another long wonderful weekend.
Wow. This weekend I went to Ada beach.
And it was quite the adventure.
We started Saturday morning bright and early at 6 a.m. and took a trotro to Achimota. From there we walked across the street to Tema station and began asking for the trotro to Ada. "Adafoa?" I asked, and a mate quickly pushed me towards his trotro saying, "Adaadaadaada"... or so I thought. After a long three hour ride, with no beach in sight, we finally arrive at Ada. We began asking how to get to the beach and the people looked at us in confusion. "There's no beach here..." they said. Then we saw a sign: ODA TRAVEL AGENCY. My goodness... we were in Oda, which none of us had ever heard of, and apparently super far from the coast. Oh man. So the mate and drive took pity on us and let us back on the trotro to Accra for a discount (a whole whopping 3,000 cedis discount. Woowoo... that's 30 cents.) My friend commented, "Why in the world did that mate let 4 white kids go to ODA???" This is cuz Oda is nothing but, well, I don't even know. It's not on any maps. There were no resturaunts, and the trotro station was the size of the driveway on most houses.. haha.
We take a series of trotros and then a one hour canoe ride to... paradise. No other way to describe it. It was a tiny beach resort with only little thatched huts made of exclusively palm fronds and such and sand for floors. No electricity except for a couple light bulbs in the common area, an estuary on one side and the ocean on the other. It was incredible. Our friends were already there, so we immediately started chatting and eating (mmmm, food.. fried baracuda is good).
We spent the night by the bonfire dancing to music, and the day lying out and looking for seashells. Everything was great (despite that first trip to Oda... oh Oda) until that night. The matress was quite lumpy and lopside and all sorts of things, so I was adjusting it when we suddenly heard this scurry noise. I moved my flashlight towards the sounds and it was a RAT that had come out of our bed frame! Ahhhhh heck no... I tried to be cool, and managed to get back in the bed for a couple minutes, assuming it would stay gone, but noooo. A few minutes later the scurrying noise was above our heads! We promtly switched rooms. I can deal with rats below me, but above? No way. I don't want some rodent falling on my head (just a note, bunnies are not rodents, says B at least). Needless to say, the night was spent tossing and turning.
The next morning (i.e. today) we woke up super early and started walking at 6:30. See, these other kids staying there told us we didn't need to take a canoe back since we could walk along the island for about a mile and save lots of money! So around 7:15 we can no longer even see the estuary, and are surrounded by abandoned (beautiful) houses. FINALLY we see a road (after sweating like racehorses because walking in sand quickly is hard, having not eaten in 10 hours is hard, walking with a backpack on your sunburned back is hard, and walking on sunburned soles is hard in general... not to mention African sun...haha) and by 7:30 have made it to the trotro station. One mile my foot.
The trotro was pulling out just as we got there, so there was no wait. Unfortunately it was the most cramped trotro I have EVER ridden in. My butt was very sore, but I did get to buy some fried goat cheese out the window... yum yum. To make things more interesting, we were pulled over at one point by the police who claimed this woman in the back seat was smuggling. Sure enough, she was. So we left her on the side of the road with the popo. Haha, funy thing is that one of the things she smuggled got left in the trotro with us. Wonder what it was... but the real question is, how did they know to pull us over? Crazy.
So in the last roughly 60 hours, I have had only 4 meals, a gazillion adventures, and very little sleep. I am sunburned and emotional worn out from everything, but MAN I had a good time. A really really good time.
If you don't believe me, look at my pictures at www.flickr.com/photos/miatownsend and you'll see a picture of the sunset there. And then I'm sure you'll believe me.
And it was quite the adventure.
We started Saturday morning bright and early at 6 a.m. and took a trotro to Achimota. From there we walked across the street to Tema station and began asking for the trotro to Ada. "Adafoa?" I asked, and a mate quickly pushed me towards his trotro saying, "Adaadaadaada"... or so I thought. After a long three hour ride, with no beach in sight, we finally arrive at Ada. We began asking how to get to the beach and the people looked at us in confusion. "There's no beach here..." they said. Then we saw a sign: ODA TRAVEL AGENCY. My goodness... we were in Oda, which none of us had ever heard of, and apparently super far from the coast. Oh man. So the mate and drive took pity on us and let us back on the trotro to Accra for a discount (a whole whopping 3,000 cedis discount. Woowoo... that's 30 cents.) My friend commented, "Why in the world did that mate let 4 white kids go to ODA???" This is cuz Oda is nothing but, well, I don't even know. It's not on any maps. There were no resturaunts, and the trotro station was the size of the driveway on most houses.. haha.
We take a series of trotros and then a one hour canoe ride to... paradise. No other way to describe it. It was a tiny beach resort with only little thatched huts made of exclusively palm fronds and such and sand for floors. No electricity except for a couple light bulbs in the common area, an estuary on one side and the ocean on the other. It was incredible. Our friends were already there, so we immediately started chatting and eating (mmmm, food.. fried baracuda is good).
We spent the night by the bonfire dancing to music, and the day lying out and looking for seashells. Everything was great (despite that first trip to Oda... oh Oda) until that night. The matress was quite lumpy and lopside and all sorts of things, so I was adjusting it when we suddenly heard this scurry noise. I moved my flashlight towards the sounds and it was a RAT that had come out of our bed frame! Ahhhhh heck no... I tried to be cool, and managed to get back in the bed for a couple minutes, assuming it would stay gone, but noooo. A few minutes later the scurrying noise was above our heads! We promtly switched rooms. I can deal with rats below me, but above? No way. I don't want some rodent falling on my head (just a note, bunnies are not rodents, says B at least). Needless to say, the night was spent tossing and turning.
The next morning (i.e. today) we woke up super early and started walking at 6:30. See, these other kids staying there told us we didn't need to take a canoe back since we could walk along the island for about a mile and save lots of money! So around 7:15 we can no longer even see the estuary, and are surrounded by abandoned (beautiful) houses. FINALLY we see a road (after sweating like racehorses because walking in sand quickly is hard, having not eaten in 10 hours is hard, walking with a backpack on your sunburned back is hard, and walking on sunburned soles is hard in general... not to mention African sun...haha) and by 7:30 have made it to the trotro station. One mile my foot.
The trotro was pulling out just as we got there, so there was no wait. Unfortunately it was the most cramped trotro I have EVER ridden in. My butt was very sore, but I did get to buy some fried goat cheese out the window... yum yum. To make things more interesting, we were pulled over at one point by the police who claimed this woman in the back seat was smuggling. Sure enough, she was. So we left her on the side of the road with the popo. Haha, funy thing is that one of the things she smuggled got left in the trotro with us. Wonder what it was... but the real question is, how did they know to pull us over? Crazy.
So in the last roughly 60 hours, I have had only 4 meals, a gazillion adventures, and very little sleep. I am sunburned and emotional worn out from everything, but MAN I had a good time. A really really good time.
If you don't believe me, look at my pictures at www.flickr.com/photos/miatownsend and you'll see a picture of the sunset there. And then I'm sure you'll believe me.