After a second solid week in the office, Josh and I decided to take a weekend trip to Cape Coast, an oceanside city about 150 km west of Accra. There are several touristy things to see in Cape Coast, so we decided to take advantage of another free weekend and make the trip. Our experience, to steal the words of Josh, was a unique combination of blatant Obruni-ness and some of the old “Team Guyana” luck. Overall a solid weekend, and there are inevitably some good stories to tell.
We decided to take a State-Transit bus there on Saturday morning (because it’s supposedly more comfortable and more reliable – more on that later). So, high on our newly found tro-tro savvyness, we hopped on a tro-tro to Tema station at 6am. At Tema, we discovered the STC buses don’t run from there. We were sent to the Metro Mas station – also no STC. One of the men there pointed us toward a tro-tro which would take us to Kaneshie where there’s another station (on completely the other side of the city). This man would be the first of many to help the silly kids with their bags and sunglasses (no one else here wears sunglasses).
We soon realized we had gone too far. We had to signal the mate to stop, and try to find our way on foot. After walking all the way up the road, a taxi driver told us where the STC station was – we had walked past it nearly 10 minutes ago.
We traipsed back, found the station (behind a bank!), found the counter – tickets sold out!
At the help desk, the woman bent over backwards to find us unwanted tickets on the 9:30 bus to Takoradi – more expensive, but could drop us off in Cape Coast. We got to be Naana (Josh) and Paa (me) – at least that’s what our tickets said. Finally, 3 ½ hours into the trip, still in Accra, we boarded the bus. All was well, until about an hour into the trip. We stopped for what I thought was a pee break in the bush, but as time went on, I went outside to see what was going on.
The bus broke down.
Around 3:30, after an awkward scene where 3 taxi drivers were fighting over us and we were fighting them all to bring down the fare, we finally dropped our stuff in our Guest House in Cape Coast. We made it down to Cape Coast Castle for the museum and tour. The castle was built by the Porteguese in the 1500s, and eventually taken over by the British. It was really powerful to stand in a pitch-dark smelly dungeon, where thousands of slaves were kept and died, during the colonial slave trade. I am learning a lot about this part of history and the African-European relations over the last handful of centuries. The implications this history has for our societies today is mind-boggling and has lead to a lot of new thoughts and discussions.
We decided to wander through the streets after the Castle, to get a feel for a different Ghanaian city. It really was quite different from Accra – the first thing that struck me was that most buildings had more than one storey, following the old colonial design with balconies and shutters. In contrast, Accra is incredibly flat and sprawling. The town was altogether much more quiet and relaxed. The fishermen down at the water were sewing their nets; several “drinking bars” were blaring some good old reggae. I liked the feel very much, however it also made me feel significantly more intrusive and out of place.
We were set on trying a vegetarian restaurant (a huge rarity here) that we read about in our travel book. We tried to direct our wandering toward the guest house because we knew we could more or less find the restaurant from there. Finally, tired and hungry and pretty much lost, we decided to just grab a cab back to the popular guest house around the corner from ours so that we could get our bearings. I stopped the next taxi that came by (which didn’t take long) and asked to go to Sammo’s. The driver looked at me, slowly looked out his window, then looked back at me.
“You mean that place?” he pointed directly across the road from where I was standing, to the big sign that said Sammo’s. I sighed. Oh, silly Obrunis.
For all we would have known, the guy could have let us get in, driven in a complete circle, and charged us 3 cedis for the ride. But he didn’t. So we figured while we were at it, we’d ask him to direct us to Assae Paa, the vegetarian restaurant. He said he thought he knew, indicated down the road and to the right a bit. He offered us a ride, but we thanked him and headed on.
By the time it was dark, we were still wandering down the road, at a lagoon, with no restaurants in site. We asked some women but they hadn’t heard of the place. Soon, another cab pulled up and stopped. We were sick of being asked for rides all day.
“No thank you, NO THANK YOU!” I said to him. But he got out of the car and walked towards us. Who could it be? The same guy from the Sammo’s cab. Even though we were too cheap to get a ride, he had followed us out of town to make sure we got there ok. He pointed us on our way – we were nearly there. What a guy.
People here just so much want to help you. While it is always appreciated, it can also get frustrating because even if someone doesn’t know a place, they’ll just point their hand in some direction anyway. But our trip to Cape Coast was full of genuine, helpful people, and we wouldn’t have gotten out of Accra without them.
At long last, Josh and I arrived at Assae Paa.
It had closed an hour ago.
In the end, we found another great place on the other side of the lagoon. Despite the loud music and eating in the complete dark (literally, we had to get a flashlight to read the menu), we had a view of the water and the banku and tilapia was fresh and delicious. We ended our night by finding a stand that sold coffee! A first for this trip, and a major treat for those of you who know mine and Josh’s coffee habits at home.
I’m completely hogging all the good stories, so I think I’ll cut this blog off and let Josh talk about day 2.
I’m happy to be able to say all four of us have been staying relatively healthy; we’ll hope that blessing stays. Of course, I'm not always so cheerful as when I write the blog; but overall doing well. We're just SO lucky to be here and be experiencing all these amazing things. We heard from Lindsey and Amy yesterday, who arrived safely at their second host family and third eCARE centre in the Central Region. We didn’t get many details, but we understand that it is different from their first place, but good.
I LOVE hearing from all of you. I miss you all, and it’s nice to be able to picture what you’re up to.
Love Lindsay
Also, to answer a question that was asked of me: Chop bars are not like cafes. Much more like your average hot dog stand, but instead of tube meat, they sell all sorts of amazing cooked dishes. No regulations on street food like in Toronto! If you're getting it to go, they put it in a plastic bag and you eat it with your hand.
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