The Tourist Triangle in Ghana

I am posting this as a blog for all the questions that people have about travel in Ghana. If you just want photos, use the link at the end of this posting.

Let me start by simply stating I had the *GREATEST* time. I sweated thru everything I had brought to wear within 48 hours, but otherwise it could not have been a more enjoyable holiday. The people were hospitable and kind and mostly honest. The sun was blazing and the humidity was intense. The sights were fantastic and there was a new adventure each day.

I landed in Accra, the capital city of 2 million and delivered a large box of medicine, condoms and children's clothing to Dr. Naa Ashily at the West Africa AIDS Foundation, http://www.waafweb.org/. My friend Benjamin helped me to make this “very special delivery”, as he called it. It was very much needed by the clinic.

Thanks to Maurice at Aid for AIDS/Africa in Oakland, http://www.aidforaidsafrica.org/, for securing the medicine for me to take. It was mostly donated unused medicine. Any donations are gladly accepted.

The 'Tourist Triangle' is a common tourist route across Ghana. One point of the triangle is Accra on the coast. Kumasi, the second largest city is at the top of the triangle, and the city of Cape Coast along the Atlantic coast being the other point of the triangle.

This link is for my online album of the best 300 photos that were taken on this trip:
My first Ghana album

There are a dozen other Ghana albums that hold the entire set of photos taken if you are really into it. Between me and my guides, we were somehow able to snap 1.5 gig of photos!

Please feel free to post comments in this blog.
Steve

Volta Lake

After a couple days in Accra, I went to Volta Lake with my friend Jessie. Jessie is part Ewe, the main tribe in the Volta region, so he was a great guide. Not to mention his being able to navigate the complexity of the ground transit station in Accra. I would probably still be lost there!


We had a great place on the bank of the Volta River: Aylo's Bay in Atimpoku. We sat for hours on this dock watching fishermen in dugout canoes move up and down the river and traffic constantly moving across the Adomi bridge.


Lake Volta is the largest man-made lake in the world. We did a music cruise on the lake to Dodi Island. It was an all day event, departing at 10:00 and returning at 4:30 with a one hour stopover on Dodi Island. The music was some great highlife on the way out and American pop on the way back. The food was great too.


This once-a-week cruise to Dodi Island is the main economy of the island, so everyone was there to greet us as we arrived on the island. There was singing and dancing. Jessie easily joined the drumming, as most men in Ghana are quite good drummers.


It was very hot this day. The hike to the top of Dodi Island was more like a death march. I drank gallons of water every day in this heat, which people found very amusing.


Dodzi was a young fisherman that became friendly with Jessie. He took us out on the river for a short ride in his canoe.




Don't worry....the water is very clear and is safe for swimming.

Ashanti and Brong Ahafo

Next I headed to Kumasi, capitol of the Ashanti kingdom, in the central part of the country. It was supposed to be a 4 hour bus ride, but due to road construction, it was closer to 7 hours to get there.

In Kumasi I hooked up with my good Ashanti friend Justice. He gave me a tour of the central district of Kumasi. We got caught in a heavy rain on the way to his grandfather's house. A white person always attracts a lot of attention, but judging from the reactions of people, a soaking-wet white man in the street must be quite a spectacle!

From Kumasi, we headed in the Brong-Ahafo region, to the city of Techiman. We had a great time together visiting Kintampo falls and Fuller falls. Being around the water makes your forget about the heat!

We also visited the Fiema monkey sanctuary, where monkeys are revered. The monkeys are so comfortable with people that thay would take food from your hand - or anywhere else they could grab it.

Adanwomase Kente weaving village

I made a trip to the Kente weaving village of Adanwomase. It was a great experience in a small village. Like everywhere else in Ghana, I felt like I was part of the family.

One of the most beautiful items to come from Ghana is kente cloth. Kente is an Ashanti ceremonial cloth that is hand-woven on a loom. Only men do the weaving, and the entire village echos with the clack-clack of the looms.

Four inch strips are sewn together into larger pieces of cloth. Kente cloth comes in various colors, sizes and designs and is worn during very important social and religious occasions. A large cloth like this typically takes around 6 months to make.

My second night in the village, I was invited to spend the night at the village chief's house. It was a palace compared to the rest of the town – or even compared to my home here in Oakland! He cracked open a new bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label and we chatted long into the night, eventually watching Rush Hour II on his home entertainment center. This was quite an honor to receive this invitation.

In the morning I had two breakfasts – one prepared by the chief’s staff, and another that has been brought over by my hosts from the night before. After breakfasts, as the chief is walking me around the village, a car pulls up and people yell out he is late for a meeting. I am hauled into the car with him, driven to the meeting house, and given a seat right beside him in front of around 150 people. I am introduced and then they proceed to have the meeting in Twi, so I do not know what was being said. They could have been talking about me!

The little Twi that I did learn before the trip was well received and really made a difference when I attempted it. Almost everyone in Ghana speaks Twi and English and a few other native languages. Jessie and Justice attempted to teach me more Twi, but I was a poor student. Regardless, just a simple 'me da se' (thank you) always seemed to make a big impact.

There was another white guy in the village. Anthony is a Peace Corp volunteer from Chicago. He has been in Adanwomase for the past 18 months and is helping to make the village a tourist destination. He is a very respected and much loved person in Adanwomase. We played frisbee with some of the village children one afternoon.

Among his many other projects, he helped create the Adanwomase Tourism Management Team. Their correspondence via email convinced me to visit Adanwomase. Anthony is also working on a new library and housing for teachers who currently must travel very far to arrive at the school. http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.projdetail&projdesc=641-212

Atlantic Coast

After the village, I hooked up with Justice again and we went to the coastal town of Cape Coast. The largest of the slave forts is located here. Many such forts dot the coast of Ghana, but this is the biggest and best preserved. This is also a big fishing village, so there were many boats and people at the beach.


Jessie joined up with me and Justice in Cape Coast. We went to Kakum national park, which is a rainforest preserve.
It is best known for the rope suspension walkway that is built in the canopy of the trees. It was basically an aluminum ladder with a wooden plank on top of it, and a rope enclosure to walk thru. 300m long and 65m in the air. My knees were shaking, but somehow we all made it across.

As a gift to Justice and Jessie for being super guides, I was taking them to see the solar eclipse at a great beach resort. Busua is the beach village where the eclipse first hit land in Africa. It was a beautiful place with clean beaches, wonderful swimming pools and great air conditioning.
Justice's friend Maxwell also joined us here in anticipation of the eclipse.

Stone Village in Busua

At Busua, we came across the Stone Village. This is a space that has been carved out of some rugged beachfront bush by a group of very hard-working Rastas. They have drumming and dancing and were great hosts, climbing up trees to fetch fresh coconuts and bananas.

I encountered many Rastas on my holiday. In Ghana, and probably most of Africa, the images of 2-Pac are only surpassed in number by the images of Bob Marley.


We gave Black Eagle 40,000 cedi - about $4 - to prepare us dinner that night. When we returned for dinner, we were shocked at the huge servings of wonderful Ghanian food. What better way to spend the night before the eclipse than a candlelight dinner right on the beach?

March 29, 2006 eclipse

The eclipse was *spectacular*! It was one of those moments that even as an old man, I will remember vividly. There was a large celebration on the beach with drumming and dancing, and the entire scene was being broadcast live on Ghana TV. To be there with such good friends made this a moment that I will forever cherish. (Thanks to NASA for this photo of the eclipse)

A sad incident happened there, though. I was pulled into the dancing area by one of the female dancers, and was forced to represent for my people as best as I could. As you know, I have no moves, but I tried my best.

To ensure that my humiliation was complete, I was later pulled back out to dance with one of the male dancers. This guy had me crawling in the sand, and unfortunately that was captured live on TV. I heard more than a couple times that day "Hey! You are the white man that was on TV today!" Justice’s mom saw me on television too. Everyone says I represented well, but you and I both know they are just being kind.

Nzulezu stilt village

We all hooked up with a Brittish guy named Krys after the eclipse to go to the Nzulezu stilt village. You may have seen it on TV or in pictures. It is an entire village built on stilts above the water in a lagoon. The car got stuck very bad in the mud on the way there. Suddenly, from nowhere, a whole group of people were there lifting the car up to put branches and palm leaves under the stuck wheel.

Getting dirty that way was just part of the excitement. We had to wade thru mud and black water to get to the canoe that would take us to the village. And then paddle for 25 minutes to get there.



I let Jessie and Justice do the paddling.









The village consisted of one long pier, referred to as Main Street. Off one side was the living quarters and on the other side were the businesses and school.






This village elder caused Justice and Jessie a lot of grief by insisting that he appear in photos with them:

Thank you Ghana - Me da se Ghana

Well, all great things must come to an end, and when it was time for Justice to depart, we became very sad. When we were dropped off at the transit station where we would part ways, as we are all standing outside the car with our bags beside us, the emotions caught up with us, and Justice burst into tears, which just made me and Jessie cry too. The driver insisted we get back into his car and let him drive us to the next town. We all sat in the back seat, holding hands tightly and crying. It is still a moment that squeezes my chest.

(By the way, Mr Vice is a reference to being 2nd-in-charge, like the Vice Preseident. It is not an indication that Justice suffers from any affliction.)

By the time we got to the next town, we had gotten ourselves together, but it was still a very sad separation. Now you know I may be a little sentimental sometimes, but I was really surprised by the reaction of my friends. We had all bonded very tightly during our time together. On this journey, they had seen places in their country that they had only dreamed about before. They had stayed at a resort that was well beyond the means of all but the very wealthy in Ghana.

I was so happy to be able to do this. Any expense for them to travel with me was offset by the amount of money they saved me by negotiating native rates for everything. I never pulled out money until they told me to. Other tourists we ran into were always amazed and jealous that I had local guides who were able to get me prices that were one-half to one-tenth of what they were paying. Justice was an especially hard bargainer. More than a couple times merchants would turn to me, after a hard bargaining session in Twi, and say to me in perfect English "Your friend is working very hard for you! He is giving me a headache!"

More importantly, though, was the companionship and education that they gave me. We laughed our way across Ghana and had many great adventures. Any question about anything that I saw or heard or tasted was instantly answered. I met and stayed with family and was welcomed with open arms. It was not a holiday where I only saw Africa from inside an air conditioned vehicle, but was instead a far more profound and touching experience.

Thank you Justice and Jessie for the great time that you showed me as my guides. I look forward to the day in the future when we are able to meet again.

Jessie's family

The last few days back in Accra, I stayed with Jessie at his family’s house. It seems typical of homes there, consisting of a large 4 wall compound, with a ring of private rooms around the center open courtyard. The cooking is done in the courtyard, and they are lucky because there is a tree in the center of the courtyard. Two shower stalls in one corner were used by everyone living there. There is no running water, so 55 gallon drums are in the courtyard to hold water that is carried in from a water source in the neighborhood. This is your water to wash and cook with. You fill a bucket as your water for the shower. It was a very intimate view of the life of a typical African family. Jessie's youngest niece never did get accustomed to my presence and would go into hysterics whenever she saw me. This happened a few times during my trip when young children would encounter their first obruni.

Although by this time, people were referring to me as obruni kawkaw - the red white man.

I also got to visit the Powerhouse Gym, which Jessie built and operates. It hurt me just watching these guys push around heavy concrete weights in this heat! But they were all dedicated to their workouts.


While there, I was witness to a two-day animist celebration on the one-year anniversary of the death of Jessie's grandmother.

Over these days, I was witness to many things that a tourist rarely sees on a holiday to Africa.



Finally, after another emotional separation when Jessie accompanied me to the airport, I was on my way back to California. I hope to be able to visit Ghana again soon to see my friends there. Independence Day on March 6, 2007 is the 50th anniversary of independence from British rule. It is going to be a giant celebration. Anyone interested?

Some final thoughts

When traveling in Ghana, as most non-Western places, it is important to remember where you are. For most of the world, life is very different than we know it in America. No matter how poor you may feel, you are a very rich person compared to most people on earth.

What can you do when traveling?
1) Bring gifts
I cannot believe how much I managed to solicit from friends and organizations, and my closets received a much-needed cleanout. School teachers loved the inflatable globes that I was giving away. But often after thanking me profusely for the gift, the teacher would ask that next time I just bring pencils and paper. When packing, plan to leave much of what you take - even partially used toiletries or medicine. This creates lots of room for things to bring back.

2) Be respectful
You will see things that you do not understand. You will hear things that you may not agree with. You may not even be able to understand the English coming from somebody's mouth. Do not treat people like imbeciles. Remember that there is no correct way to live life and every person is deserving of respect. Ask questions, but don't preach or be condescending.

3) Be generous
It is simply not possible to help everyone. And "chancers" are always around - people who take a chance that you will be generous because of a sad story or a simple request. But that request for a tip is an inconsequential amount to you. Unfortunately, Americans have a reputation as being stingy people and you can do your part to help change that. Sharing your food is the easiest way to join this culture of interdependence.

4) Be receptive
When you are approached, be friendly, not fearful. The interpersonal space is very close and physical contact is part of a conversation. Most people have a genuine interest in strangers. Despite the disgust with the current American administration, there is still great admiration and respect for American people. Talk about your family and your life because many cultures have an oral tradition where the sharing of stories is the basis of communication and learning.

5) Be Patient
OK, so you're hot, uncomfortable, hungry. The water is not running or the electric is off. You're waiting too long for your food or drink. Unbundle your panties and don't work yourself into a twit. Relax and enjoy the unhurried pace of life. But please don't make a spectacle of your displeasure and reinforce the stereotype of a spoiled impatient American.

6) Conserve
Our wasteful Western lifestyle is quite shocking to anyone who lives on $2 a day. To not eat food that is served to you because you don't like it is just not acceptable. You eat it and be grateful for the hospitality of your host. While abundant for tourists, clean water is precious and you should treat it that way. Every little thing has value - a sheet of paper that has a blank side, an empty bottle, a plastic bag. Seriously.

7) Have Fun
Gosh, I didn't mean to get all preachy. You're on holiday so have fun. For people with so little, there is great joy in life in Africa. Drop your inhibitions and share in that joy. You will be a changed person.