Gettin down to the nitty gritty

So last week I typed up this hugely long blog, and right when I went to go post it, the internet went out. Figures right? Anyway, if you want to read this in chronological order, scroll down to the previous post and read it first.

So this weekend was our trip out to Kokrobite Beach, about an hour outside of Accra. When we went to Cape Coast, there were five of us, so we could charter a van to take us there for under $100 each. But this time, there were only three of us, so we decided to brave the tro-tro system. Right when we got to the station people start yelling at you “ACCRAAAAAA” “HOOOOOO” “KUMASIIIIIII” (those are all city names) and it Is just a big cluster of loud noise, and venders and madness. You pay per seat, and the tro-tro wont leave until it is full, so we got extremely lucky that the tro-tro filled up quickly. The three of us, Susan, Alexis, and I decided to shell out the extra money for an extra seat in the back so we could have more room. It was an all around decent ride to Accra (four hours) but we later learned that we were extremely spoiled with our tro-tro conditions. Wait until you hear until the trip back….

Anyway, we made it to Accra fairly quickly due to our super fast tro-tro driver. From there we hitched a taxi to take us to Kokrobite. The driver was a young kind named Eric who seemed nice enough at the time but as the trip continued, he seemed to get more and more annoyed with us. Perhaps it was the part where we were laughing uncontrollably about the décor of his taxi….. it was adorned with a HUGE sticker of Zac Efron and some other American teeny boppers. And then he had a heart hanging from the rear-view mirror that said “I love you” and under than, he had two mini-tank figurines glued to the dashboard. Apparently he thought it was perfectly normal… The traffic was really horrendous though. It was worse than driving by LAX during rush-hour traffic. You might be thinking, “how is that so?” well let me tell you how. First off, 95% of the vehicles look like they could combust at any moment, there are lines on the roads yet nobody seemed to stay within them, so there would just be masses of cars going every which way. And to top it all off, there are vendors with large amounts of things on their heads walking through all the cars to try and sell you anything from ice cream to toilet paper. At one point I saw a women literally inches away from being plowed over by a motorcycle that decided to maneuver between the already sardine packed cars. It was quite a journey, and lasted quite a bit longer than it should have. We finally arrived at our hotel Big Millys, and though Eric seemed throroughly exausted with our delirious laughter, he still agreed to come pick us up on Sunday. What a champ!

Alexis had made friends with a shop owner in Cape Coast, and since it is a short distance away, he came up to visit with her for the weekend as well. When we arrived there was a dance performance going on, and there were tons of people watching. We put down our stuff in our room and came back out to grab a drink and listen to the performance, since it was already pretty packed we couldn’t see much. We had heard and read that Big Milly’s was a place where volunteers and other tourists alike tend to congregate, it is near the beach and has a nice nightlife at the hotel with the drumming and dancing performance they put on. We found this to be true—the place was packed with Aussies, Brits, Germans, and a few Americans. We figured that since we were all visiting from other countries, it would be cool to strike up conversations with some other people to see what they were doing, where they were from, etc etc. Well, that surely backfired. The people there were INCREDIBLY rude to us. One day at breakfast Susan asked a nearby table a question about the coffee they were drinking, and the girls literally stared at her like she was purple and had fangs growing out of her eyes. Another time some supposed “federal agents” came up to us and tried to start some conversation that quickly led to extremely sexist and idiotic statements on their behalf, and we promptly walked away without so much as a goodbye. After that we just kept to ourselves in our room and laughed at all the other arrogant weirdos there.

There were many more similarly weird experiences there, far too many to type about. I did however; get to enjoy the beach a little bit. I went in the water and it was SOOOO warm it was awesome. I just floated out there by myself, Alexis and Susan aren’t big water people, and relaxed a bit. It was really nice, and I don’t regret it at all, but it was kind of aesthetically disturbing that when I got out of the water, I saw a large human turd on the sand. (and yes, I can tell it was not dog poo!!!!) Later in the evening we decided to explore the town of Kokrobite, and I have to say, it was pretty disappointing. Very drab and dreary and nobody was nice and saying hello to us. As we were walking home we cut across so that we could walk on the beach. It started to drizzle and I remember saying, “ I don’t know about you guys, but this feels awesome!” and then, it was like the heavens opened up and the rain just POURED. We were about a quarter mile from our hotel, so we just started running. We were dripping wet, and all the locals laughed at us (this was in a lighthearted way though). I felt like I was in that movie Jumanji, where it rains so much that the house fills up with water and hippos start floating around the rooms. It was THAT heavy. The icing on the cake was the fact that our hotel towels smelled like rotting pond water and we were already afraid to use them after we showered, so it was not too pleasant to have to use them to dry off from the rain. Aside from that though, I really enjoyed it once I found out my camera was unharmed!

On Sunday Eric stayed true to his word and came and picked us up from the hotel, which really saved us a lot of trouble. We checked out and headed back to Accra, this time making it in record speed! He was even kind enough to take us by a supermarket so we could pick up some snacks for the road.(Accra is the capital so it is worlds away from the rural Hohoe lifestyle).

Now, remember in the beginning of this post I said that we were spoiled on our first tro-tro ride? Well here comes the story…. And just to warn you, it is going to be long ad wordy, but I need to set the stage! Also, I don’t mean any of it to be condescending, because I know a lot of it is cultural things. It just rocked my mind so I need to share.

The tro-tro going to Hohoe was surprisingly already almost full, so we had to get the back seat again. This time though, there was one more lady who wanted to ride so we couldn’t just pay for the extra seat, which meant that there were four full grown people in the backseat of this 15 seater van. Remember the time Britney Spears had her child out of a carseat and it made the news for like two weeks? Ya… not here. The van had a total of SEVENTEEN people in it if you include the two small children (literally not even 2 years old) sitting on their parent’s laps. Also keep in mind that we are in West Africa, where there is a 90% humidity rate, and people constantly have a layer of sweat on their face. In short, it stank. Bad. And there was a soccer game on that day, so the driver decided to play the soccer game commentary. Only it was not in English, and the commentator said EVERYTHING the same way most just say, “GOOOOOOOOOOALLLL” and last but not least, the children each had a rattle that they banged around the whole time as well. At one point, we stopped on the side of the road so that some passengers could get a snack from the roadside vendors. One thing they sell is snail-kebobs. Yes, snail. And the guy in front of me not only bought three, but he kept them in a bag to save for later so there was a lingering…smell. Last but not least, the driver was especially reckless, and Susan and I about had a heart attack when he decided to pass a truck, while we were rounding a blind corner. And of course, another car was heading right at us.

Yet despite all this, we somehow made it back all in one piece. I did not have a BAD time by any means this weekend, and though the tro-tro was certainly an experience that I will never forgot it was still comical and not horrible. I just would never think that I would be so excited to come back to Hohoe and take a cold shower! ☺