Ghanaian Coast

15/16 March 2011

GREEN TURTLE LODGE and AKWEDAA, Ghana

Who knew? Why not indeed!

Akwedaa is a lovely fishing village and Green Turtle Lodge is an easy peasy tourist hangout – lots of tents to choose from, no bills until you check out and even a happy hour on cocktails here. I rent a mountain bike to ride out to Cape Three Points, as apparently it’s the “closest land mass to 0’00”, 0’00”. Great riding on the BEST bike I have ever rented overseas – gears and brakes work well and the tyres are great which is all good because there are certainly a few hills between the beach and the lighthouse along the road. No one around when I arrive, so I take the opportunity to lay out in the lovely hammock under a spreading tree and admire the view of crashing waves etc and take a nap! Soon enough the lighthouse keeper arrives and wants to chat. I head back into the village, find my way onto the beach and as its low tide I can push the bike over the firm sand. There are a heap of boys picking/cracking white nuts of some sort – when I ask where the girls are they tell me girls don’t do this work. But they offer me a coconut and open it for me – just imagine if you gave a grade 4 lad at home a machete and a coconut – would he have his hand left when he finished I wonder? Head on to another ‘resort’ run by Canadian/Ghanaians who have also set up a hotel in Busia – seems like all the foreigners are buying in around here. Good lunch of beans and pineapple flambe to finish! A big rest in one of their unique hammock/swings to watch the clouds roll in, the rain come and go and know that the dust on the road will be settled for my ride back. On entering the last village, Akwidaa plenty of kids ask to ride my bike – I offer it to a teenage girl who admits to not knowing how to ride a bike so I offer to help her. We head through the village with her in fits of laughter and me running and asking which way, which way as we twist and turn among the small laneways to get to the other side. Heading back to Green Turtle Lodge, I chat with another pommy couple who are heading back by taxi to Takoradi – I want to get as far as Agona junction town so we agree to split the costs. The only other alternative to get out of here is to walk back to Akwidaa, wait for a tro tro to fill up at Agona when it will drive out to Akwidaa, where you then enter and wait for it to fill up before it returns back to Agona, via Green Turtle Lodge where you pick up your luggage. So isolated and at the mercy of expensive taxi drivers to get in and out. I’m happier to be heading back to where I can move around to check out more of Ghana’s interesting and historic Gold Coast.

 

 

FACT: A Spot here is a drinking bar and a Chop Bar is a small restaurant with one or two dishes. Fan make yummy vanilla icecreams, frozen stawberry yogurts and frozen chocolate milks. They came direct to you on a pushbike ridden by young men with a bleating hooter – heaven when waiting for the tro tro to fill up at the lorry station. Or listen for the cries of EECE WORTERRRR – this is invariably a young girl with a huge bowl on her head carrying chilled sachets of pure water. Honestly I think that this waiting is primarily to increase the passengers’ expenditure cause everyone buys something to eat or drink while they are waiting, not to mention the medical cures, underpants, perfumes, belts, bread etc on offer, that continually circle the waiting tro tros looking for customers.