Christmas adventures in Accra

Noel and Justin point out the goudge our tro-tro
left in the road

 We had initially planned to go somewhere else entirely.  It was meant to be a leisurely lunch with friends, followed up with a traipsing adventure through downtown Accra, hitting up all the interesting cultural and historical landmarks we could manage in an afternoon. 

Instead of following the original plan, we ended up skipping lunch at the mall and embarking instead on a lively outing involving a palace, a broken axel, plenty of yummy Ghanian snacks, and Colin Powell. 

I started out with a rather large group of Mercyshippers, enjoying the fresh(er) air and relative cleanliness of Tema port as we hiked out from our slip to the nearest taxi station.  It was my first time in Ghana, and I felt like I had walked out into my own world.  The architecture, traffic patterns and weather...everything down to the painted curbs along the sidewalk and brightly lit advertisements for Indomie...it all reminded me of Indonesia in a rather African way. 

 

Our tro-tro, shortly before we started walking


Surreal...to the point I almost started speaking Indonesian multiple times.  But it also meant I felt totally at home when our taxi went a different way from the other taxis and left five of us on the brink of adventure.  We flagged down a tro-tro (strangely reminiscent of the angkots and tok-toks of my childhood, and the bush taxis and poda-podas of more recent African adventures) and crammed in with twenty strangers, only to find ourselves on the curb two hours later after a loud noise and grinding sideways halt.  Thankfully, the wheel and axel decided to come off while we were turning rather than while driving fast.



Jamestown Palace



When we found out we had gone well past the intended stop because our tro-tro had taken an entirely different route, we set off walking instead, following a rather battered and damp sketch of the Accra waterfront.  We passed Independence Arch and Kwame Nkrumah's grave, two forts and a palace on our way down to the Jamestown lighthouse.  Lively haggling got us a tour of the "palace" - a concrete building with cultural murals along the walls - and a trip to the top of the lighthouse.  Through the haze we could see an old slave castle a few miles away (to be visited another time).  The view was also filled with fishing boats along the waterline and anchored just off shore; inland there were concrete offices and tiny huts and children playing in the streets.

 

Fishing boats, with Osu castle in the
distance



Heather, Noel, Michelle and I...with Colin Powell



Later that afternoon we stopped at a local craft market (mainly to look at fabric), and as we were waiting for one last friend to finish, we met a man who proudly named the capitols of our respective countries and states, and then delivered quite a lot of commentary on the development of Canadian territories.  I'm not sure if Colin Powell was his real name or just one he's chosen to adopt, but along with significant potential as a future geography teacher, Colin does some excellent woodcarving.

We made it back to ship just after dark - tired, dirty, and full of fun, and were greeted at the gangway by lights and wreaths and a ship-style Christmas decor.  It's not snow and hot chocolate and pepperment and pine, but somehow it's starting to feel a lot like Christmas. :-)