Photos!

I've finished playing around, and have put photos on the web for y'all. There's a lot! Start out at http://members.shaw.ca/ghana1/photo_toc.htm and proceed from there. No captions yet, I may add these sometime. Feedback on the layout of my photo pages is also welcome.

Cheese Please

Had more cheese in the past week than in the past couple years combined I think! I hardly ever eat cheese at home, but at the hostel, breakfast was included, and always consisted of a bowl of something (scrambled eggs once, corn flakes once, unidentified but good stuff twice) plus several assorted cheese packets and jams and pita bread. I think I might be the only one at the hostel who took full advantage of the breakfast deal, it seemed other people were often not eating their main course.

Well, now I'm home. Got in yesterday evening. It's pretty nice to be home, but anticlimactic in a way too. And also my mind started to wander onto things less pleasant, like not actually returning to many friends, or the fact that there's no job or school or anything waiting, just an uncertain void. And having no insurance to help pay for any drugs etc. I might need, or dental care, etc.

Anyways, after that first not so interesting day of wandering around, things improved a bit. I just hung out the next morning, not doing a whole lot, reading some little brochures about what to do. The guy who gave me a taxi ride was around at breakfast, chatted about Dubai and it's future a bit... Phoned my flight attendant friend, and arranged to get together. Took the public transport system there, I really like being able to take public transit again actually! I spent lots of time looking through the very thorough bus routes book that I got. It took me much less time that expected to get to our meeting place. Just hung around a while, had lunch at a Thai place, it was really great! I was really excited to use chopsticks! One of the things I was looking forward to lots upon getting home was to be the food, but Dubai is spoiling that a bit since I am already getting good food here. After lunch, we met up with another flight attendant she knows, and went to a mega shopping mall. Not particularly different than here, except for the arabian treasures section where I picked up some souvenirs. Oh, and we walked around Ikea, something I like to do when visiting foreign countries, even though there the same everywhere in the world! They got a call and had to head out early for some important person's impromptu birthday party... I learned a lot about the life of flight attendants during these couple days, how everything is really living life day to day, not able to make plans beyond a few hours, sleep patterns really screwed up, difficult to acclimatise to anything, able to meet tons of new people (new crew on each flight), but then not likely to see them much after that. It's neat to go to various parts of the world, but overall the job's not as glamourous as I used to imagine.

Next day, got up early for breakfast, the taxi ride guy joined me again. He asked me if I wanted to know something funny, told me to look at the jam packets, see who made them (Halwani Bros.), turns out he IS one of the Halwani bros. So I've been having breakfast at a youth hostel with the co-owner of some multinational company, just a little unexpected! (he could have been BS-ing, but what he talked about and the way he talked about things the last couple days, I find it believable.) Took a taxi into Sharjah... from where I was, it wouldn't be much more expensive than busses, and would save tons of time. Sharjah has lots of museums and art galleries, so it is interesting for a little while until you get tired of them. Got a taxi back to the hostel around 3pm, it was much cheaper than the one there for some reason. In the evening the previous day, I met another tourist who was on his way out, but highly recommended a desert safari, despite being a little expensive. So I called the place and made a reservation, it was actually a bit cheaper than expected. Turned out to be well worth it. Fun racing over sand dunes in a Toyota Land Cruiser. Ended at a camp, got to ride a camel for a few seconds. Got to buy a couple more souvenirs :) Got to have a really good dinner (dinner included was one of the things that made me comfortable with the overall price). Got to see a bit of belly dancing. And head back to the hostel around 10 pm. The desert safari was definitely the thing to do in Dubai.

Next day, got up early again, and headed on public transit to Hatta, a village a couple hundred km away, supposedly a good weekend vacation place. I don't really understand why, seemed there wasn't much there. Maybe at a different time of year. It was neat to see mountains though, even though they were completely barren, a different scenery. A german I met on the safari accompanied me. He originally planned for 1 month in Dubai, but after being there a couple days, reduced his vacation to just 5 days! We wandered round the historic village, it was pretty good. Headed back to Dubai fairly soon after that. I found I was really low on money, but could possibly get by... calculated enough that I'd have enough for the few bus rides I'd need, and as long as I found a restaurant that took credit cards, I could finish up my money and leave UAE with virtually no money. I really didn't want to have to go to a bank machine. As it is, things worked out perfect. After dinner I even let myself buy a McDonalds ice cream, though I realised that that 33 cent purchase might have left me begging for airport bus money the next morning (that's how close I was cutting things!) After Hatta, I bussed to near the super fancy super expensive hotel, and hung around there looking in awe upon it. But to enter the hotel you need to have reservations to spend at least $70 inside (which I heard from the Germans is equivalent to two coctails) so I didn't bother. Found a nearby beach and hung around there... the water was as warm as the air. Bussing home sucked, I think thursday night is part of the weekend here, so everything was rush hour traffic jammed and full busses.

Next day, had breakfast as earliy as possible (7 am) then got public transit to the airport with my last scraps of money. The flight to London was good, and by incredible coincidence, the monday flight's flight attendant's flight attendant friend was a flight attendant for my flight! Of the thousands of emplyees and hundreds of routes, that's amazing. The flight from London to Calgary was really empty, I'd say a maximum of 1/3 seats were used. Much older flight attendants.

Great to be back in Calgary, though cold! Ghana was over 30, Dubai was over 40, Calgary is under 10.

So many things to do. But I guess no big rush, my schedule is completely empty.

Probably won't be posting much more on this blog, now that the trip is over. Thanks for sharing it with me.

McArabia Meal

Yes, I saw a McDonalds, and that's what was advertised. It's quite appropriate for United Arab Emirates though, this place is McArabia. Middle east, but still very westernised.

My main description so far would have to be "yawn". That's for a couple reasons. First, I left Accra in the afternoon, and after a 9 or 10 hour flight (which I should have slept on but didn't), arrived here at 5:30 in the morning, so I haven't had any sleep for many hours. But secondly, it really seems there's not much to do here. At least, not without money. The main things to see here are shopping malls, and "souqs", which in my mind were some kind of traditional markets, but upon seeing them in person, they're pretty much just regular strip malls. I did visit the Dubai Museum which was quite good. But otherwise, just walked around, glancing at goods, but not seeing anything particularly special or particularly middle-eastern that I want to get.

I did manage to change my flight at the airport though. Originally I was going to be leaving on Monday the 26th. Talking to a ticket agent type person at first, I was told I'd have to go to the main Emirates office somewhere and things seemed messy and complex. But then I went to a better ticketing desk, and they were able to do everything for me right away. I figured I'd leave on the 22nd or 23rd. Both were available, so after umming and ahhing for a while, I chose the 23rd. Though I sortof regret it now.

Anyways, the plan is that tomorrow I will get a bus to Hatta, which is a town a couple hours away, near the Oman border (officially we pass through a bit of Oman on the way there), supposedly the scenery there and along the way there is pretty nice, so really I'm going mainly for the trip, not anything particular about the destination. Though there is a historic village there which should be interesting in the same manner as the museum was. I'll return from there later in the same day, it would be too expensive to stay tere for a night. The plan for the day after ( = wednesday) is to go to Sharjah, which is a fairly nearby city (but a different emirate) that sounds more traditional than Dubai. I'll explore there, and spend a night there. Kindof will be surprised if I do see anything particularly worthwhile though. Then on thursday, I will return to Dubai, don't know what I'll do though, maybe hang out at some beach? Or maybe go near the super-fancy hotel (it costs like $70 just to go in, though I think it's like buying yourself a gift certificate that you can use for stuff inside the hotel... still don't really want to spend that). Friday morning, off to the airport to come home, yay!

Haven't really found any other tourists yet. I did chat with a flight attendant on the way here, who has lived in Canada before (amongst other places), we were going to meet up in the evening. But when I called, she was sounding pretty sick. Possibly we'll do something tomorrow evening, we'll see. It'd be nice just to hang out with someone, since not much else exciting is happening. After tomorrow, she'll be off on other flights.

I've tried chatting with locals a bit, but people don't seem very social here. Possibly it's due to a poorer level of English comprehension, though generally everything you see is written in arabic and english. The largest population group here is people from india and pakistan, so you here languages from those areas most.

Not sure if I am getting a little sick too, have a dry itchy throat. Probably from all the air con. Even though it's significantly hotter here than it was in africa, the humidity level seems lower, so it doesn't feel much worse.

I'm mainly just writing stuff cause I'm not in a rish cause this place will charge an hour of time even if I finish early. And I'm not in a rush to go anywhere. I'll glance at a couple stores on the way to a bus stop that should take me back to the youth hostel (which is unfortunately a fair distance from city centre). I may also look for some dessert, I'm in the mood for some chocolate cake. But I might settle for a sundae or something.

Can't think of much more to say, will write again who knows when. It's not overly convenient, but if I don't come up with something better to do...

Outroduction

Well, if you remember my very first post after arriving in Ghana, it was clear that I had a bad first impression. Now that I am about to leave, I unfortunately had an even worse last impression. Thankfully, there were some good things in between.

Anyways, since last blog, went to the Wli waterfalls, they were really nice, relaxed there for a few hours. Next day, did a pretty strenuous hike up Mt. Afadjato, the tallest mountain in Ghana(though there were higher points around, I guess they mean highest from base to peak, not from sea level, who knows). And saw some waterfalls near there which were also impressive. Really tired by the end though. Great views all around though, it was quite enjoyable.

Today, came to Accra. We had plans to visit Aburi on the way, but the tro tro took a different route than we thought, and we had to wait much lnoger for it to fill, so we didn't have a chance to go there. I honestly wasn't really interested in that place anyways. Went out for lunch once we got here. Accra is clearly Ghana's link to the outside world, it has a very different atmosphere. Big billboards advertising american products and such. Anyways, after lunch we were going to rest a little before going out for souvenir shopping. This is where the terrible final impression of Ghana came up.

Someone stole $310 from me. It must have been stolen at one of the last couple hotels I was at. It was in my large backpack which I leave in the room, someone must have gone in while I was out and taken it. And they were careful about it too, didn't take anything that would be immediately obvious, just money. And instead of taking the whole envelopes the money was in, or taking all the money, they left one bill so on quick inspection it would seem the money is still there. So, from two money stashes, a total of $310 was stolen. I can't believe it. I wish I had been more careful, checked on the money more often so I'd know exactly when it was taken, etc. But now there's nothing really I can do, there's no proof of who took it, and even if I knew, nothing I can do about it. I have reasons to think it was at the hotel in Nkwanta, on tuesday. However, I'm not positive it was them. After telling Geoff and Evelyn about my loss, they checked into their stuff, since they had noticed it seemed they had much less ghanaian money than expected. And they had a single US$100 bill that they now can't find, so they think they
maybe got robbed too. But for them, they know it would have to have been in Hohoe (the place we stayed a few days between Nkwanta and here) since they had just changed some money there. And they had it with them most of the time, except for going out to dinner one evening. So maybe the hotel there went into our stuff carefully when we went out to eat and came
across the money and took it. Oh well, nothing any of us can do about it. It just really sucks. What a great experience for the last little bit of time in Ghana. We didn't feel much up for souvenir shopping after that.

Anyway, I guess it supports a point I was going to make in this outroduction, observations about this trip, and the world in general. One point I wanted to make is that although many things are different here, fundamentally people are pretty much the same anywhere you go. Some people have been relly great, but some people are really terrible. Some are very generous, some are greedy. Some are friendly, some are not. Many people tell me how Ghanaians are so friendly, which is true as far as saying some of them are, but as a people on the whole, it's similar to other places.

Some people are cynical and are anti-western society (the one that they often choose to continue living in) in such a way to glorify "third world" places. They believe that a poorer society automatically means a more nobel one, or perhaps one with a higher moral standing. But this is complete silliness, a twisted view of the world. All of the inherent evils of our western civilisation are generally found in other societies too.

Anyways, that'll be it for my world-view analysis. On a smaller scale, my experience here. Overall, from a pure "enjoyment" standpoint, i have to say I'm pretty sure I would have enjoyed myself more if I had just stayed in calgary for these past two months. However, I have had many experiences here, memories to take with me from this little chapter. Also, as I think I mentioned before, I have learned a great deal, especially some things about myself. So it's far from being a wasted trip.

I'm sure I have many more things to say, but they're not coming to mind right now. At least there'll be more opportunities to talk about them, even if the situation isn't as prime.

So tomorrow, in the morning we will do the little bit of souvenir shopping, then return to the hotel for final packing of everything, hopefully I can send some of the stuff I don't want with me back to Clagary with Evelyn. In the early afternoon we head to the airport, where Evelyn and I depart around 3:00. Geoff unfortunately has to wait until the evening.

Haven't heard anything from travel cuts about the possibility of changing my flight, and haven't heard anything from the youth hostel assciation in UAE about reservations, I'm disappointed in both of them, but not surprised. Hope things work out. After today's bad experience, I'm even more in the mood to just come home soon.

Fans are my friends

I am partly referring to those in the bedrooms when it's pretty hot out. But I am also referring to the addiction I have here that I keep forgetting to mention. There are guys on bikes with coolers at most tro-tro stations, selling "Fan" products: FanYogo, Vanilla Ice, FanChoco, and Tampico. When I first arrived in Ghana, Evelyn told me how wonderful they were, so I tried a Fan Choco, it was frozen chocolate milk, pretty good, but not too special. Sometime much later, I tried a Fan Yogo, now this was much better, frozen strawberry yoghurt. But it was not until I tried Vanilla Ice that I realized how great it is! It's like soft serve ice cream! And after being here this long, it tasted sooo good. So I've been having tons of those since. It's almost an addiction, depending on how you define addiction.

Well, just a few days left. After leaving Mole, we went through to Bimbilla. Stayed at a place for super cheap, but it was extreely basic accomodation. Then, we travelled to Nkwanta, to get there we had to change vehicles a few times, it was a bit of a hassle, and we got really dusty. But we stayed at a really nice place there. I think since this area is less frequented by tourists, prices are lower. Also great about this place, I hired a guy to wash my clothes! Yay, it made me quite happy. While there, we went on a great hike up some mountain in Kyabobo National Park, but the weather was a bit cloudy and so the view wasn't as great. I still haven't decided if wet season or dry season is best to come here: wet is a bit cooler, but you see much less wildlife as well as poorer views. And you can get rained on. Anyways, today we travelled from Nkwanta to Hohoe, our last resting place before Accra. Tomorrow we plan to see some waterfalls, and the day after hike up the highest mountain in Ghana, then the day after we head to Accra, and the day after we leave Ghana! Looking forward to it, I've been here long enough. I still don't know if I can change my ticket to spend less time in UAE. I just looked at a weather forecast, it's generally daytime highs of 38 or 40 degrees, yikes!

Anyways, kindof tired for some reason (even though I slept better than normal), so I guess that's it for now.

Home stretch

Not much time left, I'll be leaving Ghana in almost exactly a week from now.

Spent the last couple days in Mole national park. It was pretty nice, got to go out on safaris, hiking with rangers, and saw plenty of animals, like elephants, green monkeys, patas monkeys, baboons, various antelope species, etc. Also visited a mosque in Larabanga, got there by renting bikes, I unfortunately ended up with a fairly crappy one (most in Ghana are it seems) but the mosque was still reasonably pretty. It's been really hot up here in the north, as expected. I'm not sure how the temperature in Eastern region will be.

So we are trying to get as far into eastern region today as possible. G&E want to go to Kybobo national park, it is a pretty new place. I just hope it is not too inconvenient to get to, and that it's worth it once we get there (esp after being in Mole, the big daddy of ghanaian national parks). After that we head down to around Hohoe, where there is a mountain to climb, and a waterfalls to see. After that, it's on to Accra for a final night before we fly out.

Still have a week in UAE, still trying to make it shorter. It'll simply be really expensive, only a couple places have youth hostels. Also, I'm looking forward to getting home again. But we'll see what happens.

Don't know if we'll have much internet access in the next week or so, but I'm outta time here!

G&E

So I rendez-voused with Geoff and Evelyn. It's really great to have friends around again. I went to Vic Baboo's for dinner while they went to Moti Mahal, for 2 reasons... One, I think I'd enjoy the food better, and two, I wanted them to have another nice dinner together without me, since I'll be with them for the next two weeks. I enjoyed the dinner, but some guy invited himself to join me, and kindof wanted me to pay for him (though he eventually paid for himself) and then was very pushy about getting me to buy some of his art. He even grabbed my arm at one point. This is one of the only times during the trip that I was actually a bit scared, he seemed angry that I wasn't buying anything from him (even though I had been sure not to lead him on... this same guy had talked to me when I passed through kumasi before) and I was a little worried he'd do something, so I returned to my hotel rather hurriedly.

Next day, we headed to BFMS, though we changed money in kumasi first. Since my parents had sent me money in US$20 bills, I didn't get as good an exchange rate as if it had been $50 or $100 bills. Oh well. I'm going to try to change some more at less official people in Techiman, maybe they will give a better rate? We'll see, not much to do about it. Headed up to Nkoranza, then BFMS later. It was much later in the day than expected, so we didn't get to spend as much time there as we'd have liked. And also since it was market day, a few people we'd like to have seen were not around. The Colobus monkeys were also hiding, so Geoff didn't get to see any unfortunately. It was dark by the time we were heading out of there, but we wanted to stay at "hand in hand" in Nkoranza, not at the BFMS guesthouse. Not completely sure why. We were lucky and didn't have to wait long for a tro tro at least. And Charity, the hostess at hand-in-hand, was great in looking after us even though we arrived at like 8:30 pm. Once morning (and light) came, I discovered it's a really nice place. But again, don't have as much time to hang around as we'd like. Walked back into town, visiting Evelyn's friend at the hospital, and internet cafe. That's where we're at now. Gonna try to get to Tamale today, but again since we started pretty late, we're going to arrive pretty late, but I'm sure it'll turn out ok. Feel much more confident about things since I'm not alone now. I'm just never fully comfortable arriving somewhere after dark without set plans for accomodation and such.

Tomorrow, we'll try to head to Mole national park, and spend a few relaxing days there while we think about how we'll spend the remainder of the trip in eastern region. But at this point, I'm really flexible. In a sense, just don't care anymore, will be similarly happy with whatever we do.

2006 FIFA World Cup Qualifier

So the rest of the evening and night with the person in Cape Coast went fine, the whole family was so nice to me, they wash my dish, they feed my fish. Had some yam balls with dinner, they totally reminded me of timbits! Before leaving, I tried to offer them some money, especially since I would have spent it on hotel and food anyways, but they refused. There are many generous people here. Though of course there are many greedy people also. That is the way with every country I've been really.

Headed up to Kumasi, dropped my stuff at the hotel. While heading out, saw a couple locals I talked to when I was in Kumasi before, they said a group was meeting at a certain restaurant and all going to the game together. I went there, but the restaurant was not even open, kindof annoyed me. So I continued trying to go to the stadium by myself. Started walking that way, near a big intersection a trotro with people obviously going to the game (wearing bright ghanaian colours), shouted back and forth a moment to confirm this, and I hopped on board. On, not in. It was completely full, so I joined the two other people standing in the sliding door entrance to the van, holding on as tight as possible. I know it could be considered pretty reckless, but it was pretty fun, and we didn't ever go too fast (or more importantly, stop too suddenly). At the stadium, I could head towards VIP seating for 40000, or regular for 20000. Didn't know much difference, except vip is covered. I imagined a better view too. So I headed in that way. Turned out to be amistake. All the seats there were full already, just standing room at the back. Which still offered a decent view. The problem was that it was jut a bit after 1;00, and though the game was scheduled for 3:00, it had been changed to 4:30. So that meant over 3 hours standing in one spot (I figure if I moved, I'd end up later behind the standing people) before the game even began! If my mind had worked faster, if I had been more decisive, I would have tried to move to the regular seating, which although it was not shaded, at least I would have had a seat, and that would have been much more valuable to me. But alas, I did not, so I stood for hours, then was crammed between other standing people trying to see the game. Thank goodness I'm tall (the first time it's been a benefit in Ghana rather than a liability, normally tallness just leads to discomfort in beds and trotros). Anyways, I don't know much about football (soccer) but Ghana scored 10 minutes in, and then again 5 minutes later, and generally dominated the game! It was quite exciting. Felt a bit bad for Uganda, being surrounded by thousands of people wanting them to lose. After the game, people celebrating, many people jumped fences to be on the field... if I had been with anyone, I probably would have tried to do the same just for the heck of it, but I wasn't prepared to do so by myself. Later, someone decided they wanted to be my friend and help me get transport back to my hotel. But he didn't seem to really know what he was doing, or to understand me very well, so it got really annoying. Eventually ended up in a taxi heading that way, that wanted more money than I said I'd pay when I accepted the taxi. And apparently wanted to fight even when I paid more than I said I would and walked away. Some other guy who somehow ended up with me covered the difference to avoid a problem. I think maybe the reason the driver wanted the extra money was for this other guy anyway (thought we were together), not just me. I'm not sure where he came from, but he accompanied me for the rest of the evening, even though I didn't really want him to, and wasn't paying him much attention. Had some food and tea while this guy just sat and did nothing, then returned to my hotel, just as i had told him I was doing, but he still wanted to follow me around anyway.

So today will be a pretty relaxing day, not much planned, just hang around and will see G&E sometime this evening I suppose (no idea when they'll arrive). Looking forward to not travelling alone for the next couple weeks. Though coming home still seems really far away. I feel I've seen / done enough for this trip, I'd be fine to head back any time, just staying cause I might as well, hopefully will have some good times. Also will be interesting to see other people's travelling style, what they do, I bet I'll learn a few neat things (like maybe how to do laundry better!)

Dan's not-so-paradise

So, I came to cape coast, looked for some hotels, but everything was full! Some local was helping to take me around. But as a result, we wandered around a long time to go to places he recommended, whereas I would have rather just sat down and phoned some places. Ended up going to Dan's paradise, which isn't recommended in the guidebook. It was expensive, but looked ok, and I figured I might not get anywhere else, so I payed. Then went to cape coast castle. It was interesting to look around the museum and the slave castle. Met a british lady and a couple of her ghanaian friends showing her around, so I went with them a while. Said they'd walk around downtown, then could take me back to my hotel. Ended up walking a long time, but not downtown. Went to the place she was staying, some guy's house. Took a long time before we could leave there, I was really tired and just wanted to get back to my hotel. So someone helped me get there. Also left me the number for that guy's house. Anyways, this was the point I discovered what a big mistake it was going to Dan's Paradise Hotel. Firstly, some lights were burned out (inc. the bathroom) which they said they'd fix before I got back but didn't. So I tried to get them to fix it or give me another room. The only staff available barely understood any english. He took me to another room. This room had semi-working lights, but a broken fan. So another room. In this one, the toilet was used, and non-flushable. Finally found another room where things seemed to work, but again no water. Meaning no shower, no flushing. Turns out the whole hotel is occasionally like that, and nothing I can do about it! The guy brought me a bucket of really dirty looking water that I wasn't about to shower with. I was in such a bad mood by this point. Just went to bed. In the morning, packed up and got out of there as soon as possible. Tried to get partial refund, I mean I've stayed at places for a third of the price which were better. But of course, no deal. I went and looked at another hotel, but again started hitting the "hotel full" problem. So I was getting in a state, I finally got a taxi back to the person's house. They let me shower there, and offered me a room. The british woman seemed to have done ok there. So that's where I'm staying tonight. A bit nervous about staying in a stranger's house, but I really don't know if I'd find another place, and it would be a lot of effort to search. Anyways, for the rest of the day, went to Kakum park, did a canopy walk, something like 30-40 m above ground, pretty nice in the canopy of the rainforest. Came back early afternoon, met the guy again, and went together to see some of the festival taking place. Lots of chiefs in a procession, being carried in sedans on people's shoulders, lots of drumming, etc. Lots of people everywhere in the streets. Ran into several people I'd met during my time in other cities, including americans from Kumasi. They are also leaving early tomorrow morning to get to Kumasi then go to the football game, like I planned, so maybe I'll see them there yet again. Anyway, the festival's become exhausting, will head back to the guy's home now. Apparently the "real festival" is in the pubs in the evening, but don't think I'll go out for that, just don't really have the energy, and it's not so much my thing, especially alone. So, that's it for now, I'm outta time.

Mini-Paradise Mk. II

Went to Green Turtle Lodge near Takoradi. It was quite relaxing, beachfront place, away from cities. Even the type of people there were different, it was definitely a place people go to do nothing, as opposed to other places people go to do something. People would lay on the beach for the entire day sometimes, and many people stay several nights. Anyways, I was glad to relax there for a bit. Now on my way to Cape Coast, will try to see the castle today. Debated between Cape Coast vs Elmina, and CC won out. I'm hoping the hotels aren't all full cause of some festival this weekend. Guess I should be on my way.