Ghana, baby!, or Do I make you hungry, baby?

As mentioned in an earlier post, Dave and I went to Ghana for a conference and a few days of vacation. Ghana itself is a fantastic country and I would recommend all of you visit it, if you haven’t already. Because we went primarily for the conference and not a vacation, we only nipped at the surface of all that Ghana has to offer. I’ll take you through quickly.

We started off in Accra, the capital, where our conference was held. We lucked out by having the conference in Osu, a very vibrant commercial neighborhood filled with lots of restaurants, bars, supermarkets and even a Pierre Cardin store! We ate at some great restaurants (Indian – Haveli, sushi /Japanese – Monsoon, Vietnamese – Chez Lien, Fried chicken – Papaye, Lebanese – Venus, Italian – Mamma Mia, Irish – Ryan’s, Mexican – Champs, breakfast pastries – Frankie’s). Not to mention all the terrific Ghanaian street food that we also enjoyed, like Jollof rice and plantain chips. We attempted to get Korean barbeque but it was closed both times we went. It’s true that we didn’t hit any museums or guided tours, but we still felt like we got to know Accra pretty well. Foodies like us don’t really need much besides… you guessed it, food! We were so preoccupied with food that we didn’t take any pictures. You’re not really missing out on much. Can you picture a densely populated urban area? OK, that’s Accra.

The traffic in Accra is epic. Every other car is a taxi, which was wonderful for getting across the city. I stepped out of the hotel and was able to get door to door service; in Ouaga, one has to walk to designated taxi pick-up points, which usually adds 10 – 15 min to any trip downtown. Traffic was normally backed up at all times in the day, and I noticed that most cars only had one person… like the US. Rarely did I see a motorcycle, which was interesting. Motos outnumber cars by a large margin, I’d guess about 5: 1, in Ouaga, and this more exaggerated in increasingly rural areas.

Dave and I also spent a few days at the beach. We stayed at the Axim Beach Resort, which was wonderfully serene and peaceful. The resort itself was meticulously maintained, with manicure lawns and pruned palm trees at every turn. The resort has a private beach, and the ocean was wonderfully salty and warm. There were two restaurants at the resort that were a bit overpriced but presented a better proposition than schlepping into town, which was quite a hike. We were there on Thanksgiving and I ate two fresh lobsters, which was a good compromise over turkey. Enjoy the photos that we actually remembered to take at Axim!

View from our porch

Another shot of the view from our porch

Dave maxin' on the porch

Yes, this is also a view from our porch (jealous yet?)

This is what we look like in front of the view from our porch.

Dave and I are waiting for lunch in this picture. He's trying to move away from the drinks because some people have said all we ever do in our pictures is go to restaurants and bars.

Dave hits the beach in biz casual clothing.

While this little guy admittedly looks delicious here, he was quite gross in real time.

That's me!

Me again!

Drunk on sunshine and white sand.

Those are my legs.

View from our beach chairs.

The resort used solar panels to heat the bathing water, which was totally awesome.

Sleepin?

While in Ghana, I was really struck by the number of signs everywhere. Every store had a sign. Every street had a stack of signs indicating businesses on that road. Every rotary had thousands of signs for businesses and agencies. Many stores name themselves after religious (mostly Christian) expressions, like “Innocent Blood hair salon” or “By His Grace chop bar.” At first I thought the signs were jumping out at me because of the religious themes, but then I realized it’s because of the dearth of signs in Burkina Faso. Rarely are business labeled, and usually the business function is indicated through pictures (buzz-clippers painted on the wall of a barber, a chicken on the wall of a butcher) rather than words. It made me wonder whether Ghana has a higher rate of literacy than Burkina’s dismally low rate (just above 21%) and if so, how and why?


Dave and I changed some US money at a bank and received our money all in 5 cedi bills, which is a lot!

I wanted to save you from this but I just had to mention how much waiting we had to do to get to Ghana and back. I’ll try to make this painless, but I need to say this in order to excise the frustration that’s still lingering from all of our waiting:
- (start time: 7 AM) 2 hours at the first bus station, then the bus company transferred us and two other passengers to another bus station
-3 hours at the next bus station, then the nearly packed bus drove to another bus station in Ouaga
-2 hours at the toll to leave Ouaga, as the bus had broken down
-Only 1 hour at the Ghanaian border, amazing
-30 minutes to fill up with gas/ pray at the gas station Mosque just after crossing into Ghana
-1 hour while were broken down on the side of the road
-Numerous 15 – 20 minute stops at countless roadblocks along the way
-1 hour when we reached Kumasi, as Dave and I had to change buses (time-check: 6 AM the next day)
-Almost 2 hours as we waiting for a tro-tro (shared taxi) to fill with passengers to get to Accra (arrival time in Accra: 12 PM)
- (start time: 11:30 AM) Leaving Accra to go to Axim (via Takoradi), we got to the bus station for a bus departing at noon. However, because that bus wasn’t full, they canceled it and we had to wait for the 2 PM bus, which left closer to 3 PM
-Arrival in Takoradi after 6 PM. We waited a little over an hour for the tro-tro to Axim to fill up. When we finally get to Axim, the tro-tro drops me and Dave off on the main road. We walk 2 km to the resort, in the dark (lame).
-When its time to leave Axim, checking out of the hotel takes almost an hour.
-Leaving Takoradi back to Accra, the bus is delayed almost an hour.
-Leaving Accra back to Burkina Faso, the bus leaves an hour and a half late (start time: 12:30 PM)
-The bus breaks down just outside of Tamale, still over 200 km from the Burkina border, around 2 AM. A replacement bus comes at 8 AM.
-We get to the Burkina border at 1 PM. We wait for the customs officers to finish their repos at 3 PM, glance at a few boxes under the bus, declare the fee, and finally we can leave.
-Dave and I finally get into Ouaga at 6 PM

My patience for waiting and lateness has grown infinitely since the day I decided to stop sweating the small stuff. Because in Burkina Faso, and I’m guessing also Ghana, time isn’t money. Efficiency isn’t the end goal. Embracing these concepts is my cultural olive branch.

Plus, I don’t mind waiting if it means that I can play on a private beach or eat exotic foods.