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Published: February 17th 2009
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The Dreamland Beach Resort
Beach Front Locale, Soft Beds, Good Food, Friendly Staff...oh yeah...just another day in paradise Hey All!
This Valentine's weekend marked my first non-ISEP adventure, and boy, was it awesome! Traveling in small groups is definitely the way to go. Our destination? A small fishing village two hours east of Accra, Ada Foah.
We (myself and about eight other people) left early Saturday morning and made it to our accommodations without a hitch. I had done a little scouting adventure to the local Tro Tro stations earlier in the week to take out away any guess work.
We stayed at the Dreamland Beach Resort, where quality was much more important than quantity...they only have four rooms...but they were great rooms! The bamboo bunk beds were enormous, soft, and came complete with mosquito nets, the essence of tropical charm. While the food was a tad pricey, it was well worth it, because the serving sizes were big...just the way I like it! The showers had warm water, and the staff was exceptionally friendly and helpful. It really was a dream...and I feel like I just wrote an excerpt for a travel brochure...hmmmm...oh well! It was great! If you get a chance to go...um, go!
So, Saturday morning was spent traveling, but Saturday afternoon
Canoing on The Volta
Takes me back to my rowing days...sigh... belonged to the beach. Besides being extremely beautiful and breath-taking, the coast lines of Ada Foah are also extremely remote. It was the first beach I went to that I saw more natives than tourists. It was great! The waves are huge there, and I quickly learned that the ocean is not to be trifled with. I was tossed and turned, pushed and pulled, slammed and hammered into the ocean floor, and literally flipped head over heels by the ferocious tide. From what I hear it was quite a funny thing to see. And while I was sore the next day...it was definitely worth it!
I also thought that this was the perfect opportunity to answer an age old question I've always pondered... Do I enjoy long walks on the beach? Yup! I'll be sure and add that to a list of my favorite things to do when I get back.
Anyway, we capped off the day eating dinner surrounding a bonfire that the manager of the resort made for us. Unfortunately, it didn't last long because a thunder storm came in...but that turned out to be really cool, so I didn't mind. It was great just sitting under
Sugar Cane Isle
The Island of Azikpe that specializes in making Ago Go Rum...basically fermented sugar cane the huts watching the lightning and rain fall. We lost power a couple of times which made the experience even more awesome. It was a great ending to a great day.
Sunday morning we took a guided canoe tour along the Volta River and of Azikpe Isle, affectionately, often referred to as Sugar Cane Island. The canoe trip was amazing, the weather was nice and cool since it had stormed the night before, which was a big help since I a lot of the canoing in my boat... Man, I am so out of shape, three days later and I'm still sore :P The landscape surrounding the river was beautiful and our venture onto Azikpe was even better. We passed through two or three villages, several sugar cane fields, and numerous frog and crab infested lagoons. We were also given a guided tour of the islands' sugar cane rum industry. Not a bad way to start the day.
After the canoing adventure, most of our group headed back to Accra, but Loren, Shamar, Danielle and myself decided to stay an extra day. Great decision. Loren and I spent the afternoon at the beach where we enjoyed some well
Bonfire
Sooooo, that didn't turn out the way I wanted...but hey, it actually looks kinda cool earned fun in the sun. What'd we do to earn fun you ask? An impromptu decision on Loren and I's part to help a bunch of fisherman pulling in there nets from the ocean...
I mean, hey, there were little kids who couldn't have been more than five doing it, how hard could it be? Idiot. We must have pulled on that rope for a good thirty minutes. It was hard, painful, uncomfortable, and... incredibly awesome. The entire time the Ghanaians were pulling they were singing songs in call and response style, chanting and pulling in time. It was sweet. Hard, but incredibly sweet. In retrospect, we were really pathetic though, since we stopped after pulling it in once...because the Ghanaians definitely pulled for at least another four or five hours.
At any rate, we finished off the day relaxing back at the resort reading, writing, sleeping, building sand castles, you know, all that good stuff.
That evening we took a long walk on the beach just to take in all of the glorious cool weather, and great scenery. Thankfully Loren had thought ahead and reminded me to bring a lantern, because about an hour into the walk
it was pitch black outside. It was exciting coming back because there were crabs everywhere that we had to avoid. It was kind of annoying because a couple of the crabs ran directly at us... Thankfully however, after years of practice, I didn't catch a single one 😉 sorry, inside rowing joke. Any who, after a long day of fun, I slept like a baby in the hammock that night, enjoying the cool night ocean breeze, and getting a front row seat for the beautiful sunrise that followed the next morning.
Breakfast was a leisurely affair on Monday...actually, everything was leisurely that weekend. We went back and forth tossing around a couple of options for the morning before heading back to Accra. We eventually settled on paying a visit to Crocodile Island, to check out a basket weaving village. Unfortunately no one we asked knew what we were talking about, and our destination was eventually lost in translation. As we were taken to the local zoo... and I use the term zoo in the loosest of ways. It was basically five cages in a guy's backyard... But hey, it was fun experience none the less, and definitely something to
laugh about now! We left the zoo and tro tro-ed back to the campus.
All in all, it was a fabulous weekend - the perfect amount relaxation and recreation. But what else would you expect? It was just another day in paradise!
Stay frosty everyone, I know I am!
Jonathan
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Amanda M
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Ohh the Batman shirt has been everywhere!!! :D