Cape Coast to Accra
Trip Start
Mar 11, 2005
1
26
28
Trip End
Mar 27, 2005
Accra,
Ghana
Thursday, March 24, 2005
Back to wake up the kids so they can have breakfast before we go and hey, guess what? We have water! Showers for everyone. We hurry up - and wait. And wait. The guy that is to be our driver told us he was our driver yesterday as we were walking back from the pool, so where is he today? They had given us this sob story about the cost being so much because the driver had to come from Accra to get us, yet he was in Elmina yesterday
Andrew's Burger At Frankie's Restaurant In Osu
. He finally shows up - at least Kailey had a chance to swim for awhile with her new friends, but we just want to get out of here. The drive to Accra is long, longer than it should be with traffic and worse, construction. The driver has a cassette he puts in at the start of the trip, and he plays it over and over again. More Bryan Adams, Elton John's Daniel etc. I see he has a Celine Dion cassette too. If he puts that one in, we'll be walking. I think we already have a chip on our shoulder about the price of this trip - but it is no one's fault but our own. Must be about time to wind this trip down. I know the boys are seriously missing their friends. Kailey seems fine, she just makes new ones whereever she goes.We marvel at the traffic, the accidents, the condition of the vehicles on the road. How different from what we are used to and the safety we take for granted! Sorry, that sounded a lot like those stupid Goodyear Tire commercials! We want to visit the market in Accra before we get something to eat and go to the hotel. We ask the driver takes us to the National Cultrual Centre on the seafront at 28th February Road. We hear that you can buy just about anything from genuine Kente and other fabric to wood carvings and crafts from all over Ghana and other parts of Western Africa. The guide book says "The one drawback to doing your curio shopping here is the high level of pushiness and histronics, though this seems to have abated significantly over the past year or two"
Checking Out The Grounds Of The Dutchotel
. Well, were getting the hang of Ghana now and this is not our first market experience so how bad can it be? In one word - BAD! We have never been as harassed as we were at this market. I took two steps into one building and if I thought the sellers in Bonwire were annoying, they didn't hold a candle to this. Talk about in your face! I stopped at one stall because the woman had some pens. She invited us into her stall and made all the rest of the vendors stay out. At least we could catch our breath, but boy was it hot in here. We made our purchase and headed back outside. The "roaming" vendors were on us once again. When we liked some carvings made by one guy, he made the others back off when it looked like a sale was imminent. Shawn bought a T-shirt of Adinkra symbols for way too much money. Not too much of a haggler that guy. He says he bought it just to get rid of the guy, but once one sees you buy, they are like buzzards over a fresh kill. We bought a couple of things and couldn't take it anymore. The boys ran back to our cab and were telling the driver to wake up and get them out of here! Arms were pushing in the windows, waving silver (yeah, right) and maps, purses, T-shirts, anything you can think of. There was a guy or two in a wheelchair and that was freaking Kailey out. She still talks about the blind people we saw and the crippled people and the people missing limbs. It really affected her. When I asked where she would like to go on the next trip she said somewhere with no black people. I was shocked at that response and asked her what she meant
Pool Area At The Dutchotel
. She said she couldn't deal with the blind people and the beggars with no legs. I explained that happened to all sorts of people, not just black people. I told her there were blind and crippled people in Ottawa too, she just never saw or noticed them before. She just has such a kind heart.OK, so now we're out of money again and we might as well eat before heading to the hotel. Let's go to Frankie's for some food. Again, we're putting our trust in what the guide book says. We're heading to the Osu part of town, more of an upscale place and the part of town you find white people living in so there are more modern houses and shops and stores and nicer cars etc. There was a Standard Charter Bank with an ATM so we withdrew more money. The max is 800,000 at once so in went the card several times. We walked into Frankie's and it was so strange to suddenly find ourselves in a room full of white folks! The boys were just drooling over the menu - ahh burgers and pizza and chocolate milk shakes. The food came - and it was good!
The driver was getting a bit antsy because it was getting late and he was complaining about the traffic. I had no sympathy for him, I wanted to get my money's worth out of this hire. If his story was true and he had come from Accra to pick us up in Elmina that morning, then he was almost home anyway
Street View in Osu
. Besides, he was the one that was late this morning!It was dark by the time we reached our hotel, the Dutchotel. Funny how things started to look familiar while we were driving to the hotel. I guess Accra is not really THAT BIG of a city once you start moving around.
We check into our hotel and just get to our room when the phone is ringing. That is strange, who would call us? Well it was none other than Daniel and he was calling from the lobby! Down we go to meet him and now it is our turn to be embarassed as this time he is the one with gifts for us! He presents Kailey with a beautiful blue tye-dye Ghananian dress with some Krobo beads. There is also a dress for me as well as some beads and a shirt for Shawn. He has brought the boys each a vest which is very heavy and I'm not sure when someone in Ghana would ever wear something of that weight. He also has gifts for us to bring back to two of his friends in Canada which we gladly do for him. One of them Shawn knows, the other may be more difficult to find, but at least they are both Hydro workers and we should be able to locate them. We talk Daniel into coming to dinner with us in the hotel restaurant. He doesn't want anything but a beer when he sees the prices on the menu. I finally talk him into ordering something, and what does he get? Chicken and Rice - what else! I get brave and order Red Red, which is a bean and meat sort of spicy stew or chili. It is really very good. It was so nice to get to see Daniel again. He tells us he is going to try to see us off at the airport and he's hoping to have his daughter Esther with him. We say we hope to see him again too and sadly say our good byes.
