The last stop we made before flying out was a place in the southeastern part of the country called Ada. It’s special because Volta, the largest Ghanaian river running north-south through the country, runs into the Atlantic ocean at Ada.
Getting there was interesting. Since it’s not one of the more popular tourist spots, it’s impossible to get there by any of the major methods of transportation. Instead, we had to get there by tro-tro, which is a communal vehicle transport with a reputation for being dirty, unreliable, and uncomfortable. The combination of leaving the windows down and driving over dirt roads meant we were covered in dust by the end of the day.
The vehicle itself is essentially a very large van that has been converted to cram in as many people as possible. When I say cram, I mean it. On the way there, we had 30 adults in this thing, plus a half-dozen children and infants. They even weld extra seats into the aisle to get more bang for their cedi. And of course most aren’t going directly where you want to go, so you find yourself constantly having to switch vehicles. And they don’t have set schedules per se, they just leave when the van gets full.
It was almost dusk when we arrived in Ada, which meant we had about an hour of daylight left. There is apparently no road to the place we wanted to stay, so our options were to either hike across sand dunes for about a mile or take a canoe down the Volta. We decided the latter to avoid the experience of finding a place to stay in the dark.
Our guide spoke no English, and after a few minutes we decided it would likely go faster if we helped him paddle. He did not seem comfortable with this idea, but he eventually stopped trying to tell us to stop. Along the way we passed fishing villages with many small ships and lots of people bathing in the river. Here’s a shot taken during the canoe trip.
And another one which shows the ships and fishing villages.
We were unsuccessful in finding housing before sunset, but I think it turned out okay considering the following picture. And here’s a video link of us during the voyage.
We weren’t that crazy about the first place we stopped because it seemed overpriced and everything looked ugly, which was impressive considering everything was dark. We continued on and liked the second place better, which is good because I think we were out of land at that point.
The “accomodations” were basically small huts made out of thatch. There was only one very large Ghanaian woman who was apparently the cook, caretaker, and owner. We were also her only occupants that night. The room cost about $6 for the night, which was pretty cheap considering the area. Of course the floor was sand and the room itself was a 10-foot diameter space with nothing but a bed in the middle, but at least it had a mosquito net! All the rooms have a name; ours was Bob Marley.
The huts had pretty good placement. Right outside our door and about 50 yards ahead was the Volta, and about 200 yards behind us was the Atlantic. Unfortunately the ocean side was fairly dirty from trash washing up, but the Volta side was comparatively clean, as long as we chose not to remember all those people bathing right upstream. Here’s a view from right outside our hut looking at the river. This also became our only means of a shower because there was no running water, which might not have seemed so bad except for the fact that it was our last for 48 hours of traveling back to the states.
All in all, not a bad way to end a trip!
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