Thanks Obroni!

Now that we’ve reached the Ghanaian coast it was a perfect opportunity for a swim. The beaches are long and almost empty, and the water is warm. With the air temperature keeping a solid 30°C and super-high humidity the swims were definitely needed.

Sadly the beaches are used differently by the locals and once you get close to a village there are plenty of people sitting down on the beach doing their business in lack of toilets. I was told that the locals generally don’t know how to swim, and that to them the sea is dangerous. The Atlantic Ocean is pretty big though so you can at least pretend that the water is clean away from the villages where the beach is clean.

While walking along the beach we encountered some of the local fishermen pulling up their nets and we got to help them. It took a good hour to haul the catch up on the beach and it wasn’t too big considering how many people took part, but apparently it’s enough to get by.

The main thing to see in Elmina and nearby Cape Coast are the old Unesco-listed slave forts which, back in the days, where used to keep slaves for between two weeks and three months depending on when the next slave ship arrived. Both slave forts are similar in construction with dungeons for keeping hundreds of slave, a ground floor for soldiers, and a top floor pretty much just for the governor himself. They also have the door of no return, the exit to the slave ships and the last piece of African land most slaves set foot on. Luckily they let us return through the door.

After a couple of days in Elmina it was time to head to the capital, Accra, or more accurately the suburb Kokrobite. Accra is a huge city that, because of the size and the heavy traffic, takes forever to get around in. Walking is not an option most of the time. The way to get around is taxi, or the cheaper, local transport, tro-tro. A tro-tro is a minibus that fits about 20 people, follows a fixed route (kind of, except for detours to avoid traffic at rush hour) and usually won’t leave until it’s full. They also know all the small local roads which means they are fairly good at avoiding traffic on the expense of sometimes choosing the shittiest roads. Usually a cheap but crowded and bumpy ride.

Next funny word in Ghana is obroni. It has multiple translations but is in short what they call a white person. It might sound a bit racist when you hear about it but I’ve never heard it said with a bad intention. One example is a woman sitting by a market stall selling vegetables and an onion rolled off on the sidewalk. I gave it back to her and got a thanks obroni back.

As with most of the bigger cities it was once again time for visas, this time for Benin and Angola. The Benin visa was 100 cedi (€23) and was returned the same day as we handed in the application. One of the smoothest visas so far! The Angolan visa was a different story though. At US$160 (€143) it beats Mauritania as the most expensive visa so far, and the processing time was up to eight days! Luckily we got the visas after only three days.

Before I end this post I have to share some African technology. If the toilet door doesn’t have a lock, make a lock for it.

Time to leave Accra and Ghana and head towards Togo!