Ah so I apologise for my recent radio silence but it's because I've had no access to computers. The past week I have been traveling, and traveling is a very apt description of my time and also one that can be, in Ghana, considered synonymous with waiting.
On Monday, we left our cozy little village of Akropong to discover the wider world of Ghana. I thought, when we left, that it would be exciting and fun. I was wrong. So far out of seven days of being away I have spent three at actual places and the others on a boat, a canoe, a tro, a bus or simply waiting for one of these forms of transportation to grace us with it's presence. It has been exhausting and boring and it's perplexing to realise just how much nothingness can make you tired. So, the journey began with this ambiguous boat trip. To get to the boat we had to catch tro's and on the way there I was pretty sick and was dreading the idea of getting on this potentially seventy hour boat trip. When we got to the docks for the boat we had to wait five hours until we could but tickets and actually get on the boat, it was another hour before we left the dock. Luckily, we took mats with us because we had a choice between sleeping upstairs in the night or downstairs in a crammed space filled with too many people and too many smells. Obviously we chose upstairs. The views might have been nice but in utter blackness its hard to tell. The boat had a very titanic feel with rich Ghanaians and white tourists on the top deck- having paid for expensive air-conditioned rooms- and the lower level being packed full with the poorer people. One and a half nights later we reached Yeji at midnight. It was raining and we had gotten pretty soaked which is not the most pleasant feeling.
After that, more travel. We got on this canoe that took an hour to load itself up with as many people as any nook and cranny could hold. There were about a hundred people in this canoe and I was later told by a guy that sometimes people drown because they overload the boat so much that it starts to sink and some luggage and passengers have to be cast overboard so that the whole boat doesn't sink. TIA (this is africa) Then came the awful, and i mean awful tro rides. I catch tro's all the time and they aren't the best things i've ever ridden in but they're bearable but on these ones were pure torture. The 'roads' dirt clearings are laden with holes that ordinary cars struggle with but that tro's are overcome by. Every 10 seconds bang bang bump and you're body is thrown this way and that with the motion of the car. We did this both ways- except on the way back the tro broke down and we yet again had to wait for another to amble along.
But throughout the journey I met some new, interesting people who made the trip enjoyable. I did a safari and saw elephants at a frighteningly close distance, watched families of baboons playing in trees and held a shotgun. It's been fun but the travel has been a lot and I'm going to enjoy sleeping more than two nights in one place. Yet, I have one more week to go- hopefully to be spent lazing and luxuriating at the beach.
Over and out :)
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