Salty dogs

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I got up at 11am and packed, checked out at noon but was pretty hungry. I woke up with a pain in my stomach though, it felt like there was a brick in my stomach, obviously something I had hadn't agreed with me. I had a bit of a headache too, but no fever. Still, it didn't seem like such a great idea going on a ferry for a day and a half if I was going to be ill. I generally don't get ill when Im away, I had a few loose 'movements' the week before, but nothing to stop me from travelling, I was just getting used to the water and the food.

I needed a cash machine and breakfast so I started walking up the road into Adabraka, it was pretty warm but ok, even with my backpack on. I found an ATM but it didn't take my card, by now I was 3/4 of the way to the Orangery so I popped in for some breakfast. Something was bugging me on the way, and I looked in my little backpack and couldn't find my money belt. While I waited for my food I checked my big backpack but it wasn't in there either. Im not suprised as I never put in there anyway. I had locked all my stuff in a locker in the room, including my money belt but couldn't remember taking it out. I ate and took a taxi back to the guest house, and it was propped up in the locker. Phew. It was getting on for 1.20pm or so now and I had to get to the ferry for 5pm or so, but plenty of time as I figured it would only take an hour or so to get to the pier. I got another taxi saying I wanted to go to the barclays ATM and then to the tro-tro station to Akosombo, I asked which station it was and he said he didn't know but he gave me a price of 25,000 so I said 'ok, you can ask someone on the way'. There aren't that many stations in Accra and how would I know since i was the tourist.

We got to the ATM, the traffic was pretty bad but of course he didn't ask anyone. We went around the block and I asked where he was going, to the STC station he said. I may be a tourist but I knew there was no bus going there so I insisted we go to the tro station. Past the ATM we went again and off to the Tamale tro tro station. The stupid driver got forced into the station by a bus right up his arse only to find it was the wrong station so then we had to turn around in the chaos and wait to get back out. Seems like it was third time lucky and we went to the station in the market and there was a tro to Akosombo. I gave him 30,000 and got out while he protested. He got out and started shouting at me, 'uh oh' I thought, but the people around asked what I'd been charged and where we went and agreed with me. Typical man, too macho to sak for directions but I'd be damned if I was paying the 40,000 he wanted, 25k was probably too much as it was.

The Tro was half full and now it was 2.30pm after taking an hour to drive about 3 miles (well, 6 miles with the route he took). I got a seat and sat there sweating with everyone else. The bus started filling up slowly, but not as fast as I'd like. Some guy got on and started giving a speech in English about how he was HIV positive and lost his wife to the disease and how his daughter was also infected. Ghana has lots of posters all over the place saying that people with HIV shouldn't be stigmatised as it could be you next. Some people listened, most just talked and ignored him, i guess its a pretty regular thing in ghana to get a lecture on AIDS prevention while waiting in a bus. He said some weird things though, like telling people to take their own scissors to the salon when they got a haircut.... a razor, fair enough, but I dont think you can get HIV from dirty scissors.

After about an hour the bus was full and we pushed our way out of the market tro station, the place was like organised chaos but we got out somehow. Another guy got on the bus, I had to move seats to make room for his briefcase and as we worked our way through town and now the guys starts yelling some nonsense I couldn't understand. 'Amen' everyone shouted back at him a few times, he told them a few jokes and got everyone laughing. Then, bizarrely, he pulls out some condoms from his pockets and gives a lecture and demonstration on their use. Wasn't a complete demonstration of course :p Everyone was laughing, and even more so when he pulls out some femidoms and demonstrates their use too! Lord only know what he's telling them, but eventually the lesson ends and he pulls out a big sealed box and starts going on and on about them. Heres me thinking they are the AIDS meds he as to take everday or something, but then after 15 mins building them up people start buying them all through the bus. He sells nearly the entire box, probably 30 small boxes at 15,000 each (£1). I get a look at one and its caffiene and ginseng energy tablets. They lap em up, can't get enough of them. Then he pulls out some boxes of deworming tablets, gives another 10 minute spiel and sells one box. Something wrong with the balance of sales i think. Then he jumps off the bus and goes back into the city. I guess he makes a pretty good living.

The bus wasn't running to the schedule I'd like though, it took an hour to get out of Accra so at 3.30pm I only have an hour to make the ferry, and I need to buy some food if I assume Im not getting anything on the boat. But the guy is not exactly breaking any speed limits, he keeps stopping to drop people off and then we have a 5 minute break as they pull all their shopping off the top of the bus, sacks of yams, new bicycles (the lad who got it was so pleased with his dad) but what can you do but wait and hope you make it. I saw a few milage markers to Akosombo and amuse myself by mentally working out how fast we're going, I figured it might be pretty tight as the pier isn't actually in town but a taxi ride away. After multiple drop offs we finally get to the tro station by the market, I get a taxi to the pier at 4.30pm. Barring any major mishap I was going to make it and 15 minutes later, 15 minutes before the scheduled departure I walk up into the second class floor and meet Anna and Tua again. I guess they were getting worried I was going to abandon them, but it was not the case.

I dumped my stuff and went back out to buy a straw mat to sleep on, some bread, red onions, tomatos and tinned sardines. At least I wasn't going to starve now, and I wasn't the only person with a brick sitting in my belly, we all had the same food the day before so it wasn't malaria after all! The girls were sitting in the galley area, but it was pretty busy and pretty stuffy. I had a look upstairs on the bridge deck where all the cabins were and there were a load of ghanian soldiers and about a dozen tourists. Seems that was a better place to sleep so we moved up there and set up 'camp'. I needn't have worried about leaving on time though as we sat there for more than an hour loading more stuff up. I had charged my mp3 player with my new £25 charger (my third since I got one off ebay that broke and one from maplins that would have blow up all my gear if I had plugged it in, pile of crap) but it wasn't up to the job and depite saying 100% charge only lasted for 10 minutes, same with the second set of batteries. The girls were gutted, but at least they have me for entertainment! Tua sat and wrote her diary while I played cards with Anna, and despite her assertion she was a poker champion I won every game. Shame for her she wasn't playing poker :p

We set off and it was pretty flat, no wind, still no mosquitos (ghana was great for that, it was so dry there weren't any, much better for my malaria paranoia) and down went the sun and away went the cards. Took them about an hour to turn the light on up on the deck so there wasn't much to do. I sat and read on my phone, having a backlight is great for that. They started serving food downstairs and we went and got some, rice+tomato sauce+boiled egg; the staple of the galley. It was ok, and cheap plus they had cold drinks but it got a bit tedious after 6 meals of the same. We were promised omlette for breakfast the next day but that wasn't to materialise.

I had told the girls to get the west side, ie the left so we wouldn't have the sun in the morning but they had a bonde moment and had claimed the right side. No biggie I thought, I had a sleep mask anyway, but then the wind started picking up. It got quite blustery, and you could feel occasional prick of water on your skin. Rain or a bit of wind swept surf from the bow? 10 minutes later we got the answer as it started raining! Doh! We grabbed all our stuff and ran for the back of the boat where they had a big canopy, typically the german group on the left side (our side dammit! :p) just moved their stuff to the wall and stayed put. Our side got soaked! We sat at the back cursing our luck and after a while the rain stopped and the wind died down, but the side of the boat was soaked. So much for an early night! Still, nothing you can do, just hate the people that got there early and got a cabin (with AC!) 😞

We had to stop some Ghanian woman from stealing our mats twice, cheeky cow. We later learnt Sandra from Holland wasn't so vigilent and had hers pinched. She even accused me! Of course I wouldn't, but we made it a joke later when I kept apologising for pinching it. I wouldn't have minded sharing mine with her though, she was lovely! The deck dried out a bit so we reclaimed our places and sorted out our gear, it was only 9pm but everyone started getting ready for bed. Looks like we timed it right as soon after they killled the light. Wasn't easy to sleep, it was so early still. I read for a while while the girls played 20 questions. Seems they only knew pop stars and actors, all too easy, so I kept them going for 15 minutes with Neil Armstrong and Einstein. They were so puzzled by a person know for his travels and couldn't pin him down to a continent :p After about 2 hours of annoying everyone else on the deck we went to sleep.

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