Ghana Revisited, Almost 11 Years Later

My old residence (three from the right
down one) University of Ghana, Accra.

Pit stop on the side of the
road for coconuts

          First I will give some context to the title of this blog; almost 11 years ago I spent a considerable amount of time in Ghana through a joint university program covering archaeology / anthropology research and third world development at the university but also through various projects throughout the country.  I would like to say in short without delving too deep that it was my first international experience and one that truly changed my life in a very good way.  It shaped my mind and many future events to come.  Including my desire to travel the world and never cease learning about its amazing diversity, which in turn led me to also seek someone (my beautiful wife Sarah) who shared that same desire.  So now here we are living in Abu Dhabi on our joint quest to travel and learn about the world.

Coco Beach Resort

The Cultural Center in Accra

          We were (well I was) brought back to Ghana because our sister in law Bethany has sister (Erika) who was set up on a "doctors without borders" trip.  Bethany thought it would be a good opportunity to have us join given my extensive experience in Ghana.  So we planned a weeks worth of leave with a pit stop in Egypt first and then Ghana for a week.
          Sarah and I arrived two days before Bethany and Erika to do some reminiscing of my own and absorbing the emotions of coming back seeing what had changed and what had stayed the same.  When we landed in Accra (Ghana's capital) we processed through security and hailed a taxi to one of the places I had frequented the last time I lived in Ghana: The Cocoa Beach Ramada Resort.  I don't know why I liked that place so much, but it was my refuge in times of stress.

          After unpacking we made our way to the cultural center near the Kwame Nkrumah memorial downtown where they sell all matters of trinkets and other Ghanaian gear.  I thought it would be a good exposure for Sarah to the "haggling" ways of some of the markets.  This is also a good place to learn about the local traditions, for example, how the royal Kente cloth is made: super strong cloth with beautiful symbols and patterns filled with deep meaning and history.  I find the pawn shop style of bargaining quite enjoyable actually which leads me to buy more that I should typically just for the thrill of getting the perception that I "got a good deal".  I did not buy too much as most of the items were all too familiar from my last stay where I hauled months and months of "bargaining" home with me.  I did haggle for some items that Sarah wanted.

          On our second day we decided to visit the Aburi botanical gardens for a while.  It is not terribly impressive but the drive up into the hills through some smaller villages is quite enjoyable.  Driving is probably one of the times where it is more noticeable that you are a minority in the country.  Most of the population does not see light skinned forefingers on a regular basis.  So to some degree you feel like a type of celebrity as you pass through the region.  While driving you get a lot of "double takes" where someone looks at you looks away and then quickly looks back to analyze you in depth.  Children also run to their parents to point at you and call out "Obruni!" which means white person in the local dialect called Twi (I was fortunate to recall enough of this language from my previous stay to help with "haggling" and general courtesies to get by during our travels).  Children only typically use this phase because when they see a foreigner for the first time they run their parents to ask "what is that?!" to which the parents respond "that is a white person" or "Obruni".  I must say it is quite enjoyable to see the look on someones face when you can somewhat tell it it the first time

Sarah "traditional head carrying"
with children

they have ever seen someone with your complexion.  Again the attention you get does give off the celebrity feel from time to time.  It is nice to be noticed and in a country as friendly as Ghana, its extra nice.

          I also decided it was a good time to find and hire a driver for the remainder of the trip.  I found someone after talking to a taxi driver who knew of a person for the job.  After doing what I do best in Ghana (haggling) we made a deal with our new friend and driver: Addo.  He was a very kind, soft spoken chap who did an absolutely wonderful job of taking care of our company while traveling along the gold coast.  We walked through the gardens and then stopped to have lunch on the hill side at a local restaurant bar.
          Following our trip up to the gardens we decided to go to the University of Ghana where I studied previously.  I had what was probably one of the coolest experiences I have had in a very long time.  I will give some context:

Jared (21) & Mavis (14) - 2003 

When I came to Ghana to study in 2003 I had a walking path that I took to get one of my classes while I was onsite at the University.  It took roughly 30 minutes of walking to get there and on the way there was a food market.  It was a series of wooden kiosks with aluminum roof tops that sold everything from fruit, ice cold coke and cooked many local Ghanaian dishes.  When I first made this trek to my school building I was stopped by a 14 year old girl named Mavis at the market who insisted I get something to eat.  I resisted at first but was finally coerced into buying an egg sandwich with cream cheese.  I was hesitant to have this made out in the desert like climate for obvious reasons, but it turned out to be really good.  Mavis was actually the first person I met in Ghana while I was on my own and for that reason I always regarded her as very special to me.  She was the first person to make me feel at home in a new place very far from my home.  So throughout the term of my class I made it a ritual to stop at the

Night Time at the Market - 2003

kiosk and enjoy my egg sandwich while Mavis would proceed to ask me a series of questions about my studies, my home in the states and other various trivia that she could come up with.  I also would make trips at night as it was a popular place for students to eat at.  

Jared (31) & Mavis (24) - 2014

          Back to the year 2014:  Sarah and I are leaving the gardens when on the way back I decide to stop by the U of Ghana and see if I can find the market I walked by so many times, and of course my friend Mavis who would be 24 years old now.  When we arrived I surprisingly knew where to go, I found my old hostel where I stayed when I was on campus and then followed the road to the market.  It was not there, walking further we saw that the market had moved across the dirt road and had grown considerably since I had last been there.  As I walked around the market I did not recognize many people, I turned the corner to the second row of kiosks and then finally I saw her.  It took a moment, but I was sure.  I walked up and we had a moment of blank stares before she recognized me, she laughed hysterically and then came up to give me a big hug.  After chatting a while I learned she is engaged to be married, that all the others I had known at the market had returned to their villages, and she was the last who was a few weeks away from leaving for good to start on her path in the nursing profession.  Fate it seems had plans for us to meet before that happened and for that I am grateful.

Jared & Nii drinking palm wine
During U of Ghana "hall week" - 2003

Jared & Nii at Accra Mall - 2014

          I also met another long lost friend (Nii) from Ghana who I have held intermittent contact with over the years who was kind enough to sponsor Sarah, Bethany and I.  Nii also studied at the U of Ghana with me where we had some good times together.  We had one fun night I caught on camera where we are toasting with a local drink called palm wine.  During these events on campus called hall weeks, the students would gather in large tents where palm wine in a large barrel would be served in a calabash for about ten cents (that was back in 2003 mind you).  Nii met Sarah and I at the Accra mall, a new addition from 2007.  It was strange to think of a mall in Ghana as nothing of the kind existed back in 2003.  I made sure to take another picture with Nii to do a 2014 and 2003 flashback moment.  

Fishing Port, Cape Coast

All of us at dinner at Accra Mall

       The next day Addo, Sarah and I went to the airport to pickup Bethany and Erika to begin the next leg of our travels.  Our destination post airport was the town of Kokrobite where we planned to stay at a slightly rustic location, but when we arrived it had lost power due to a storm (which also made our route rather muddy) so we went to a place down the road called Bojo beach resort that had a beach you could only access by boat.  It was a nice place overall, in the morning Sarah and I took the stick propelled boat to the beach before breakfast ate with Bethany and Erika and headed out to our next destination.  

Cape Coast Castle Tour Group

Cape Coast Castle

          Cape Coast was our next destination following breakfast at Bojo Beach.  Cape Coast is a city and fishing port right in the center of Ghana's coast.  It is also home to the main attraction, Cape Coast Castle (a world heritage site) which was an instrumental stronghold for many European countries.  A center for many years of exploitation and slave trade as the last holding point before transport to the middle passage.  The tours are chilling as you walk through the many dark, stuffy, inhumane looking quarters where hundreds of people were kept before walking through the door of no return.  The castle hugs the rocky coast line as turbulent waves crash against it, knowing its history it was always eerie to look at it before and the feeling was still the same seeing it again after all these years.  It was suggested by one of the members of our tour group to get a picture together to show unity so we gathered together at the caste for our picture.  That was one positive note to the tour, but the takeaway from such human atrocities is a powerful one.  It is difficult to say never again as we so often hear, when activities of this nature are by no means extinct in the world today. 

Oasis Beach Resort Near
Cape Coast Castle

Oasis Beach Resort

Cape Coast Castle

          Following the tour we ate at a restaurant near the castle that I had remembered from before and then found our way back to our "tiki hut" like lodging I had arranged for us for the night.  The hut had a bug net and was enclosed with a fan.  This place was probably the most rustic of our lodgings, but the perk was that it was about ten feet from the ocean.  I mean come on, where else in the world can you experience that for $30 a night?  I said that to myself as I flushed a cockroach who has made his way into our toilet.  I made the mistake of telling Bethany and Erika about our third guest which may have had an effect on their sleep that night.  I had stayed there before, but my college memory of quality and standards has clearly changed in the last ten years.  That being said I still enjoyed the place as I did last time, we were also welcomed by a very impressive storm that knocked the power out for a while (yes we lost power a lot, this is one thing that hadn't changed from ten years ago).  

Restaurant at the end of the castle
and Oasis Resort in the palm trees

Restaurant Near The Castle

            The next day we made our way to Kakum National Forest which is just north of Cape Coast.  Kakum is probably the third most popular place to visit in Ghana next to Accra and Cape Coast.  It is a beautiful forest which has a series of canopy bridges built up high where you can walk from tree to tree.  I was happy to see they had redone many of the ropes from ten years ago when  had walked over it last time.  Following that place we went to a restaurant famous for all the pet crocodiles that can be touched and fed.  I have a picture holding the tail of a large one, however I was not in the mood to recreate that moment this time.  But thankfully our driver Addo decided to take one for the team and say hello to the crocodile for me.

Kakum National Forest

Canopy Walk at Kakum
National Forest

          Following lunch we made our way back to Accra where we would spend our last two days at my favorite: Cocoa Beach resort.  The next morning we gave Bethany and Erika a taste of the cultural market where they could buy their Ghana items.  I had to get Erika out of an infinite bargaining loop which ended in her agreeing to come back the next day and pick up some shorts she didn't want.  All things considered I thought it could have been worse.  After that Addo dropped Erika and Bethany off at the resort and Sarah and I (mostly me) decided to high roll it at the La Palm Royal Beach hotel which is the nicest place to stay on the coast in Accra.  I fancied a visit because they also have a casino and I am always looking to add another country to my gambling record.  I ended up playing blackjack for a short while and left the casino up $170, thanks Royal Palm.  Sarah contributed $10 to the pot because a Russian pit boss convinced her to pilot a bingo game they were rolling out.  

Tree "pit stop" on the
Canopy Walk

          The last day Sarah and I walked down the beach in the morning and began packing up to head back to Abu Dhabi.  Addo helped us pack up and we went off to the airport to say our goodbyes to Erika and then later to Bethany inside the airport.  

Addo & The Croc

           It was wonderful to come back to Ghana after all this time.  It most likely would not have happened for a long while if Bethany's sister Erika had not planned her trip here.  I was happy to give vivid context to all the stories I had told Sarah time and time again.  I still think of Ghana as one of my homes on this planet and I will always carry that in my heart.  The people of Ghana are incredibly kind to foreigners, I have always felt a calming sense that I could never describe to anyone who hasn't been here.  There is something in Ghana, something they have that we in the west do not have in our souls.  But when you go there, you can feel that calming energy, I want to say community but that by no means sums it up, it is just a wonderful feeling.                 

         

Egypt...In 22 Hours

Egyptian Museum

          It seems hard to imagine what you could do with a twenty two hour layover in Egypt.  While planning our trip and my almost 11 year reunion with Ghana (See blog about Ghana), we could not find a way to avoid a long layover in Cairo.  So Sarah had the brilliant idea of finding the longest layover possible so we could enjoy a small sample of Egypt on our way to Ghana.  We booked through a tour agency to maximize our time and we were introduced to Mustafa who was our guide on this twenty two hour adventure.
          Our tour began with a pick up at the airport where we were greeted by Mustafa.  Our first leg of the trip was a tour of the Egyptian museum.  Driving through Cairo was filled with busy traffic, the museum was not far from the airport.  When we reached our drop off point we walked through a barbed wire enclosure and passed a row of army tanks protecting the museum, a remnant of the political unrest.  It was actually a comforting feeling and impressive of how important the museum is and the level of protection to keep the ancient artifacts safe and in tact.  Inside the museum we saw many monolithic structures and of course the main attraction: the golden mask of king Tutankhamen.  I must have stared at it for ten minutes, I have seen it so many times in pictures, but to be inches from it: priceless.

Sailing on the Nile

         The second part of our tour was a sail boat cruise on the Nile river with some local dishes served up for lunch.  The dish was called kushari I believe, which is this mildly spicy noodle medley, it was really good and the Nile cruise was very relaxing after a long tour of the Egyptian Museum.
          Following our cruise we made our way to the main attraction in Cairo, the Pyramids of Giza.  Truly wonderful to behold, a relic of the magnificence of Egypt.  The Great Pyramid of Giza is the last, oldest of the seven ancient wonders of the ancient world, and the only one left standing.  Some pictures I added were just to show the sheer size of the pyramid as you see us from a distance and also standing on the giant blocks.  While we were there we also arranged a tour to actually go inside the great pyramid.  It was amazing actually walking up the massive steps, each block almost as tall as I was.  The assent to the center of the pyramid was quite the work out, not to mention the inside is very warm and humid.  The journey ends in the kings chamber where you can stand directly below the point of the pyramid, it is rumored by the guides that if you stand on that point you can feel the power channel through you and your heart rate will increase (I didn't feel it).
          Following the pyramid tour we rode a camel around (at Sarah's request, I was fearful of MERS and lodged several protests before climbing on), but alas we had our camel picture and since I am writing this blog weeks alter I am happy to say we are both MERS free.

          After we finished by the pyramids we circled back around to the side of the pyramids to visit the Sphinx.  Also an amazing site to see by the sheer size and precision of the Sphinx and the pyramids for that matter.  No feat in the modern world can compare to the scope of these ancient marvels.
          Once we covered the main areas we wanted we visited a perfume shop where they made natural perfumes and then a place where they still make papyrus art.  We received a free demonstration on why the ancients used papyrus and how it was made.  Basically thin strips about an inch wide are pounded and pressed together and dried out, once they are mended the papyrus is extremely durable and can even be washed and re-used!  We wrote on a blank piece with a pen and our guide washed and rubbed the ink back off, it was pretty cool.  We bought a few papyrus art pieces before we made our way back to the airport.
          So there you have it, in twenty two hours time we were able to visit the Egyptian museum, sailed on the Nile river, went inside the Great Pyramid, toured the Sphinx, and saw how papyrus was made.  Quite impressive given the amount of time.  We owe much of our value to our awesome tour guide Mustafa who more than met our expectations, he knew so much of the rich history of Egypt and was such a great host in his home country.  Egypt of course is not high on the list for many to visit at the moment, but I'd like to say that while there I never felt unsafe or ran into any situations that gave cause for concern.  I would go back in a heartbeat and we hope to create an extended tour in the future to cover more of the greatness of ancient Egypt.