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Published: October 8th 2013
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We left our hotel at 5:30 am - our ride out of Accra was OK, not great but OK. There was a lot of traffic, but most slow moving and we even had bike lanes for part of the ride. Aside from some road construction and THOUSANDS of big ass bats flying overhead it would have been easy. I actually thought these were big birds until Barry pointed out that they were in fact BATS. They were swooping and making all sorts of creepy noises... YIKES! I was a bit freaked...
So once we got out of the city and onto a secondary highway, the traffic died down, and things started to look up... WAYYYY up! In once sense, the villages we were riding through, the people were amazingly friendly (Which we had hoped), and the road went up, up, up into the mountains - yes we would be doing some climbing! So back to my first point, the people in the smaller villages are all amazingly friendly - I also learned today that "Obruni" means "white Person". Now I know why everyone yells "Obruni" when we ride by! It's not a mean term by any means, It's just
how they differentiate us!
So we started climbing, stopping every so often for water - which we went through ALOT of - It was about 33C and humid. I bet you Barry and I went through over 12L of water between the two of us. We also went through tons of sunscreen - other than my hands, I didn't get the least bit of color! Anyway, Barry still wasn’t feeling 100% so after the first hill, he wasn't feeling too well, so we began stopping more frequently. So the 85 KM, turned into 95Km and took us until 4:30 pm before we found our hotel. I think that is one of the longest days I can remember. Anyway, the stops were actually nice, we were able to stop, sit down chat with the locals and take some photos. I should mention that Kids LOVE to have their picture taken, Especially if you how them the digital view afterwards! It's sometimes hard to stop after one 😊 Anyway it was really cute! Poor Barry struggled on until the end.
So for those of you who think we are slumming it in Africa, do I have news for you
- we checked into this brand-new luxury hotel (complete with running/hot water!!) My first decent shower since I got here! It even has a swimming pool, which I will check out later on today, and a business center which is where I am typing this email.
We were supposed to continue onto our next destination, but we thought it would be better to stay here and let Barry rest another day. Besides, it a pretty big town and there is a Bead Market on Thursdays. So we will leave tomorrow for our next stop before Kumasi. We actually did get a chance to check out the bead market. If we didn’t' have to cycle another 700Km we would have bought more beads! (Erin you would have been in Bead Heaven!) Some of the beads were stone and RELLLY heavy! But Barry did let me buy a few things. Apparently, there is a market in Accra, but of course the prices are quite marked up in the Capital. After the bead market, we checked out the local market and again saw some strange and unusual things. That market is waaayyy out there... Oh yeah. We saw some more bats and
rats, but the lady wouldn't let us take pictures 😞 oh well. We may not make it into Benin, as we are now 2 days behind in our Itinerary, but Oh well...
This afternoon is all about relaxing. After the Internet, we will be heading out to play in the pool... nice... The hotel itself is quite away from the center of town, but it costs less that 1.50 Ghana Cedis (About $1.25) to head into town.. and taxis are everywhere... Tomorrow's stop, were really not sure what to expect, it's a smaller town but we know it has at least a few hotels, running water, we're not too sure about, but hopefully! After the next town we get to spend a few days in Kumasi before heading to Cape Coast and the National Park.... Until Then!
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