Ghana: Tema & Accra

HAPPY 21^ST BIRTHDAY GUARAV!!! I’m sorry I’m not there for it.

There was no diplomatic briefing this morning. Thank God. Those things suck. So we got to sleep in a little bit longer than usual. Although breakfast is only served until 0830, so we still have to get up early if we want to eat. I’m not usually a big breakfast person, but in port you never know where your next meal will be, or if there will be a next meal. One of the crewmembers came over the load speaker at 0630 to warn us that we would be entering rough seas, so secure all loose items. I hate when they do this; they wake us all up at ungodly hours. And it’s not like any of us actually secure stuff. We just yell at swears to the loud speaker to shut up and try to fall back to sleep.

I met up with Victor at breakfast at 0800. We ate outside on the back deck of 6. I struggled to make it up there. I only dragged myself out of bed because a bunch of us had planned to meet up to figure out our plans for the day. Victor was the only one who made it up there. A few people that we’re friends with had gotten in trouble the night before. They had been checking out the stars on the front of the 7^th deck and had walked up front to lie at the very front of the ship to get a better view of them. To get to this point you have to cross the “CREW ONLY” sign. Apparently, the sign wasn’t up at the time, but everyone knows you don’t cross it. When they did, someone up top saw them and called security. They were awaiting to hear what their fate would be. They had to deal with the captain. He could easily kick them off, because he’s really strict with safety rules on the ship. So the three of them had been up all night freaking out waiting to hear back.

Victor and I ran into Becca and Vanessa and went down and woke up Bea. Vanessa decided to go to the slave dungeons with some people. Becca, Victor, Bea, and I decided that we’d go to the beach today and just chill and get some good non-ship food. Everyone went back to sleep for an hour or so waiting to hear that the ship was cleared. We didn’t have to do face-to-face immigration, so basically we just had to wait to be told we could leave the ship.

It was a little before 1000 that the ship was cleared. We were all woken up by the loud speaker. We met up and decided to get all our stuff together and meet up in Tymitz Square. We got information from the Field Office about where to go. There was a shuttle leaving every hour on the hour to take us from Tema to Accra. It was a 45 minute ride away.

So they’ve been telling us all along that we were going to be in Accra. Nope. We were docked in Tema. Accra is the capital, and it’s not on the coast. Tema is a small port town; it’s really industrial. In order to get to Accra we could take the shuttle that SAS had arranged or we could take a taxi into the city.

We waited for the 1100 buses to arrive; there were supposed to be 3 coming that could take 40 people each. Everyone had lined up out front of the ship. We waited and waited and waited. The line kept getting longer, and there was no way we would all be getting on these buses. The buses were late; they didn’t even arrive until 1145. Also, it was so hot and humid outside. It was hotter and more humid than India and Vietnam. I think this is the closest we’ve been to the equator in any country. It was horrible. Everyone was already sweaty and disgusting. Lovely.

When the buses pulled up everyone ran to them and pushed to get on. There was no order to it, even the teachers were running and trying to get on one of them. Luckily, the four of us were able to get onto the same bus. We had to push our way on. We weren’t able to get seats, so we’d have to stand the entire drive. I saw Casey and Linzi and they let me sit with them and I squished in. The bus was somewhat air conditioned, but with it so packed it didn’t help too much. A lot of people weren’t able to get onto the buses, especially those at the front of the “line.” It was such a long drive squished in there and propped up between seats. I was ecstatic to get off of the bus.

We were dropped off next to a hotel in Accra. The first thing we had to do was find an ATM, since none of us had been able to find Ghanaian money ahead of time. We walked for a minute and found an ATM at a bank. The bank wasn’t open since it was Sunday. No one seemed to be aware of the fact that it was Sunday and things were closed. The ATM didn’t work for anyone. This was the first time my ATM card didn’t work. So we wandered a little further down the street to a gas station with an ATM. This one worked. We all took out money and went inside to the convenience store and got some juice and a loaf of bread. The bread looked too good to pass up.

The area of Accra that we were in, I couldn’t even call a city. There were small shops along the sides of the roads. The roads were paved, but they were really dusty and bumpy. There were street vendors out along the sides of the street with beaded jewelry, shirts, shoes, soccer balls, and all sorts of other stuff. Everyone we had run into helped guide us to the ATMs and seemed really nice. In the convenience store the woman working the register recommended a local restaurant for us to go to and welcomed us to Ghana.

We walked down the street for minute trying to decide if we wanted to walk around in search of a restaurant or if we should just head to the beach and get food there. After a minute we decided to just take a cab to the beach area. There were supposed to be a bunch of restaurants there. We stood by the side of the road for a minute and a cab appeared.

He drove us through the streets for about 15 minutes down to the coast area to a beach called Labadi or something like that. It was no white sand beach, it looked more like dirt and clay than anything else. It was a reddish, brown color and was packed with local people. All four of us being white, we stood out greatly in the all black city, and I think most of Ghana. We were easy targets for the street vendors. Any time we stepped out of a bus or cab we were preyed upon to buy stuff.

It was going to cost a few dollars to use this public beach. We had passed by a beach resort a little ways down the road. We had read that we could use their facilities for a certain price and decided we might as well check it out. We were starving by this point and started in on the bread that we had bought. It was so good, freshly baked, a great purchase.

As we entered into the hotel property we ran into a few other SASers. They were all planning on staying at the beach resort for their time in Ghana. I mean what else would you do in Ghana? Why not stay at a beach resort? Haha. The hotel seemed nice enough inside. They had a huge pool that circled around with a little waterfall and swim up bar. They were right along the beach, but didn’t connect to a beach area. We decided we might as well try to get a room while we were there. Why not? Unfortunately they were overbooked. A bunch of SASers were staying there and others were trying to get in for at least the night. There were a few other similar hotels around, but they were all booked as well. Oh, well.

We went over to the bar and found that we could order lunch there. They had random foods. I got a pasta bolognaise and a huge bottle of water. I was so thirsty from the heat and humidity already. We sat around inside at a little table and chowed down on our food. It was so good. Pasta with flavor. Yummmm.

Once we were stuffed with good food we moved outside to the pool area. It cost about $15 to use the pool facilities for the day. Not a huge deal since we weren’t planning on doing anything else. They gave us towels and a man working there pulled up two chairs for us in the shade. We relaxed and sat down. Becca, Victor, and I jumped into the pool. It was really cloudy. Standing in the three feet of water, you couldn’t see more than a foot below the surface. If you laid on the bottom of the pool you disappeared completely from view. This was useful for sneaking up on people. It was somewhat disgusting to wonder why it was like this. We decided not to dwell on it and just enjoy the water. It was about the same temperature as the air and wasn’t too refreshing. It only cooled us down a little bit. It felt good to come out of the water and lie in the shade.

We just chilled for the afternoon in the lounge chairs. People started to clear out as the afternoon passed and we were able to get more chairs. We ordered chips, which are French fries. They were so good. I miss French fries so badly. There was also a gelato place on the premises. Becca, Bea, and I went to find it and I got a chocolate and mint milk shake. Not the best shake I’ve ever had, but better than nothing. It was more like chocolate and mint flavored milk. I also really miss milk. Victor didn’t join us as he was passed out on a chair.

Bea and I played around for awhile while Victor and Becca swam some more. The more I thought about the pool, the less appealing it became and I didn’t want to get back in. There were a ton of SASers at the swim up bar singing and being incredibly loud. Luckily this was a hotel resort place and that was fine. Only about half of the people here were Ghanaian. A lot were foreigners, some Indian, some Asian, and some European.

Bea and I went inside to find out if we could get a guide to take us to Kakum National Park tomorrow and the Elmina Castle. We talked to the women at Guest Services. After talking for a little bit she told us we could get a driver to take us there in the morning. It would cost $100 USD a person. Not Ghanaian dollars. Bummer. The Ghanaian dollar was actually about $1.41 for every $1 USD. This was a little pricey, but we didn’t know how else to get there as these two places were about 4 hours from the ship. Plus this guy could pick us up from the ship and not the hotel. He’d be there at 0700 for us. That’s so early, but it would have to be to get there in time.

We told the others about it. It was going to end up being Victor, Bea, and me. Becca had an SAS trip planned for the next two days. We all just chilled on the chairs as the day wound down. There was almost no one out there except for other SASers. They got kicked out of the pool after a while, too, as they wanted to close it down. Then they asked us to move to the table and chair area so they could put the cushions away. We got dressed and moved.

It was now getting dark. We sat there and finished up our loaf of bread. It was a huge loaf that the four of us split, and it needed to be done before we got back to the ship. Only foods that are packaged up can be brought onto the ship. Lame. But it wasn’t an issue.

As we sat there Jenny and Sarah passed by and told us that they were going to get dinner down by the beach, another part to the hotel. They invited us along. They were meeting up with Casey and Linzi and a few other people. We decided we might as well go and get food before heading back to the ship.

There was live entertainment, two women dancing around to Ghanaian music. It was really good music. They pulled a few tables together for all of us. The whole place was open air. There was just a roof over the whole place and it was right by the water. There was a nice breeze and it wasn’t nearly as hot as it had been in the sunlight hours, obviously.

The menu was traditional, typical Ghanaian food, some fish, some snails, some chicken. We weren’t too hungry after eating all of the bread. Bea and I decided to split a grilled chicken meal with some rice. I ordered a Red Bull as I was getting really tired after being in the sun all day. We all sat around and talked about random stuff. It was mostly about who had gotten in trouble in South Africa. So many people had gotten in trouble there, it was unbelievable. They had all ended up having to go a behavioral sanctions meeting. One girl had gotten in trouble because she had written her name on a light house at Cape Point. I didn’t go there, so I didn’t know much about this. But apparently, the whole inside of it is covered with names of people. This girl had traveled there independently with her mom and brother and the three of them had written their names next to one another. That’s really cute. Later on, an LLC saw the name on a trip there and took a picture and brought it back to the ship and got her in trouble for “vandalizing.” What a dick. This LLC was one of the ones I liked, too. It further proved the point that you can’t trust any of them on the ship. It makes me mad just thinking about this. He went out of his way to fuck this girl over. It wasn’t like she hurt anyone or did anything bad, he didn’t even see her do it. Let me reiterate: WHAT. A. DICK.

At one point during dinner Bea and I went off to the find the bathrooms. While we were going in a woman came out. She told us that it was really crowded inside so we were better off waiting outside. She had an American accent. At first this didn’t even phase me as I’m used to being around them on the ship and even traveling in port. We said thank you and she did a double take and asked us where we were from. Stupidly, I answered America. The standard answer in any country. She then asked where. I told her Boston, and Bea told her she was from Puerto Rico. This was about when it registered with us that there were other Americans in Ghana that weren’t SAS. She was a missionary from Pennsylvania. Bea and I had to do everything to hold our tongues. She asked us all about what we were doing here in Ghana and then about Semester At Sea. Two other women came out who were with her. They told us that they were here for a few works doing missionary work with someone else in their family. She kept saying, “God bless you” to us and eyeing us up and down. While they were dressed conservatively, Bea and I were dressed to be around a pool and had had a few drinks.

We got ourselves away from that situation as quickly as possible. We were convinced this was a sign from God, but could hardly contain our hysterics. How funny was that? Missionaries were close to trying to save us. We did not need or want to be “saved.” But we were polite and did nothing wrong. When we got back to the table we told everyone. They all seemed to get a kick out of this. They asked who they were. As we looked around from table to table we couldn’t find them. None of the tables had changed in the past half an hour. This restaurant was also somewhat isolated from the rest of the hotel and resort area. Was this really a sign? Haha we laughed even more at this and then were convinced we would probably get struck down by lightning.

Anyways, dinner was delicious. There was a spicy sauce that went with the grilled chicken. A bunch of people got seafood that was supposedly pretty good. Obviously I steered clear of this. Dinner went by quickly. Everyone seemed to be disbanding after we paid our checks. We looked down at the dark beach and water. It was really pleasant out by this point. There was a nice breeze down by the water. Then we headed back up to the hotel to get a cab back to the ship. We ran into a few people heading back to the ship. Some people were planning on going out, but we had to be up really early, and we were all pretty exhausted by this point. Plus we were still dressed as if we were going to the beach and had no change of clothes.

We got a cab for the four of us to split and headed back. It took a solid 40 minutes to get there. The cab could only take us to the gate and then we had to either walk back from there or get a shuttle to the ship. Luckily the shuttle was still running and came and picked us up. I don’t think we ever would have been able to find our way back on foot. It was dark and sketchy and reminded me a little bit of Chennai. It was so industrialized. The guy drove us about 10 minutes to the ship and we waited in line to get back on. There was a girl standing out front who was really drunk and struggling. She seemed to be refusing to get back on, knowing that if she did, she’d be in trouble for sure. So she was going to chill outside until she sobered up. That could be awhile. Doesn’t that suck? She doesn’t feel safe enough getting back on the ship so she’ll stand outside for hours until she does. SAS ADMINISTRATION YOU ROCK!

I was so happy to make it back to the ship and get into my cabin. Becca came back to my room and we chilled and talked for awhile. We added to my big map that I have hanging on my wall. Around midnight I got ready for bed and fell asleep. So necessary.