It was 2am and we still didn’t have a place to stay for the night. The road eroded into a boulder field and our taxi driver’s expression turned from weary to frustrated as he sighed he looked back at two boys in the back seat he picked up by the road side as navigators after he found himself lost and clueless to our destination. The navigators urged him onward repeating to Kelly in the back seat that it was still far. Indeed, when we got lost the first time a security guard in Busua told our driver that Green Turtle Lodge was “too far” and told us to stay in Busua for the night. That was an hour ago and it was beginning to seem that he was right but we were American, and therefore stubborn. We wanted to stay at Green Turtle Lodge Friday and no matter how many curveballs the universe threw at us, we were going to get there.
As I awoke from my 5th unintentional micro-nap, we turned into the road leading to Green Turtle. We made it! This was certainly going to be the grandest beach ever. It had to be. A flashlight suspended in the air bounced its way to our cab from the deserted but still dimly lit beach side bar. There was a place for us to stay for the night. Relief. So much for the closest thing to stress I would experience this weekend.
The weekend was meant to be a ultra relaxing celebration of the fact that Kelly and I had both sorted out our lives and decided to accept offers to graduate school. Kelly had just been offered a place at her dream program of Masters of Fine Arts in Film Production and Directing at UCLA. I had been offered a place at The University of Strathclyde in Glasgow for a Masters of Science In Sustainable Engineering specializing in Offshore Renewable Energy. We both planned to, and did, accept the offers on Sunday.
Our accommodation on Friday was a tent directly on the beach, under a palm tree not 50 feet from the ocean. Camping on the beach for the win! Arriving at 2am with no reservation just made it that much better.
In the morning we went to the office of the lodge to pay our bill and inquire about staying there on Saturday. It was booked solid but the woman who owned the place told us to check Ezile Bay, which was about a kilometer down the beach. We had some French toast for breakfast and then followed a member of the hotel staff who was instructed to guide us to Ezile Bay.
After winding through the huts of Akwidaa, crossing a wooden plank pedestrian bridge over a tidal lagoon and climbing through some forested hills, we arrived at the resort. The beach wrapped around the bay and was utterly vacant since we were the only guests.
As I was checking out the rooms available, Kelly had a conversation with our guide who informed her that the border with Cote D’Ivoire had been closed and as a result, refugees were entering Ghana by boat, making landfall in towns like Akwidaa. We were only about 100 miles from Abidjan as the boat sails and maybe only 50 miles from the Ivorian Border.
While relaxing on the beach, dozens of boats passed by the bay, I couldn’t tell whether the people on board were fishermen or refugees. A military cargo plane flew along the coast, over our heads on its way to Cote D’Ivoire.
We went swimming in the bay and made it a good hundred meters out before I felt uncomfortable with my abilities as an ocean swimmer and I got sick of the taste of salt water. We were thinking about trying to swim to the town on the other side of the bay but there was quite a bit of boat traffic and I was just plain tired. I think Kelly could have handled the swim but I’m not great at swimming so it seemed too risky. We let the waves take us back in and then set out for dinner.
Spaghetti, yay!
There was no electricity so we were provided with oil lanterns to carry around with us. They were pretty sweet.. but got kinda hot so bringing them into the room was unwise.
That night I slept for about a billion hours and when I awoke the plan was to get breakfast and head back for Accra. I had French toast again. I’d give it a 7 out of 10.
In Akwidaa we waited for a tro to take us on our way back to Takoradi, the capitol of the Western Region, from which we could get transport to Accra.
We managed to find a bus going to Accra but unfortunately, it was nearly full so Kelly and I couldn’t get a pair of seats next to each other. We split up and I ended up in the back next to a Ghanaian Air Force member who just came back from deployment as part of a UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon.
Kelly however, got well… extremely very not lucky. The only seat remaining was a fold down seat over the stairs leading down to the door. She was forced to curl up on the ledge of the seat or let her legs dangle freely over the entryway abyss tempting her fate with falling every time we hit a bump. At least it was only a 4 hour ride.
When we got back, we stopped at Busy Internet, a decent internet café in Accra, and accepted our respective grad school offers. Then we went to get some dinner at an Indian restaurant in Osu. I haven’t had nearly enough Indian food in my life. It was amazingly good.
That was the end to the weekend’s adventure but more will come. What’s next? Who knows.
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| Oh by the way, my beard is gone. |
