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Published: July 28th 2006
A trek not to be done in one day, of course.
With our slow pace of staying a long time in places we like - it took us a well spent fortnight.
At first we passed the resort-clad beach at
Busua again, then the charming town of
Dixcove. A small town with a cramped harbour of brightly painted boats with innumerable amounts of colourful flags and streamers flickering in the wind, giving us a warm yet chaotic welcome.
We continued to an eco-lodge/backpackers hangout where we resided for a couple of days. We watched Ghana beat the U.S. in the world cup, and then played volleyball with the laid-back Peacecorps.
Made good friends with the people in the nearby village
Akwidaa - set on an isthmus with a ruined fort, and split in two by a river meandering into the nearby mangrove maze - the village was extremely charming.
We passed a handful of small communities as we continued our trek. At the southernmost tip of Ghana we paused to enjoy the panoramic views of the
Cape Three Point lighthouse, and after a small donation the caretaker let us his bed for the night.
Awuna beach
the small community of Awuna is perched on an small sliver of sand separating the Awuna lagoon from the Gulf of GuineaFrom the lighthouse we took pleasure in yet another beautiful walk along secluded beaches and vine-draped jungle, all with a complimentary staggering amount of butterflies.
Some charming fishermen's villagers later, we arrived in
Prince's town. The peak of our visit to Ghana.
The impressive fort
Gross Friedrichburg, perched on a cliff overlooking the town and the surrounding beaches, was also a rarely visited guesthouse.
To stay there was like travelling in the fourth dimension (time that is).
In the village the children chanted:
"My fliend! My fliend!". Which was wonderful to hear for a change - since in the rest of Ghana the words:
"Obruni, Obruni." (whiteboy), has become a tiresome soundrack to our lives.
The fort accommodated not only us, but also squirrels, bats and owls. The latter only in plural initially since on the second day a voracious murder of crows chased one of the owls out of its shelter and into the blinding daylight - where it fell easy prey to the forts caretaker - as it stumbled around disoriented.
-If you can catch it and cook it, then you should chew it! Would be a typical Ghanaian
proverb if it weren't for me making it up now.
Whether it's an endangered specie of owl or the usual paltry poultry, matters little when it's been mixed into the customary unrecognisable stodgy stew, that garnish the evening rice.
That evening made a strong symbolic impact of desolation on me, as the spouse of the evening meal sat alone on the citadel rooftop. Yin without Yang.
We left for a last hike passing more quaint villages and secluded beaches, through dense forest and open fields, before finally arriving at
Axim. The last town of any size before the Ivorian border - and a natural endpoint to our trek.
As we arrived in Axim a torrential downpour welcomed us and before the rain had yet stopped a carnival with some heavy brass came walking through the streets spreading cheerful highlife music.
It was world cup football day and the whole town was in upheaval, probably the whole country.
The Ghanaian
“Black stars” had to beat the world champions Brazil, in order to get a place in the quarter finals.
Tough call I thought. But the Ghanaians were celebrating like they had already won
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Prince's town the whole cup, and the talk in town was about with what score the Black stars would crush Brazil.
Instead it got vice verca.
A cataclysm to our stay in Ghana.
When the game was over we went out in town to find some streetfood and little had we expected to meet public contempt. We were made scapegoats for the lost game and were told to go home to our own country. People constantly asked us if we were Brazilian and if we were happy now when the Black stars had lost. We explained how we’d supported the Black stars, but that mattered little to the sulking Ghanaians.
The next day we left for
Cape Coast, expecting the lost game to slip into oblivion - but on the contrary, things escalated. All with a great help from the Ghanaian newspapers, spreading concoctions of nonsensical conspiracy theories against their “great nation”.
I was told by a young woman selling phone calls on the street that I “resembled disgrace”, as I walked past her. A man screamed that he hated white people to us, and a Foreign exchange bureau refused to change my money on
Silhouette
Along the coast as we hiked, we met several couples that either had built, where in the middle of building or planning to build; their very own bungalow system on the beach. And it was hard not to be carried away by this "Klondike-era-mentality", toying with the thought of our own "Nangilima Lodge" and "The long and winding Toad-restaurant" that goes with. All painted in more colours than the rainbow provide. the grounds of my skin colour.
And so it went on, with us getting more and more paranoid - for a time it felt like everyone laughed at us in disdain.
At first we tried to make amends to this imaginary offence we’d caused, but after a while that felt absurd and we changed tactics to down-to-earth conversation. Listening to yet more preposterous blather.
The stubborn and extremely opinionated way the Ghanaians believe in a big fabricated conspiracy against their nation by the “white man”, makes it very hard to reason.
It’s like there’s a huge and sudden mutiny against common sense.
The receptionist in our guesthouse explained that if he was in Germany, he would have killed the referee for the pride of his country. As we went to the capital we met more inflated egos demanding us to “admit” that Ghana was by far the greatest nation that we had visited on our journey, having the most hospitable people!
There’s always some rotten eggs in every basket - but during the week after the lost game - it felt like the whole basket had turned rank - as the Ghanaians slowly
Resting
After the long trek Aili's feet were very sore. spat the dummy. All this for a sports event...
Things got better as the Black stars returned and Brazil eventually lost, and we spent 11 nights enjoying the variety of pastimes that the capital
Accra has on offer.
One night we met the self-proclaimed “richest man of Ghana”, bragging about his latest purchase; a submarine. The following morning we met a spindly woman walking the streets completely naked. Brand new Porsches drive past the homeless as they eat scrap from the road. As in all big cities the contrasts of human life becomes more palpable.
There’s a drinking spot mixing weird nameless drinks on every street corner, and there’s a place of worship in between. Huge cathedrals for the acknowledged churches and obscure chapels for the more bizarre sects.
Ghana being extremely fertile soil for American Christian sects. Tragic but true, worshipping that white bloke on the cross, seems to be the single most important thing in life for the majority of the population.
We grew to like the city greatly in time, but - like everywhere else - there’s a time to leave.
I sat watching the landscape change from coastal plain
Drinking
So she went for the biggest bottle she could find, to quench her thirst. to gently undulating hills, as we travelled by tro-tro (minibus) to
Hohoe. In the afternoon a light rain fell, giving the journey a nostalgic smell of wet asphalt and we were accompanied by a soft rainbow.
The driver raised the volume of the joyous Ghanaian highlife music, and at one moment, it felt like gravity failed.
Like we were floating along with the clouds on the sunset sky.
I don’t know if it was the feeling of being back on the road - or the fact that we were finally leaving Ghana - that brought me this moment of bliss.
Probably both.
We stopped for a night in the delighful town of Hohoe, once again meeting genuinely friendly people in Ghana. Walked through cocoa and pineapple filled jungle to pay a short visit to West Africa's highest waterfall and downed what must have been our hundredth bottle of Ghanaian beer.
And as the sun was all smiles, so were the villagers, as we walked past the border post and into our next country.
Svensk Engelsk parlor
Fortnight______fjorton dagar___Cataclysm_________stark foraendring Clad____________klaedd__________Contempt___________forakt
Innumerable___oraekneliga____Scapegoat_________syndabock Streamers_______vimplar__________Sulking_____________tjurandes
Isthmus_______naes__________Oblivion___________gloemska Meandering______slingrande_______Concoctions__________hopkok
Maze_________labyrint________Resemble__________symbolisera Secluded_______ode_____________Amends______________gottgoera
Vine-draped___lian-fylld________Offence___________anstoet Complimentary___tillhoerande_______Preposterous________absurd
Staggering____forbluffande_____Blather___________skitsnack Perched________belaegen_________Stubborn____________envis
Voracious_____glupsk_________Mutiny____________myteri Order Ordonata
Landing near Akwidaa, Coastal Ghana Murder of_______grupp____________Disdain_____________forakt
Shelter_______skydd__________Referee___________domare Prey___________byte_____________Inflated_____________uppblaosta
Stumble______snubbla_________Demanding________kraevande Proverb________ordsprok__________Hospitable___________gaestvaenliga
Endangered____utrotningshotad__Rank_____________fraen,rutten Specie_________art_______________Spat the dummy______surade
Paltry________elaendig________Pastimes__________tidsfoerdriv Poultry________fjaederfae_________Spindly______________laong och smal
Stodgy stew__stabbig stuvning__Palpable___________paotaglig Garnish________garnera___________Acknowledged________igenkaenda
Desolation____enslighet________Furtile soil_________fruktbar jord Spouse________maka,make________White bloke o t cross__Jesus
Ivorian_______elfenbenskusten__Undulating_________boeljande Torrential______stortflodande______Bliss_________________lycksalighet
Brass________blaosinstrument__Delightful__________klockren Upheaval______omvaelvning________Downed_____________saenka
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Ellen Around the World
Ellen
Awesome Pics
hey there - just stumbled across this blog - pictures are amazing. especially love the of the little kid peering throught the circle. I remember watching that Guana game - somewhere in Poland I think... they were robbed! E