Weekend away from Cape Coast

We have just arrived back to Cape Coast after a fairly adventurous weekend in which we covered quite a bit of ground. This entry also covers quite a bit of ground and has ended up being fairly lengthy so feel free to skip parts.

On Friday, we headed to Accra with a bunch of the other volunteers from Cape Coast. The eleven of us all piled into a tro-tro for the three-hour journey east along the coast. Tro-tros are essentially rickety, oversized vans with an extra bank of seats and as many people as possible stuffed into them. For long journeys (i.e. several hours along major highways), they seem to be more concerned about safety and require you to actually buy a ticket to reserve a whole seat for yourself. For shorter journeys (up to 30 minute trips around town and the surrounding areas) you can just hail down a tro-tro and try to cram yourself into any remaining space. We’ve all had some fairly uncomfortable trips of sitting half on a seat and half on someone else’s lap.

Once in Accra we checked into our hotel (hotel is a fairly generous term here) and then headed off to the Projects Abroad party. Projects Abroad has volunteers placed all over Ghana – in Accra, Cape Coast, Kumasi, and the Akuapem Hills. About seventy-five volunteers were there altogether. I met four girls who are living up in the hills and are from Oakville, Ontario. I mentioned that I was in Oakville in 1998 for a soccer tournament hosted by St. Mildred’s and (it is such a small world) it turns out that the four of them actually go to St. Mildred’s. None of them were at that CAIS tournament though – not only do they not play soccer but they also informed me that they were only in grade two back in 1998. I suppose that makes sense - they are only 16 now and that tournament was almost 10 years ago (wow!). The party was fun and we went out dancing with the other volunteers afterwards. Apparently, the Accra volunteers go out every night – one of the several reasons I’m glad I’m in Cape Coast.

Early Saturday morning we all piled into a tro-tro again and headed up to the Akuapem Hills. Once we got out of Accra the drive was spectacular (though it still doesn’t rival Cathedral Grove and Cameron Lake on the way up to Port Alberni). From the highway, the view looked out over green rolling hills and all the way back to overpopulated Accra. The hills have the potential to appeal to tourists and looks like they already have as there are several enormous mansions built into the hillside with incredible views.

We stopped in Aburi to visit the wood market, which consists of about fifty stalls on either side of the road all selling stunning pieces of handcrafted wood – masks, statues, drums, chairs, tables etc. I bought a few pieces and am already wishing that I could carry back more. After a few hours at the wood market we headed to the Aburi Botanical Gardens. We ate lunch there but were too tired to fully take advantage of the gardens (again, they were pretty, but really can’t compare to Butchart Gardens back home).

After the Botanical Gardens, our plan was to head past Somanya, to the Agomanya bead market, but we were told that it is only open on Thursdays. So, we set out for Boti Falls instead. It was quite a trek to get to the falls. We rocketed along unpaved roads in a taxi for about thirty minutes before we reached a camping ground, which serves as a base for visiting the falls. I felt like we were at the beginning of some horror movie as the taxi abandoned us and we walked into this isolated, bizarre, little community.

We planned to spend the night at the falls, so a man showed us the room that they have available for guests. For 50 000 cedis (about $6) altogether, four of us shared this questionable room with two beds and a really sketchy bathroom. The waterfalls fully made up for the slightly sub-par accommodation though. We descended about two hundred stairs to reach the base of the 30 metre high waterfall. There is a pool of water at the base, which is safe for swimming. The falls aren’t as powerful as they would normally be because the rainy season has only just started. This turned out to be a good thing though as we were able to stand right under the falls. The water was refreshing and, after 10 minutes of being washed by the cool water, I felt completely clean for the first time since I got here.

We had a long sleep on Saturday night, went in the falls again on Sunday morning, and then began the long journey back to Cape Coast. We had a thirty minute taxi ride to Koforidua, a 2 hour tro ride to Accra, and another 3 hour tro ride finally back to Cape Coast. That considerable amount of time in a moving vehicle was less dull than you might think. We passed through many small towns that we wouldn’t have seen otherwise and I find that everything here, from the landscape to the buildings to the people, is so different from back home that the time passes fairly quickly as you try to take everything in.

It was really nice to return to Cape Coast. As we drove through it, I was surprised to realize how familiar it seems now. It has really begun to feel like my Ghanaian home. I am so glad that I chose Cape Coast. Accra is far too big, too crowded, and too pushy for me to feel comfortable. The Hills were beautiful but uncomfortably isolated – it would be an interesting experience to live in a truly rural community but I felt a certain level of panic as my cell phone signal vanished and the distance to civilization increased. Cape Coast strikes a very good balance, with the luxuries of communication and other conveniences but without the overwhelming size and population of a big city.