. We thought, worst case we have to walk for about 25 km and get in the park around 1 but at least we’ve had a nice walk and a got story then. After about 20 minutes of walking a guy on a moped stopped (we waved for a ride) and told us to get into a line taxi to the next village to get a tro from there. We got in the next taxi and payed 2.500 each to get to the next village. (a small truck packed with a fanfare orchestra just past by outside, Ghana still is full of little surprises) A drunk woman helped us to get a tro (we asked her what her favorite drink was “star beer” I said Faisle “that figures” and we bought her and us a coke) and another 2.500 poorer we arrived at the park. There we met the crazy british guy with whom we’d arrived and shared our guide. We talked a bit to him and he was one weird ass guy (in proper American, my English leaned more towards british, but after that weekend with an American it turned to American. I just copy the people I’m with, I even speak more english after a night with some English then before the night). He told us he had traveled all over Asia for the past 10 years or so but was shocked by the poverty in ghana. It smelled eveywere and people just lived in awful conditions. We didn’t quit understand this. Ghana might be a developing country but it is one of the richest in the region and the countries he mentioned were pretty poor too. He than told us that one girl had shown him her room and she had to share a bathroom and didn’t have a fan. That’s not poverty man, what are you talking about. After mentioning the countries he’d visited, him describing how he’d just met a white guy with three African girls one of them fourteen years old and giving him her number (“she was a bit to young” he said laughing) and him talking about girls all the time we figured he wasn’t here to get an inside into the Ghanaian culture (that means he was here at least partially for the hookers). The scariest thing in that forest (and only animal we’ve seen that evening excepts for some insects) was that guy. The night was pretty uncomfortable and we got up early in the morning to start our tour at dawn. Of course the bloody brit didn’t show up so we missed the sunrise. Still the canopy walk from treetop to treetop was pretty cool and we even saw some monkeys (all the people who didn’t spent the night in the park and came when it officially opened had to walk on a crowded canopy and didn’t see any animals). After the canopy walk we had a hike through the forest with plantain (yes our guide was actually called plantain and yes that are a kind of bananas. It cracked me and Faisle up quit a bit and Faisle has told people several times since that his name was Plantain or Yam). In general the forest wasn’t as impressive as I’d expected it to be. I probably had to do with the fact that we went in just a bit, spent only a couple of hours there and were back into the civilized world again within 2 minutes after the walk. It’s like when you arrive in a city after a flight and know you’re there, but don’t really feel like your there, your mind just takes a while to catch up. After the walk we went to cape coast. We had to wait for about 30 minutes besides the road before a tro stopped which wasn’t that bad because we had a laugh with the children and their mums who were selling food opposite to the park. Faisle managed to shout “Fobia” (accra’s football team) for about 5 minutes to a kid who shouted back “Fabulous” (the other big team) for five minutes but then gave it up and joined Faisle in his “Fobia” cry. In cape coast we had to wait for about 1.40 hours for the tro to accra to fill up (we weren’t going to pay 20.000 extra for the bus again) because it was Sunday morning (I think it was Jan who gave me the advise always to bring a book while traveling, thank Jan it has been one of the best advices). We did have seats in the front which was properly comfortable and we enjoyed the ride. In accra we went to an Indian restaurant so Faisle could finally eat a Pakistan-like meal again. I just stuck to a coke which was ridiculously expensive (10.000). I’m actually the only volunteer here who doesn’t miss the western food badly. No mum, it has nothing to do with you kooking skills, which are excellent, I think it’s just because I’m full all the time and the food I get is quit good. Also I’m not that demanding with food. After dinner we headed back to the hills. Back at home.

Well now you know what a weekend of traveling can look like I can go back to see some volunteers and have a drink. I just have to inform you briefly on some recent things. First of all, the number of volunteers in the hills has shrunk to 4, pretty soon only 3 because everyone is traveling this week. After they come back, one by one people will leave. On the 19th of this month I will go to Mali with Alex, Jamie, Andy and Nick for 3.5 weeks. When we get back only 4 volunteers will be in the hills to great us (of which 3 new people who have yet to arrive) and Jamie will leave a couple of days later. Then, after most of the people I know and got close with have left (4 will stay) the hills will be filled with white people in January when around 25 volunteers will arrive. I’m not looking forward to that. Last Friday I had to go to immigration to renew my visum and change my single entry visa in a multiple entry one (that women from the ghanain embassy in den haag really screwed me with the single entry visa). Ofcourse this wasn’t possible and I had to buy a new single entry visa so I can get back into Ghana for 40 dollars. In two weeks time I have to pick up my passport and buy visa for mali and Burkina Faso. This will cost quit some money (I wouldn’t have to get one for Burkina Faso if I’d had a bloody multiple entry visa) and I have to ask for another 2 days of from work (since immigration isn’t opened during the weekend and I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to do the visa in the weekend either). Meanwhile I found out that my debitcard (pinpas) doesn’t work in Ghana so I have to get all my money by western union now. That will cost 20 euro a transaction so I’ll have to get all my money at once which means I’ll have about 15 cm of cedis. Include the fact that we had to sleep with 6 people in one room because some couldn’t get a room for themselves and you understand why I was tired yesterday. But I’m ok now. And on that happy note I say goodbye to you.If you don't hear from me before I leave for Mali, it might be a while untill the next message because I'm not sure how easy it will be to go to the internet up north and i doubt that i have any time to do so.