Chapter 1: Kumasi
Roy, Kate and I left for Kumasi, the second biggest city in Ghana. Distance: 270km or 168 miles. The journey began when we left the house at 6am in the morning. From the CUC house we went to Circle (a bus station) to find our bus. Armed with just 1 German-written travel guide borrowed from a friend, little did we know that we were about to start the longest trip of our lives.
We arrived to Circle and were immediately harassed by the locals. "Where are you going?!" You have to use your judgment and select the person you feel will give you the best information. We chose and were told that the next large bus would come soon. However, the bus holds maybe 30 people and well over 60 were waiting in a mass. When said bus did arrive, the performance that occurred was something from a movie. Women getting pushed aside, babies crying and 3 light skinned people struggling to not get trampled. Needless to say, we missed that bus. Before we could catch our breath we were hustled away from the crowd by our information-keeping local. From no where, in the back of the station he directed us to a white bus with A/C. We tentatively got on, but with reassurance from other passengers we agreed. Cost: 12 GHC.
Between 4 and 5 hours later we arrived to Kumasi. The road to get there was insane - like climbing through a wall of rocks. It's astonishing to find that there is not a decent road connect the two largest cities in the country. How cargo trucks manage is quite incredible. Also, had we known that this bumpy ride and lightly A/C van would be our best mode of transportation for the rest of the trip we made have tried to soak it in a little more...
Once to Kumasi we found our hostel and checked-in. The total cost was 12 cedis for 2 connected double beds and was split three ways. The room was not fancy at all, but more than decent and even had a balcony. The first day in Kumasi was spent traveling to tourist spots. We saw the central market, the main TroTro station, the National Culture Museum, the Sword Site and then the Zoo.
Market: one market = another market. Everyone selling, no one buying.
Station: actually really cool, and I have pictures to prove it
Museum: grounds were beautiful, but there was literally nothing to do. Museum was no-nexistant and so we just got Cokes and got out of the sun
Sword: story goes that Ghana has its own excalibur. We finally find the site and it's this like 15x15 building behind some random hospital. And as you stand at the entrance and can see everything in the room in one glance, they then ask for 2 cedis to enter. Kate and I stayed outside while Roy went in. Then we listened to the tour guide from outside and took pictures of Roy wasting his money. Gotta love it. Also, I'm not sold on the story about the sword...
Zoo: Ah, so depressing. The animals were so thin and sad looking :(. No one there taking care of them. Also, I saw a chimpanzee, that in my opinion, solidifies that evolution is real - but that's just my opinion. Other present animals were some bats, turtles, snakes, more turtles, birds, monkeys, 2 hyenas, 3 lions (1 tried to get busy with a female but she wasn't having it) and a peacock.
Day 2 was spent visiting the Ashanti King's palace. After finally arriving to the palace we realized that again there was nothing at the site to see, so we skipped it. Got some good pictures of the outside though -- that counts, right?? We attempted to then go to some lake to swim, but found out it would be about 25 cedis in taxi cost and it just didn't seem worth it. So, we changed plans and met up with the people from the AIESEC LC in Kumasi.
Together, we all got lunch and then headed to the pool at K.N.U.S.T (Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology). The school is hugeeee with 25,000+ people. The campus reminded me of Kent, sort of. Green, hilly and very spread out. One of the dormitories looked very similar to any standard US college. The AIESEC house is a little ways off campus. It is so much more rural where they live but very peaceful and a nice change from the big city.
We jetted from the KNUST AIESEC house just after dark as we attempted to catch a bus to the north that evening. The ride is approximately 10 hours from Kumasi to the very north of the country so we thought driving all night would be the best option. Of course we get to the bus station (after taking a little detour in the city) and there is absolutely no bus that night. They don't start running until the morning, but we did learn how to get an early 4am bus from a different STC (government public transportation system) bus to Bolgatanga, a city in the north.
Trying to get to the next bus station was a complete joke. Literally no one knew what is was. We had to ask maybe 10 different people, but finally a security guard at a hospital was able to point us in the correct direction. While walking, we found this little restaurant on the street with the typical rice and chicken and sat and ate our food. Feeling refreshed, we continued our journey down the random street to apparently nowhere. Along the way we stopped at a gas station for directions and found out we had been going down the correct road after all. Too tired to continue, we followed a business man who was heading to a hotel.
It turned out that this hotel was REALLY nice. A nice big room, with a private entrance way/balcony thing and a decent bathroom. No running water, of course, but at least nice beds. We only slept for about 4 hours before we woke up at 3:30am to catch a 4am bus. This was pretty standard for our trip. Travel all day to find something, spend half the day finding some random bus on some random street, then more traveling and finally land at a hotel in the late evening.
Chapter 2: Getting to Bolgatanga (Bolga)
We arrived at the STC station at 4:05 am. There were maybe 40 people milling around waiting for the ticket counter to open so they could buy their tickets. The options were Tamale, Bolga and a few other cities. We stepped into the Bolga line and we not even 20 people back. Around 4:30 ish the ticket counter opened and we figured by 5am we would have our tickets and be on our way - I mean a big orange bus with the word "Bolga" was already waiting to leave.
WRONG. We waited. And waited. 5am .... 5:30 am... 6 am.... literally we're not moving. Dozens and dozens of people start arriving and lining up behind us, but yet nothing is moving. No one is buying tickets, no one is moving. NOTHING IS HAPPENING!!! Twice we asked the counter lady and apparently the bus we watched, which then left was not our bus. Some other side-line randomly forms and those people start buying tickets. Finally, the bus left at 8:30am. 4.5 hours later. Just a short 5 hours since we woke up and we had not even left Kumasi yet...
Chapter 3: Bolgatanga and some Crocodiles
A short 10 hours later we arrived to Bolga. From there we took a TroTro through the countryside to Paga (40 kilometers away). The air in the north is so dry you cannot breath - it's crazy. And the countryside is sadly beautiful. Very dry, and brown with simple trees. And between the trees are little hut-style houses where people live. Most likely, they have never been farther than Bolga, let alone Accra or anywhere outside of their country. It's a strange feeling to drive past someone that will mostly likely never live somewhere with electricity or running water. A built of guilt or sadness, or happiness for my own life -- whatever it was, I was feeling it.
We get to the "city" of Paga which was just a dirty, nothing town. After fighting with a taxi driver for about 30 minutes, we reluctantly had to pay a ridiculous price for him to take us to the crocodile place. We arrive to this Crocodile "sanctuary" which is really just a little swamp with kids running around playing tour guide. We follow one over and one kid showed us how to stand behind the Croc and pick up his tail, then pat him on his back.
By this time it was getting dark and too late to walk to the Burkina Faso border (which was about 1 kilometer) so we asked around for the "hotel." We happened to ask the right guy - the owner - who took us right to our "room," AKA the top of a hut with 2 mattresses and a mosquito net. Oh, and 1 bucket of water for 3 of us to use. Tired, dirty from the day of traveling, and hungry we plopped down on the mattress and went to town on the bread and peanut butter we had brought with us. Soon after we passed out, pretty much unable to move or speak. Had we not been so tired, it may have been neat to sleep under the stars and listen to the local goats and other animals. However, we were annoyed from the day and also the mattress/net combo cost 7 ghana cedis per person. Cheap from western standards, but extremely expensive for Ghana standards.
No comments:
Post a Comment