trip to the beach...

Today is our last day before a few of us go on a week-long overnight outreach to the Elubo people in Takoradi. Since it's Saturday and we have weekends off, I was determined to take advantage of the free time. I rounded up a group of six to check out a really nice beach resort called Bojo Beach.

The super friendly Ghanaian from our hotel walked us to a major junction to help make sure we got a fair price on a taxi (there is always a special obruni rate and they often resist attempts at bargaining). We convinced him to squeeze all 6 of us in a 4 person car (one in the trunk with the bags) and bounced our way along towards Bojo.

Or so we thought. An hour later our cabbie took a U-turn and pulled to the side. Here you are! With no ocean in sight, we were pretty sure this was not Bojo Beach. The Twi language barrier didn't help things, but he eventually found someone who'd heard of it and eventually we got there.

It was a beautiful beach on a sandbar that requires taking a boat to get to. There were palm umbrellas and waiters and fancy stuff. It was beautiful and relaxing. I went for a run and had a few Ghanaian males join me, read, got sunburnt, etc. Then we left when the winds started up and headed down the road we'd come from to find a taxi willing to take all 6 of us back.

We found one although he was nervous about getting arrested for driving too many passengers--as if rules are enforced here. We squeezed into his car that had a broken windshield/rear view mirror/headlight, almost no roof, and smelled awful. We bumped slowly along toward our stop at ABC junction in Achimota. It started to rain, hard. He pointed to the left "There is Achimota!" and kept driving. "I am out of petrol and engine oil, I leave you here." We were not okay with that, we had bags and it was pouring, we didn't know where we were, and we had made a deal! So he kept driving. Until his tire popped. We pulled to the side of the road in the rain in the dark.

The driver was swearing in Twi as he looked for his spare tire. Eventually he tried flagging us a taxi . We got out of the car and finally got one by using someone's flashing red light. We split up in 2 taxis and made it back. So frustrating though! What should have been a 30 minute trip in 1 taxi took 3 hours and 3 taxis.

I'm now up to 1 witnessed accident, 1 experienced accident, and 1 broken down taxi. Kale is in the lead with 2 accidents, 3 police stations (one of which tried to sell him a crazy monkey on a leash), and 1 broken down taxi. (Most of those police stations are because accidents don't lead to tickets, but rather to arrests in Ghana). Great transportation here, I'm telling you.