Advertisement
Published: March 9th 2009
Local guides
When you bend down to take a photo of them, they copy you - sweet!Hey all,... Another blog, with LOTS of photos!
Friday 13th February
As I left the house on Friday morning, with my little back pack over my shoulder, full of excitement for the coming weekend away,... Mr Wulff had a few words to say: 'Where are you going?' - Butre. 'Who with,... not alone?' - No, there is a group of 7 of us. ' mmmm... you're not taking any important documents, no passport, not too much money, nothing expensive?!' - No Sir, absolutely not. 'ummm... good,... don't loose anything, look after yourself'. Will do! Thanku! Bless!!!
I was hoping to leave the office an hour earlier today, but needed to check with Nana that it was going to be OK. Now, it always appears nigh on impossible to speak to Nana when you need to... I spent most of the morning waiting to ask if it would be OK for me to work thru lunch and leave at 3pm... at lunchtime I'd just about had enough... I told her my plans and didn't leave any room for negotiation! Spent the rest of the afternoon waiting for a document from one of the office guys... got this at 2.50pm...
Getting involved
Don't fancy your job much... no use to me now I only had 10 mins before I left...
At 3pm I practically ran out of the door... met one of the other girls down the road and jumped in a taxi to get to the STC (bus) station. After sitting in the BIGGEST traffic jam in creation, we finally made it... I was panicking a little... but of course, there was no need, because although we should have been there to 'report' at 3.30pm, and the bus was supposed to depart at 4pm... that obviously didn't happen... although it wasn't so bad... by 5.20pm we were finally leaving the station for Takoradi!!! Not the best start, made worse by the horrific Friday afternoon traffic and a 5 hour journey ahead of us ... and a TV playing a loop of Ghanaian films at (typical) full volume with REEEEEEEALLY bad acting - ARGH! However, the seats were relatively comfortable, the A-C was Freeeeeeezing! And the plantain chips and biscuits I had for dinner were pretty tasty :o)
Arrived in Takoradi at about 10pm. We needed to find somewhere to sleep and eat... unfortunately, not as easy as we had anticipated... wandered around for about
30 mins and asked in the only 3 places we could find... surprisingly, all full?! So we took a recommendation for a place just round the corner, well, I wouldn't recommend it... Hotel Avo/Arvo - after taking a look at the rather grim and gloomy rooms, and negotiating the most reasonable price we could (kinda got to the point in negotiations where it was either 'pay it or leave' and we didn't have many/any other option!) we 'settled in'.
Then set off on our next mission to try and find somewhere to eat... not so easy at about 11 in the evening, in an unfamiliar town where all there seemed to be was bars and lots of drunken locals (sounded like a decent plan to me... ) we walked back towards the bus station, along roads that we had kinda become familiar with, and found a restaurant run by a German guy, with lots of German people in it, smoking Cuban cigars and eating Italian food. Looked like the only option, and although the pizza we shared was expensive, it was worth it :o)
Saturday 14th February
Woke early in the hope of getting out of Takoradi
ASAP! We departed the hotel by 7.30am. The town had a very odd feel about it, nothing was open, but the entire population were out on the street, … most bizarre,... they were all literally shovelling s^*t... it was a military run operation (there was actually quite an army presence - who didn't mind having their photos taken!) apparently this was 'bake' day from what we could gather, it consisted of the young, old and everyone in between clearing out the drains that run down the side of the roads, they were scraping the sludge, rubbish and god knows what else all together and heaping it in the middle of the road in steaming, stinking piles... my lasting memories of Takoradi aren't very pleasant, but I'm sure that they were doing it for the benefit of the town?!
We got on a trotro towards Busua. It was naturally going to cost us a premium... because it was a National 'holiday' dedicated to scooping poop... and all the trotro drivers were otherwise engaged in these activities... so we paid, and set off on the 30 minute or so journey.
When we arrived in Busua, we HAD to take a
photo of the 'tourist info. Centre'... but then promptly got told off and threatened with the disposal of our cameras if we took any more photos - party pooper. The guide book speaks of getting an AMAZING breakfast from 'Daniel the Pancake man'... unfortunately, we were told by 'Frank the juice man' that Daniel was in church this morning and thus would not be available to make us our breakfast... ummmm, really... we would therefore have to have breakfast at his place... think he was pulling a quick one on us, but the banana pancakes his mother made us and the freshly squeezed pineapple, mango and orange juice that he'd taken a WHOLE HOUR to get, were delicious! If not a little expensive... the entertainment that the young locals provided, whilst we waited AN HOUR for breakfast was also v.worthwhile... still, there weren't many other options and we needed sustenance for the road ahead of us...
We set off down the long stretch of clean, sandy beach towards Butre - the next fishing village where we were going to spend the night. After a good couple of hundred meters or so there was a small path off the beach
that took us up and over a (pretty steep) hill... quite a hike esp. in flip flops and the heat of the day, but we were rewarded with fantastic views over the beach we had just walked along and, eventually, the one that we were going to spending the next day at as well as the surrounding greenery. We descended into Butre, a tiny fishing village of about 900 people, established as late as the 1950's. It sits in a little bay in the shadow of Fort Batenstien.
Walked through the little village to another random tourist centre, where we were required to register... before crossing a very dodgy looking wooden footbridge over the river to get to our accommodation (The Hideout Lodge - highly recommended!)
The lodge is really well presented and has a number of accommodation options... so we checked ourselves into a tree house :o) Well, it was more a house on stilts that was waiting for a tree to grow around it... but it was a novelty that you don't get in Accra! Got straight into my bikini and hit the beach, which was literally on our doorstep! Spent a surprising amount of the
afternoon in the sea (not like me), getting sucked in and spat out by the waves, which were wicked fun! Once I'd drank my quota of sea water and managed to remove all the sand from places that sand amazingly manages to get to, I spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on the beach doing very little and watching the local women and children walking back from the river with mountains of clean washing on their heads!
It wasn't long before a local guy came over and sat with us... he will be called 'the coconut man' (as he was walking around with lots of coconuts and was willing to share some with us!). He told us all about the history of the village and it's tales and stories, including some ghost stories :o)
We sat and chatted until the sky turned black and the wind got up and it really looked like it was going to pour down... and then we watched the locals running for cover and still sat there whilst it chucked it down... I was all up for getting my shampoo and having a shower there and then! It's a most unusual feeling
sitting in your bikini, in the sand, having it rain all around, getting chilly and still enjoying it...
After a proper shower and change we sat down, in the shelter, for a couple of beers... not a lot else you could do... the rain cleared just in time to watch a beautiful sunset... headed back out onto the beach and climbed a random rock to get a better view, and just for a bit of fun!
Had an amazing dinner that night - chicken and veg, coconut curry with fried rice - yuuuuuuummy! Washed own with another large 'star' beer :o)
As it was Valentines day, the locals had decided to make a bonfire and insisted that we all celebrate together! Well, some bright spark had stacked the bonfire up before the rain came, so it was a bit damp... nothing a litre of petrol couldn't get started! Sat on the beach, watching the bonfire and listening to the local guys drumming... amazing how they get such a musical sound out of a couple of drums... most enchanting and pleasant,...until they asked us to get up and dance... trying to dance on the sand, around a burning
fire, and it's still about 30 degrees outside = sweaty :o(
It started raining again later which signalled time for bed... dozed off in our little (wobbly) tree house listening to the thunder and watching the lightening.
Sunday 15th February
Woke to more rain... it had been raining most of the night and had even made it slightly 'cooler'!
Pulled in a random assortment of clothing and set off on our Crocodile adventure :o) We all got into a rather large canoe and were randomly equipped with some paddles... we were given no instructions from our Mr Dundee, but I think we were expected to paddle,... this I did (for most of the upstream journey and a quarter of the return, and boy didn't I know it the next day!!!) Unfortunately, we didn't get to see any crocs... apparently they don't like the rain?! However, we did get to see a good collection of birds - kingfishers, vultures, wading birds etc. and some mudskippers - which can be dated once lived alongside the dinosaurs... after 2 hours we were back on dry land eating eggs on toast for breakfast.
Spent the rest of the
morning lying around (burning) on the beach and surfing the waves. Then at 1pm we were ready to leave, after settling my bill - all of about £13 - food, accommodation and canoe trip! Retraced our path over the wibbly wobbly bridge,... I was half expecting a troll to pop out at any minute... but just a couple of local kids appeared...
The typical scary taxi ride, with the typical crazy driver, speeding along a dirt path with potholes the size of elephants, took us all back to Agona junction, where we caught the trotro back to Takoradi (minus the piles of poop this time - much better!). Whilst waiting for the bus back to Accra I 'spent a penny'... well, if it had of been a penny I wouldn't have had the argument that I did with the little toilet attendant boy... he was asking for 30 peswas for a pee... that's 15p to you and me... 15p did not go into cleaning that toilet... I tried to get across to him that this was another 'white tax' that I was fed up of paying... 'how much do you charge everyone else, huh?'... '30 peswas'... as a local
walked past me without even contemplating putting their hand into their pocket... grrr... anyway, bought some biscuits to cheer myself up!
Classic STC journey back to Accra... the coach had 2 windows missing; they'd done a good job of sticking a sheet of plastic over it and securing it with a roll of masking tape...thankfully, the A-C still worked and we, incredibly, left on time!!!
That's all folks... til next time...
Clare x
Advertisement
Tot: 0.099s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 11; qc: 56; dbt: 0.0594s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Fran
non-member comment
drum
Jono bring back one of those drums then we can drum together in the front room!! :-) fxx