The Trip (the events)

Day 1

We woke up at the crack of dawn and booked it to the bus stop where in the traditional African style we stood waiting for an hour while people loaded bags and conversed. Once on the bus I became somewhat concerned about the massif speaker Jerry-rigged beneath my seat. My concerns were met with what I had feared, the blaring of a Nigeria sitcom (bollywood of Africa). My headphones could block out most of the noise if I cranked ‘em, but my ears couldn’t take it and I had to suffer the melting pot of sounds on the unairconditioned 9 hour bus ride. Back in Lomé, Colin and I took a nice trip down memory lane once again (the last time for Colin). All of the monks were happy to see us once again and we spent the night saying goodbyes and swapping stories.

Day 2

The siblings met us at the cellule around 8 and we took a taxi to the boarder, which was a surprisingly short 5 minutes away (yes, I did just measure distance by time and no I am not going to change it). Once across we found a taxi to take us to Accra, not bad for half-a-days work! But it was on that taxi ride where I realized that having two novice travelers who spoke limited (Christian > Judith) English was not exactly going to be worth its weight in gold. I am a fairly streetwise traveler, but there are some things in Africa that go beyond my abilities, mainly being white (I am great at it). Anyone in West Africa who sees you automatically 100 percent of the time thinks money. That is why it is often nice to have a token black dude who knows the real prices on your side and can make the negotiating process a little easier. I was the token black dude this time around and for the entire trip, and my tokenness was working against me the entire time. Luckily it didn’t have any drastic implications other than getting scammed out of some hard earned money, but it sure could’ve been worse.

The taxi dropped us off at the main station even though he told us that he would take us to the hotel of our choosing, he also jacked the price up on having AC in the car after we started driving. Not to worry, a truckload of people ran over to us and tried to grab our bags and help us find a hotel. We worked it down to one person who took Colin’s 65L pack and made our way through the backed up traffic to a downtrodden street with a few budget hotels on it. After deciding that we didn’t like the vibe on the street or in the hotels, we bid farewell to our pack carrier and said that we were going to find a hotel on our own. He tried to get us to pay him and not being a mean person I offered him what I thought was a fair price for his help. He frowned at me and said he needed to eat. I responded “Me to,” and walked away. He jumped after me and grabbed the offered money out of my hand and complimented me saying that I was smart. I grinned, flexed my eyebrows and walked away.

The group finally made its way to a hotel that was in Colin and my price range and had a complimentary breakfast. On top of all of that, we managed to get a walking tour of North Central Accra, which spanned 4 suburbs. I don’t think the siblings were too thrilled with Colin and my idea of “having fun” (a.k.a – having no plan whatsoever of where we are going while searching for the hotels that we had found online, two of which didn’t exist anymore).

Once we dropped our stuff off in the rooms Colin, Christian, and I (Judith wasn’t hungry) went out to eat lupper (lunch/supper). We found a reasonably priced Vietnamese restaurant. With full bellies we headed out to see some of the Accra nightlife, little did I know that trouble lay in waiting. I saw a whole heap of Christmas lights flickering in the distance and said that I wanted to check it out. It turns out that the brightly lit center of the traffic circle dedicated to the first president of Ghana was off limits to non-rifle carrying police officers. Oops. In my defense don’t put up bright flashing lights in a highly visible area if you don’t want people to go there. We got yelled at by an officer on patrol who saw me trying to take a picture of Christian and Colin. He came over and yelled at us, asking us what we were doing and why we didn’t pay attention to the sign saying stay away (when we said there was no sign he pointed to the opposite end of the circle – the entrance that we didn’t come from). During this conversation I had a little tickle me pink moment when he asked me what I was doing. I told him “taking a picture. (him) what are you going to do with it? (me) Look at it?” He had no response, but he didn’t need one. Six more officers sporting semi-automatic rifles showed up behind us. After some rather tense talking we were finally allowed to take our picture and leave. Colin and I didn’t mind the episode too much, but oh man was Christian rattled. We decided that it was enough excitement for the night and went back to the hotel.

Day 3

The siblings woke up at the crack of dawn and were knocking on the door ready to go at 7. Breakfast didn’t start ‘till 8, we told that life on vacation is a little different, to relax a little, and went back to bed. On the second wakening, we got dressed and ready to go for the day, and went to get the other two, before heading off to. When we walked into the room, we actually walked into a little photo shoot as the siblings were taking turns snapping photos of each other holding the landline telephone in different positions. OMG, I rolled my eyes and walked to breakfast (facebook pictures take a slightly different tone in Africa). At breakfast we finalized our plan using a miniature city map that I picked up during our hotel tour. The plan included hitting up every major attraction on the map in Central Accra and the surrounding suburbs by foot. I think we walked close to 35km over the course of the day hitting up markets, the national theatre, the Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum, High Street, and two slave trade forts.

At the theatre we managed to get a tour of the building, which included a solo drumming session on the traditional African drums, which were played by the Egyptian soccer team after winning the Cup of Nations. Colin and I loved it. We passed by a few monuments dedicated to presidents, but all were closed and had guards posted outside of them. We made our way past the soccer stadium, which unlike American stadiums is built above ground making it an absolutely massive structure. Across the street from it was the Ceremonial Grounds and Independence Circle, which were pretty cool as well. I tried to convince a guard to let me climb the stairs and sit in the presidential box of the Ceremonial Grounds. He wasn’t having any of it. Next we made our way down a restricted road towards the Cristiansonborg Castle before getting stopped at the entrance by yet another armed guard asking us what we were doing. He told us it was a matter of national security and told us to leave after my response of “We’re tourists and we were told to see the castle!”

Aside from having to take a bathroom break at almost every stop, the Africans weren’t too much of a hassle up until the final market – a traditional African Arts workshop. And this is where naivety and inexperience comes in to play. They had never seen a souvenir shop let alone knew what to do in one. Judith realized she didn’t want/couldn’t buy anything and sat on the step for the better part of an hour. But Christian followed Colin and I around like a puppy asking the price of every item that we looked at. I managed to slip away, but Colin wasn’t so lucky. He had a set of eyes looking over his shoulder at every purchase he made. That experience was put in perspective quickly as an American family came in as we were leaving (a girl with a pink cowboy hat, a little dude with a Yankees cap, a slightly bigger dude who looked like he just came from the skate park, a mom with a camelback, fancy shades and the i’m hot where’s the AC look, and a dad with the high white tube socks, short shorts, and the kicker a traditional safari hat). They were loud and they touched everything – I spoke French with Colin and broken English at the counter to disassociate myself.

The next stick in the road came at the mausoleum where Judith didn’t want to go in because you had to pay. Up until that point we had seen a museum that was still being built and the outsides of a stadium, ceremonial grounds, and a castle as we were turned away from all of them by paramilitary guards with semi-automatic weapons. She sat outside of the mausoleum for another hour waiting for us. Inside the monument and museum were pretty cool. I got a kick out of the guy’s dorm room furniture that had been roped off. I was surprised they weren’t matters of national security and we were even allowed to look at them considering they once belonged to the founder of Pan-Africansim and first president of Ghana. Poor attempt at a joke, but it struck a cord at the time considering our luck at monuments up until that point. In the museum, the following around got to be a little too much for me. Christian was reading the exact same plaques as me for exactly the same amount of time. I started jumping back and fourth across the room, he followed. I started asking him questions about the museum in order to get him to go and find the answer hence leaving me in peace if only for a moment. I realized that it was his first time in an actual museum, but it was as if he thought that the Americans knew exactly which plaques to read and which parts of the exhibit were the most important. In reality I was mostly blankly staring at pictures and artifacts while reflecting on and comparing a timeline of Kwame’s life to an American Foreign relations post WWII course that I took last year. It is part of the ideology here, creativity isn’t fostered and producing results by repeating memorized information is.

After the Mausoleum, we made our way to Usher Fort (the main fort of the slave trade in West Africa). It was closed for the day, kind of. I walked in through a small door and feeling the cool ocean breeze walked up to the edge of a wall and gazed out over the littered beach and graffiitied fort. Colin wasn’t far behind, but he got stopped by a beach bum claiming to be the tour guide. Well he didn’t get stopped, but the siblings did and took him for his word and called Colin over saying that we had to pay to get into the place. They promptly turned around and left leaving Colin there to fork out a steep charge that had more or less left us with. Colin was furious. I was confused. The man came over to me and explained what he claimed to have said to Colin. I took the siblings leaving and the fact that I saw him talk to Colin for a moment as proof of what he was saying. And as seeing that he was mostly charging us to take pictures (seems weird, but the mausoleums had an extra charge on top of the entrance fee to take pictures) I went along with it, puzzled, as I wasn’t taking pictures. As it turns out the price wasn’t negotiated with Colin and he knew nothing about paying other than Christian and Judith saying that it cost money. Once it was all said and done, Colin was out 10 Cedi to a bum, I was upset with myself for not catching the scam sooner and being off my game (to that point I was 2/3 on catching scams), and we were both growing increasingly frustrated at our travel partners.

We walked ahead and fumed when I decided to poke my head in the main entrance of the fort and seeing a guy laying on a bench decided to try and slip in. I would have managed to, but my curiosity about whether or not the man was an officer got me caught. Turns out it was a guard of sorts, but this time I did the negotiating and got both Colin and I into the Alcatraz-like fort for 2 Cedi. The sibs didn’t even bother to enter, even before my seeing the guard. About 20 minutes later after walking through the trashed and run-down place with a water bottle in my hand ready to be swung like a club, we left and headed back to the hotel. It was still to early for Colin and I to eat upon arriving, but Christian and Judith were hungry and didn’t want to spend money at a restaurant so they went and brought some street-side food back to the hotel. Close to 6 o’clock, Colin and I decided after a nice little joint ranting session about how upset we were with Boniface for sending Judith on the trip without asking us, that it was time to go to our previously picked out celebrating spot – a rooftop tilapia joint.

This place was sweet. An entire corner of the roof was devoted to housing a speaker set-up that blared reggae and cool-pop music all night, and on the other end was a full bar and a little tilapia hut. Colin and I both ordered our (2) meals and started celebrating. While waiting for our food, we decided that we should buy the tag-alongs a coke as seeing they don’t drink alcohol and they refused every time we asked them if they wanted anything to drink (we thought they were thinking they would have to pay for it). The cokes came with our next round of beer only to be turned down by Judith (who downed it angrily after Christian said something to her in Kabiyé). Colin and I shot each other a
look…thank god the food arrived and it was delicious. So delicious in fact that we ordered another one! This night was mine and Colin’s. No frustrating situation or person was going to get in the way of our celebrating New Year’s the way that we wanted to. Christian and Judith returned to the hotel shortly thereafter (Christian returned just before midnight). The rest of the night, Colin and I spent drinking, watching the few scattered fireworks, listening to music, eating tilapia, talking, and relaxing. It was awesome.

Day 4

Part of our decision to celebrate as late as we did in the way that we did was that most of the sites worth seeing were closed on the 1st. All that was left for us to see (within walking distance) was a beach, which wasn’t expected to be much after seeing the beaches around the forts. But it was something to see and a place to go. Judith wasn’t up for it and stayed behind. At the very least, it gave Colin and I a chance to walk and talk a little bit with Christian. Along the way we stopped by and saw the cathedral and the International Conference center & government official’s building (both closed and the latter guarded). We walked about 10k out of the city before deciding to cut a street closer to ocean as the main road was inland a few hundred meters. Welcome to the oops, I think I took a wrong turn street. Bordering the ocean was a slum with lots of not-so-welcoming looks to the two white guys and cleanly dressed Togoman. If Christian did any one thing inadvertently wrong on this trip it was bringing the wardrobe that he did (dress slacks, cleanly pressed/vibrant shirts that were always tightly tucked in, and a small camera bag slung over his shoulder). Not that Colin and I didn’t stick out, but one look at him and you instantly knew that he wasn’t from around here. It wasn’t too bothersome, but going back to the getting scammed bit, it along with the acceptance of anything spoken at face value made staying ahead of the game darn near impossible. Back to the beach, we ran into a dead end with no beach. We meandered our way out of the quaint little neighborhood and decided that rather than searching for some random beach that we weren’t going to swim at wasn’t worth the effort and that watching a Premier League (English Football) over a beer would be a better use of our time.

A little ways into our return trek, we decided to ask for the price of a taxi. 4 Cedi? Done deal, we jumped in. On the nice little cruise back to our street we passed by two of the higher-priced hotels that we considered staying at in a worse-case scenario. They didn’t look too stunning as one was still being built and the other was nothing more than a red-brick apartment building. We then realized that for what our hotel cost and offered in terms of services and location, it couldn’t be beat. It even came with a bunch of complimentary white people who happened to be sojourning in Accra at the same time. And with that came the added benefit of having some much less cautious travelers who didn’t bother to hide their valuables in trash cans and a plethora of other hilarious tactics (including, but not limited to… leaving the room at separate times, leaving the lights on, blaring the tv a foot away from the door so that it could be heard over the AC unit, leaving the room in a disorderly state at a quick glance, hiding stuff in the unmade beds, and leaving nothing to chance) that while funny probably prevented us from becoming the target of a break-in. And oh man did it work. While the rest of the white population was running around like chickens with their heads cut off telling everyone in sight to put their valuables in the safe because it’s ‘the only secure place in the building!’ Yeah, ok and I am the president of the United States. The simple truth is that hotel thieves work quickly as they don’t want to get caught red-handed. Anyone who draws attention to themselves (i.e. big bags and lots of them, bright clothing, loud and ‘touristy’ personas, expensive looking clothing or gadgetry that is visible) becomes an immediate target. Keeping your things organized or worse completely packed makes finding valuables or taking everything easy and fast. In other words you’re doing the hard work for them. And in a place where most hotel robberies are first suspected to be inside jobs, the seemingly hard part of getting into the rooms is as easy as using a copied key (which you can make for about a dollar). Instead, be organized and appear to be scatterbrained. Don’t be afraid to pile the trash on your $1000 laptop or leave an unmade bed hiding money or ipods under the sheets. The only person who is ever going to know about it is you (isn’t that the point?) and maybe one or two of your traveling partners. Also, don’t be stupid – keep your passport on you, the last place you want to be is knocking on the door of an embassy in a foreign country with no passport, visa (living permit), visa (credit card), or proof of identification.

That night we all went out to eat, together, but as was typical of our conversations on the trip there was a racial divide. I tried one last time towards the end of the meal to spark a conversation asking what Christian’s favorite part of the trip was. He didn’t understand the question and had to confer with his sister for a minute before answering (my blood started to boil). I got a one-word answer, two including the article. “Ok, what about the museum did you like?” Giggles and a why are you asking me these questions look was the response before he figured out that I was serious. Because Colin and I generously doubled our expenses in order to bring you and your uninvited sister along, that’s why. I gave up after another one word answer and gave a short statement of my own…”Check Please.”

After supper, Colin and I spent the night packing, remembering some of the good times and lamenting on the short trip that was the epitome of the past four months when it came to communication and trying unsuccessfully to escape the grasp and mentality of the monastery.

Day 5

We woke up late (in the traditional style of Greg) went to breakfast. Afterwards Colin and I ran to the bank, since the hotel only took cash, and returned to pay our hotel bill. We then went back to our room, said a fairly short and quick goodbye, and parted ways. Colin’s flight wasn’t until 23h30 that night so he stayed at the hotel for a while before heading off to the airport. I meanwhile grabbed the two noobs and trucked it to the station hoping to find a cheap way to the boarder. I did, but again my beautiful, fair, freckled Irish skin and my two francophone traveling partners didn’t help me out of an obvious overcharge for a trottro (19 passenger minivan) ride to the boarder. Luckily it wasn’t too much, but I wasn’t happy on account of I saw 4 people pay the real price and still couldn’t get the cards to fall my way.

I was cheered up a little bit on the ride when the driver tossed a bag of water at a car that almost hit us while passing a truck in the oncoming lane. The boarder crossing was a piece of cake and I must say that my passport is legit now. I talked briefly with Christian and Judith on the other side. They were staying at the same house as when they came down, but she wanted to go to the market first to get something for her hair. They also wanted to stay in Lomé for a day to print pictures and buy things. I didn’t care for it as I was already staying in Lomé a day longer than I wanted to at the behest of Boniface who was leaving the next morning. I said that I was going to be on the first bus out the next day on account of needing to be free of any burdens and back to school, which started the next day. We bid farewells for the time being and I walked along the beach for a little bit before catching a moto back to my neck of the woods.

Day 6

I saw Boniface for all of 2 minutes before he left and I must say I think he saw right through me. I was happy to see him and was very positive when referring to the trip, but still waters run deep. And I was as deep as the Marina Trench and as clear as a crystal. Thank God for refraction and reflection, all I know is that he could tell that something was wrong but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Nothing more really developed of it as I definitely did not want to pursue it as he was leaving Togo for the foreseeable future and I didn’t want the lasting image of me or the program to be some pissed off white kid who is ready to knock someone’s block off for not being allowed to stick to his travel plans without any unnecessary or unwanted additions. At the very least, I tried. Don’t know if it worked, but there it is.

Earlier that morning I found out that I couldn’t get on a bus until 6 the next morning. Not that I didn’t want to get back to school, but I’m not one to complain for time off if I can’t to do anything about it! I spent the day getting my things in order, bank visits, watching soccer on the tv at the Cellule, checking emails (only reading) and football scores, and sleeping.

Day 7

5am came about 5 hours too early. Everyone says that you have to be on time (not Africa time) for the busses, but you always end up sitting there for 30 minutes before doing anything. I was finally allowed to board and thought that the empty bus was too good to be true. It was, we stopped at 4 more pick-up points to let people on. And every time someone stepped on I crossed my fingers just a little bit tighter that I would have an empty seat when they passed my row. Someone upstairs must have had mercy on my fingers because I did! Well until the final stop where they were allowing people to purchase tickets for the already bought, but still empty seats (scoundrels, I saw a man holding his ticket up on the road and a woman with bags of vegetables and a ticket get passed by on the road). Thankfully I got stuck with a 10 year old kid who was on the edge of his seat the entire time, said nothing, and stared out the window the whole way back. Although there was that mad sprint that he made out the door to take a whiz after he realized the bus had stopped.

I made it back to Kara snatched a moto and cruised back to Agbang before passing out from exhaustion. I had a piece of bread for breakfast and 3 hardboiled eggs as an afternoon snack after forgetting to eat lunch and not eating my typical American-sized breakfast. Trip Over.