Ghana - Coast (Blue)
Day 85 (29 December) – Ko-Sa at a palm tree beach
Time for enjoyment at the beach! Marijn, Annemieke and I spend the day with swimming, showering, relaxing and starting all over again. In the meantime Annemieke also worked on a course she has to do just after she comes back to work and I worked a bit on the website. Marijn sat in a chair and pretended to be reading a book, but in fact he was just snoozing away…
We ended the day with four beers and a movie…
Day 86 (30 December) – Slave trade at Elmina
We packed up and went to visit Elmina; a town on the coast where slave trade flourished through the Dutch West Indische Company. At first the Portuguese settled in Elmina and build a castle for exporting gold. The story goes that the Dutch tried two times to conquer the castle unsuccessfully and the Dutch came ashore a little to the east. They monitored the movements of the Portuguese and came to the conclusion they had to attack the castle from land and not from sea. They put canons on the hill behind the castle and took over the castle. The Dutch continued the trade in gold and other valuables but the biggest trade was in slaves. They even changed some rooms in the castle to hold slaves in horrifying conditions. In the end the Dutch sold Elmina to the British who controlled the castle until independence (slave trade was abolished earlier of course).
We also visited the Fort in Elmina, that was build on the spot were the Dutch made the successful attack on the castle just to prevent the same thing happen to them. The fort has a friendly and old guide, who also takes care of the tickets and actually is the only guy at the place. The old man has a nice story and takes you around the fort on top of the hill so the view is magnificent. Once on the top tower you could see all around and at the moment we all looked down to the castle Annemieke went: “Look there, there is a red car parked!” Not knowing it would be a Land Rover or just a random car. Looking more closely, it had a big blue bag on top… It must be Stanley, Julia, Eowyn and Senna! Because the car door was open, we started to wave in the hope they might look up in the distance, which no one of course would do… I went climbing down the stairs and run down to the parking lot, catching them just before they would enter the castle! Late Marry Christmas!
We all had lunch ad decided to spend the night at the very expensive place where Julia and Stanley pitched. It costs $15 per person per night (normally you pay C5) but the beach was amazing! Up to now on this trip, the best we have seen. It had wide sandy beaches with a big sandy area for camping in between the palm trees. Expensive but well worth it! The two weeks trip for Annemieke and Marijn is getting better day by day!
Day 87 (31 December) – New Years eve
We still had all the Christmas presents in the car. We would need a day to unwrap all of them and therefore stayed at the expensive place to finish a perfect holiday and year! Many many thanks for all the great gifts; Eowyn was swamped in presents, putting on one new dress after the other!
But before the unwrapping the camping includes breakfast… We went once for omelet, beans and saucages and Marijn and I went again for fried eggs, beans and saucages before going a third time for fruit salade! $15 of breakfast means camping is for free… In total Marijn and I had 5 eggs each today…
Unfortunately we didn’t have any ‘oliebollen’ today but we had them so many times already in Senegal, Mali, Burkina and here in Ghana that we were not dieing to have some. Although, an apple or pineapple oliebol would be a welcome snack…
Dinner included a grill buffet with fish, chicken and beef brochettes. All delicious with a price matching the lodge: expensive but it was a party! Marijn was drinking everyday (on his holiday) three beers a day and only once we made it up to four. It sounds so little and we were thinking we should reach the target of five beers at least once and today would be the night… An early start is the only way to finish the over 3.1 liters! Man, 3 liters of beer, djeezz, but we did it!
Almost midnight… and we were all almost sleeping… Barely able to keep our eyes open we celebrated the start of the New Year, quietly… No fireworks, no counting down… For Ghanaians new years means going to church around 7pm and going back home just after midnight; slightly different from our normal tradition. So, we had to guess when exactly it would be midnight. No worries, it comes down to the same thing…
We wish you all the best for the new year and all years after that!
Day 88 (1 January) – Happy New Year!
2011, time flies by and it is already the last day of the 2 weeks holiday of Marijn and Annemieke. We had fun but unfortunately they have to get back home. On Monday they have to get up in the morning, scrape the ice of the windows of the cars and go back to work… Not sure what I will be doing, but I think it will include sun, relax and beers!
We had time until 2pm to eat $15 worth of breakfast, get sober, pack there bags with a lot of stuff we want to get rid of, relax, for Annemieke to play with Eowyn, surf on the high waves and pay the enormous bill from last night… We managed to do all but one…
At 3pm we were ready to leave, still plenty of time to make it to the airport. Since the highway around Accra was under maintenance (see earlier posts) we took the road through downtown Accra, in the hope it would not be glogged up yet. We arrived at the airport with plenty of time to check in and have a last drink in Ghana (for Marijn and Anne).
I decided to stay at Big Milly’s again and took the broken highway around Accra… Bad choise… For one intersection everybody was standing still for at least 30 minutes; some local guys were trying to direct traffic with little success… Traffic here is hopeless. They are redoing the roads, which is good, but apparently they are working on it for at least three years already… Listening to some music and looking around helps to kill time.
Day 89 (2 January) – Football on the beach
Last night at Big Milly’s there was a big party with a live band. After some beers I agreed with some others staying at Big Milly’s to have a football match at the beach in the morning; not too early, say 11am. Knowing I’m always late I told myself I would be there at 10… Of course that would not help at all and around 11.30 I was ready for football (though I cannot play football at all!), no body there… No worries, I was not in a hurry to do anything…
We had a great exercise at the beach around noon I think it was. And afterwards you could just jump in the ocean to cool off and play on the waves! What a relaxing day…