Ghana

January and February 2009

 

With our visa from Ouagadougou we drove straight down south to Ghana. We didn’t have any problems at the border as far as I remember, it was just quite big with lots of people hanging around, but everything went well. Except that the currency had been revalued and we weren’t sure if the money changers had cheated us or not (we decided to change only a small amount of money at the border because we suspected the rates to be too bad and then change more in an official bureau or at a bank). We soon found out that we got the right money at the border but the POLICE cheated us: Ghana has some bridges where you have to pay toll fee. That is 8 pesewas. A toll post is at the same time a snack selling point where girls and women with a bowl or a plate containing their wares (the usual water bags, fried plantains and such) on their heads run to the cars and trucks in case someone would like what they have to offer. So it’s quite chaotic. Two policemen offered us assistance at the first bridge and said we should give them 10 cedis. They gave us two back and a receipt over 8p. So we thought “Wow, that’s expensive, how can people afford that?” We also thought that we didn’t have enough money for the next bridge, but the guy there was honest and charged the right amount. Which was, as you may have guessed, a fraction of what we had paid the first time!!! So one cedi was at the time we’ve been in Ghana approximately one Euro and 100 pesewa were one cedi. Some people, even young girls, sometimes name the old price, so when they say 1500 for a doughnut, it’s 15 pesewas.
Money (Euros) can be changed at good rates in Forex Bureaus, visas (for Nigeria for example) can be paid in US-dollars. ATMs are still rare or not working, so money change is a real option.

When Peter and Micha with whom we had been travelling through the previous countries speeded up and after we finally split up in Togo, we decided to wait for another “team” to go through Nigeria with them and went back to Ghana from Togo to enjoy the beaches. The visa for Ghana in Togo can be easily obtained at the embassy in Lome, but make sure you get your change.

As you can imagine, traffic consists mostly of public transport by cars and minibuses. Unlike Mali and Burkina Faso, there aren’t any cows and donkey carts on the road and few bicycles. So locals add a little challenge by driving like crazy. It’s really amazing what accidents one can accomplish. Apart from the bridge toll stops, there are police stops as well. We were quite lucky because we drove in a Toyota like all the NGOs are using and our number plate looked like a Ghanesian one, so often police just let us through. One guide book said that it would be forbidden for foreign cars to drive after dark (don’t do that, you aren’t made for this kind of driving), but we never had any problems. At the stops we were often asked what we would have brought for the policeman (or woman). It’s completely okay if you answer with “A smile” or, better, “My friendship” (offer a handshake). When they say they are thirsty, give them a bag of water, if they pretend to be hungry, a biscuit or a sweet will do. Probably cigarettes, we don’t smoke and went well without any through all the West Coast. Streets are tar and in “mint condition”, potholes, speedbumps or, the mean variation of, speed holes or the occasional car or truck wreck can be troublesome. Be aware that small goats or chicken can emerge any time from the high grass beside the street.

The general route is through Ghana from north to south, then spend some time at the beach and then go further east to Togo. We found out that it is far more relaxing to avoid the big border post directly before Lome and drive some kilometres north to a way smaller border post (Kloutu) where everything is done without waiting, arguing, people wanting money but as correct (probably more correct) as at the big one. Only the carnet gave them trouble, but with some explanation that went well, too. The disadvantage of the small border post is that you have to get the visa for Togo in advance in Accra; at the Lome border post, you’ll get a seven-day-visa for Togo which can be easily extended in Lome.

We tried some of the hotel rooms in Ghana. Generally, they are clean and everything’s working, but don’t expect anything similar to Europe. West African furniture is somewhat like an African would imagine European style and completely inappropriate for the climate. There’s mosquito protection everywhere and a fan (you’ll need that one!). No hot water, and I don’t know why they adapted the European sit-down toilets. There IS toilet paper available.

Health service is good, in the hospital you better be two persons (the sick and one healthy one) and bring loads of patience because you will have to wait. And wait. And wait. At least there are people selling water and food outside and a telly inside. Needles etc are clean and the doctors use gloves. It’s really okay if you don’t mind blood and lots of people. As a foreigner, you’ll have to pay some money (not much for our measures) and you get a book where every doctor writes in his observations, diagnosis and prescription (good idea, I think). I wouldn’t want to get an operation there, but they have an excellent routine on malaria and are aware of AIDS risks and prevention.

 

Ghana is a good country to spend some time there: lie at the beach, explore the remains of the tropical forest, learn something about Ashanti culture, explore the Volta rivers and lakes or participate in a volunteer project. The country has a relatively stable democratic system, people are educated, a health system is existing and working and compared to other African countries Ghana appears quite wealthy and well organised. It has a sad history as a country where the slaves were shipped to America and you can visit the European castles where all this took place. The one in Cape Coast is very famous. We rushed through the country because I had malaria and we knew a hotel at the beach run by Germans, so we reckoned it would be good to get some advice and help there. Before I got malaria, we went to the Mole National Park. That’s nothing compared to the ones in South Africa, but quite nice and relaxing (and cheap). They got baboons, warthogs (who know how to open a garbage bin), some antelope , crocodiles and elephants. When you stay at the campsite you can use the hotel pool and the restaurant where you can look at a waterhole. The road to the park is terribly bad. The second time we were in Ghana we went to some forest leftovers at the Kakun National Park and Jonas did some canopy walk with the others. I’m afraid of heights, so I watched the dog. The rest of the time (several weeks) we spent at the beach or at the lake. Yeah. Always loads of volunteers on weekends.
Ghana is famous for its coffins which come in every shape the customer wants: fishes, bibles, flip-flops, houses, cows, cars, teapots (all true, Thomas and Marion visited a coffin workshop and took some photos), name any. Teshi is THE place to see some of these.
Leave some space in your bag to carry home fabrics, dresses and beads. I can’t remember any special or famous wood carvings or masks, but if you’re interested in this, get informed, perhaps it’s worth it.

Accra, the capital, is ugly like any other African city and the traffic is stop and go all day long. It took us more than four hours to “drive” from Teshi to Kokrobite on the other side of town. Traffic is tight, but at least nobody can speed. The advantage is that you can do some shopping or get a snack while you wait because there are people offering virtually anything at every traffic light. You’ll encounter a quite unique way of selling CDs, a combination of the African’s peculiar love for noise and hawking: small trucks are equipped with some sound equipment and tortured loudspeakers running on full volume and people are selling the music right off this truck. If you plan to go to Zambia, buy some of these reflector stickers for your car, you will never ever find them as easily as in Ghana where they are held right under your nose. Furtheron there are enough markets, shops, restaurants and pharmacies to keep you well fed and occupied. There even is, just before you drive to the highway to the east and to Togo, a shopping mall with Game and Shoprite supermarkets, so it’s perfect to stock up before heading to Central Africa.

 

Besides of the policemen and –women, people in Ghana are honest, friendly and interested. Despite all the chaos in the cities, the atmosphere is relaxed. Kids go to school, but I saw a lot of girls of about ten years and older who sold food and water. They are nice and fond of empty plastic bottles (half litre), I swapped one bottle for a bag of water. Selling snacks, beverages or whatever imaginable or unimaginable on the street (most people even don’t have a stall, they just walk around) is a completely normal form of merchandise in Ghana. If you want something, get into your car and cruise around. As far as I can remember, begging from white people is not a common habit in Ghana. You are a potential customer like any other person but selling is never aggressive. The only preying on tourists we encountered was at the parking of Elmina Castle at Cape Coastwhere some guys ask your name and, after the tour through the castle, offer you a mussle shell with your name written on it. The parking guard doesn’t like that.
People, especially women, carry everything on their head, even if it is only a bottle. The babies are carried on the back. Both habits are common in Mali and Burkina Faso, too, but in Ghana it became really obvious. There aren’t so many mosques around, Ghana is beyond the area that is largely influenced by muslim culture.
Young women and men like to wear “European” clothes, but who can afford it and especially on Sunday (church!) everyone dresses up in colourful hand-tailored clothes made of wax fabric. There is a difference from the dresses you see at Mali, but it’s just as nice. There are tailor stalls everywhere. You get some nice batik fabrics and dresses, too. A lot of young women are wearing their hair very short, older women often wear cheap wigs that became fashionable (they feign smooth black hair). The culture of the Ashanti is visible, especially at big events (they are wearing a special black cloth wrapped around them) and interesting. You’ll often get a chance to see some dancing, and acrobatics. The performance is always accompanied by awesome drumming. Tips welcome.

 

Yam is the root of choice, fufu consists of that or plantains (cooking bananas). At the lakes fish and crabs are offered, at the sea seafood (as one would suspect). They have the habit to fry little fishes, then place them into a glass box and sell them (wrapped into a plastic bag). Looks yuk. Along the road between Biriwa and Accra are a lot of stalls selling tomatoes, onions, pineapples, bananas and oranges. In addition to that, we found eggplants, beans, green peppers and cucumbers. You’ll get spaghetti (in fact, it’s vermicelli) and tomato paste. If you like some adventure: They sell some sort of big rat in whole and some guinea-pig-like rodent roasted along the streets. The strange red thingies coming in a big bunch are palm nuts to make red palm oil from. Street treats are boiled eggs with pepper (red chilli and onion paste) sauce (25 pesewa, yumyumyum) or fried plantains (also yumyumyum). Although the usage of milk is not common, you get ice cream or iced yoghurt on the street and at groceries, but we never tried some. Stefan, a Swiss traveller with a motorbike, did and he didn’t have any problems. At some place where we stayed we even had some local dish, I liked boiled yam with palava sauce (be aware it comes with either chicken or beef) and red red (beans in spicy sauce). Milk is only available at big supermarkets (means Shoprite), the awful bread is the only drawback. No, the one: the other is the water, Voltic. Imagine you have malaria, sweat, vomit once a day and have only this terrible water to drink! Standard which is better is sold only as bag, but available in a 20-bag package.

 

Our first night in Ghana we spent at Tamale. This was also the first night we drove in the dark and we spent in a room, because they wouldn’t let us sleep in the car. 16 cedis for two, but it was quite okay.

Then we drove this awful road to the Mole National Park where we stayed at the campsite, swam in the pool and made a bushwalk in the morning. The baboons and warthogs WILL get your garbage, no matter what you do.

We then had to stop at a health centre because malaria hit me, and we were stuck for one night in a bizarre hotel room (Jonas decided to sleep in the car) at Kintampo. If you can, spend some time in Kumasi, the traffic is unbelievable, but it IS the capital of the Ashanti.

We headed south to the German-run Biriwa Beach Hotel, where we decided to spend some money on a decent room with AC and good food at the restaurant. We made a visit at the hospital in Cape Coast for a proper malaria test. At the hotel was a great English guy, must have been around eighty or ninety years, who said he wouldn’t like the British winter and preferred to stay in Africa then, since he could afford it. Righto. I liked him.

We went to Big Milly’s Backyard (Wendy’s Place) in Kokrobite three times (okay, once only for one night). It’s close to Accra and all backpackers and overlanders get there. There was some guy who was very keen to do our laundry, but he charges one cedi per piece and although you’ll get all your clothes back, you won’t see him again if he owes you change. Around Big Milly’s grew a laid-back tourism-orientated (Rasta) community. It IS the dreadful road going down, the locals are right. Big Milly’s has a good restaurant (vegetarian English breakfast!), but just around the corner is a genuine Italian one! Salad and pizza are excellent, but if you are two, share the pizza. They close early. Every Friday there is an amazing dancing performace at Big Milly’s, a lot of locals come watching. Saturday is reggae band day, but the bar plays so much Bob Marley it’s nothing sensational. The place is open, the gates only close at night, which means a lot of people from the village are coming through. The advantage is you can stay in your chair all day and buy fresh fruits from the girls coming by, the disadvantage is that you should watch your stuff. You share the beach with the fishermen, but it’s nice watching them. For veggies, we made our rounds in the village where there are several small stalls and shops. It’s a question of taste or mentality or whatever if you like the place or not, we rather enjoyed it. To get some visas in Accra, best thing is to get some people together to share a taxi because it is expensive (25 cedis). To go to the internet cafe or to some shops, you can take a shared taxi that has the fixed price of 50 pesewas and does a route like some kind of bus. One thing: wear shoes! It’s tempting to go with bare feet, but there are chicken everywhere (some have their sleeping tree at Big Milly’s), and they (and the cats) leave their droppings everywhere, and this droppings can contain worms and when you walk barefoot in the sand, these worms will get under the toenails and into you! Ieeeek! Tourism begins to be the big thing in Kokrobite and hotels are being built along the coast, so I worry a bit about the future of this nice spot.

Another popular backpacker’s spot at the beach is the Green Turtle Lodge at Dixcove. Stock up before you go there because it’s in the middle of nowhere (and some palm trees). And the road is only gravel. With the usual potholes. Great place, but the air is so humid and salty our equipment suffered quite a lot and everything got sticky. The restaurant is very good and cheap, so we ate there several times. Get proper malaria protection (like everywhere in Ghana), there are a lot of mosquitoes around. The youngsters from the next village do some dancing every Saturday. There is really a lot of space for overlander cars and trucks, no noise, as much privacy as one wants and a phantastic view at the beach. You can stumble out of your car in the morning and crawl only a few metres to the sea.

Another place we liked a lot was Aylo’s Bay at Akosombo at the Volta Lake. The camping area is not very big, but at least it is some, not only a parking place. You can swim in the lake and the hotel restaurant is good. It is popular as a bar-restaurant among the wealthier locals. It can get noisy on weekends.

At the Kakun National Park we more or less had to stay to make the canopy walk in the morning, but I can’t recommend the camping site. We couldn’t get there with our cars because it’s a ten minute’s walk into the wood, not too well maintained and costs 9 cedi per person! We stayed (for the same rate) at the parking place and used the visitor’s centre’s toilet.

On our first trip to Togo when we went to the big broder at Lomé, we didn’t make it in one day and stopped at Keta. It is a tiny city at the sea that offers the ruins of a Danish castle. It is supposed to be renovated to attract tourists. We couldn’t find the “resort” or whatever where Peter and Micha stayed and ended up in a Christian (Lutheran?) centre. The people there were really nice, the boys washed our car and they insisted that we should sleep in a room. They are trying to establish a guest house and they are so friendly and welcoming that it would be worth to stay a night there.

We didn’t dare to bushcamp because people use to initiate bushfires, and they aren’t always controlled.

 

Nicole and Dirk spent some days in Kumasi and at the lake Bosumtwe (there is a nice lodge). Flo and Sarah mentioned a National Park near the border to Ivory Coast which they liked. Worth a visit are the waterfalls near Hohoe, when there IS water.

 

I finally discovered some features for the pictures, so check out my comments in the gallery! I decided to add more than the average six because we spent so much time in Ghana.