Ghana!

After the longest bus ride of my life, I am happy to say I have returned safe and sound to Burkina after spending my first real vacation since I arrived six months ago. My friend and neighbor during training Christy, and I spent one week gallivanting across Ghana, travelling by bus and tro-tro (bush taxi) from the northern border all the way south to the gorgeous palm-lined shores of Busua Beach (which lies just west of Takoradi where the coast comes to a point).

It started last Wednesday as every good vacation should: with a 16-hour bus ride, from Ouagadougou to Kumasi, the capital of the Asante kingdom. The bus was actually the nicest I have been on in Africa with relatively comfortable seats and air conditioning, but it could not make up for stopping every twenty-minutes for police checkpoints and bathroom breaks. But we finally pulled into the Kumasi station at around 12:30am on Thursday morning. We got a cab and headed straight for the PC Suboffice which is used as a hostel for PC Ghana volunteers as well as those PCVs from neighboring countries. We crept into the house and hit the sack right away. If you did not think we were torturing ourselves at that point, we awoke the next morning only to begin part two of our trip: another 6 hours hopping from tro-tro to tro-tro, making our way to the beach. We finally arrived Thursday evening and were lucky to find very few tourists, so it was easy to snatch up a hotel room from a nice place named Dadson Lodge for 12 cedis a night (about $12, 1 cedi = $1)


The next three days we spent relaxing on the beach and exploring the surroundings. The water was beautiful and the waves were supposedly some of the best in Ghana for surfing. We thought at first we were the only whities (called obrunis, in the local language Twi) on the beach, but we eventually discovered that they were all at the other end of the beach where the nice resorts were located. It still felt like we had the whole beach to ourselves, and it was great getting to know the locals rather than other tourists. It was a pleasant change to have the mutual understanding that comes with visiting an English-speaking country. We ate at several nice restaurants and sampled the street fare as well. Staples include kenkey with shito sauce, fufu in groundnut sauce, rice, and beans, but Ghana is also known for such delights as fried chicken and fried rice, which I packed myself full of, not to mention fresh seafood like tuna and shrimp, which is hard to come by in land-locked Burkina.


We also took one day exploring the neighboring fishing village of Dixcove, which still harbors a17th-century British fort and another day trekking to Butre, a village 3km in the opposite direction, where we took a canoe trip in search of monkeys. We didn't find any monkeys, but we befriended the two river guides that accompanied us. (One said he was certified in CPR and First-Aid, in case of emergency; the other told us he was certified to "entertain people.") When we asked about palm wine, the traditional hooch of the area, they took us on a walk through the bush to meet a friend of theirs who actually makes the goods. We were able to get a look at how they make palm wine and got to sample some as well (which I actually prefer to our local Burkina brew known as dolo, or millet beer).

After the beach we headed back up by tro-tro to Kumasi, home of the Asante people, the largest market in West Africa, and a record number of bootlegged DVDs. We only stayed here for a day and a half, and it definitely wasn't enough time to get comfortable enough with the city. It is the closest thing to America that I have seen in six months, reminding me a bit of San Francisco with its steep hills (vis-a-vis Ouaga's flat terrain), and the entire vibe of the place is much more western and much more developed, which I think can actually be said for the whole country in comparison to Burkina. The market was overwhelming to say the least. Sprawled out across several city blocks, we continuously seemed to get lost in its labyrinthine passageways. It was an experience if nothing else. Coincidentally, we ran into a Swedish/French couple at the market that we meet the week before in Ouaga while applying for our Ghanaian visas. Our last day we actually left the city and went on a half-hour ride west to the small Owabi Wildlife Sanctuary where we actually did see (and hear) monkeys, as well as many species of birds and butterflies. Then we headed back to the city and got together our things to start the long journey home, which ended up taking nineteen hours (two hours of which was waiting for the border to open and then another hour and a half getting through the border). But it is nice to be home again, to familiarity, where I don't have to think in English anymore when talking to Africans (never learned how to do that) and the money makes sense to me. At least I have ten "new" movies to watch when I am back. Here are just a few pics from our vacation:

Fishing boats at Busua Beach

Me and a palm tree, the only shady place on the entire beach

We we told a local guy we found a shady spot to chill on the shore, he responded: "Oh, you mean the palm tree." Obviously, it has a reputation.

British fort built in the 1600s in the village of Dixcove

View of Dixcove from said fort

Christy and I in Butre

Learning how to make palm wine from our guides/friends (blue shirt and white shirt)

Man carrying sugarcane down the beach

Fishing canoes in various stages of production (each is carved from a single huge tree)