Road trip!
I managed to crawl out of my sweaty room in time for a quick breakfast of
chocolate spread on bread and milo. The woman looked at me like i was mad for
wanting food at 11.30! I had decided to head down the coast, apparently
busua was a backpacker mecca in Ghana, surely there would be parties and
beach volleyball, chicks in bikinis and guitars around the fire. Perfect! I
grabbed a taxi and headed for the STC bus station, after allowing several
people to push in front of me, I shrugged off my stupid british way of
queuing and got a ticket for the 2pm bus to Takoradi. It was 12.30pm, I asked
the helpdesk where the bus left from and the woman said the 12pm bus was just
there and I could get on that one. Result! I climbed on and off we went right
away.
No A/C and I sat right at the front so the view was pretty crap, but at least
I was getting out of boring accra. I could already smell the banana pancakes!
The road was excellent for 2 hours but after that it was being repaired and in
variable condition. People would be selling things at the toll booths and
police check points, hawking pineapples and dead bush animals at the side of
the road. Not much in the way of jungle really, lots of foliage but not the
thick jungle you’d expect in a rainy country like ghana. It was nearly dark
by the time I got to the city of Takoradi, so I got a room, went for a meal
of red-red and read another novel on my phone. Restaurant service was
typically poor, order a drink and a meal and sit there for 15 mins before
going up to get your own drink. The reason, the sprite was finished, so
obviously i didn’t want anything else….
The hotel was a dump, but it was cheap, the batteries on my phone died after
being used all day on the bus and although there was a plug in the room, the
cable to it was inextricably cut. The guy on duty knew all about it and
showed me, quite why they couldn’t be bothered to fix it I’ll never know…