June 15 – Takoradi, Ghana

Weather – 28º,

Ghanaian street scene

Steps – 6,844

Humidity – 81%

Country #99!

We were prepared for rain again today - it was forecasted but it never fell, we could tell it rained recently as there was water everywhere.

Ghana (pop 35 mil) is on the Gulf of Guinea; English is the official language. 70% are Christian, 20% are Muslim. Education and Healthcare are free.

dancer

The ship is docked in the city of Takoradi, Takoradi is twinned with Secondi -

all you need is an umbrella to sell

together the population is 250,000. It wasn’t really obvious where one city
ended and the other began. Ghana (or at least the part of it we got to see is very, VERY lush. Parts of forested areas are completely covered in vines and vegetation, and monkeys apparently. One area we saw was called Monkey Hill – originally it is part of the tour, but when we got on the boat learned it was pulled from this tour, too bad!

Our tour today was panoramic to start. We did not get our own seats today…the bus was PACKED. No big deal. 3 busses drove through the town and on to Secondi as Sam, our guide, described this and that. At first the mic worked, then…not. He was able to shout, so that we heard most of everything. Although Takoradi-Secondi are cities, we also drove

ice demo

percussion section

through a lot of ruralness plus plenty of slums.

The poverty was more obvious today

than it has been recently. Maybe because we were driving right through residential parts of town, rather than the commercial areas, or maybe not…I’m not sure. We also saw areas where poverty wasn’t apparent – houses, hotels, apartments, that didn’t look impoverished.

fishing folk

Benin and Angola seemed to be making more of an effort to improve their cities. We saw no construction like saw in Benin and Angola, or other improvement projects. Does that mean people are marginally better off, so there are no projects to move people to improved housings…I don’t know. Ghana certainly didn’t seem to be improving their tourist infrastructure. But again, maybe we just didn’t see it.

drummer

Our first stop was at the Albert Bosomtwi-Sam Fishing Harbor. We watched an ice making demonstration. Yes, that’s right, an ice making demo. Apparently, there are strict health and safety regulations on fish that go out of Ghana’s harbor, so that each fishing boat must have ice on board to preserve the freshness of the fish. That is probably the extent of the info I needed about Ghana’s harbor ice – interesting, but I didn’t need the 20 min demo where everyone was clamoring for photos of…ice.

lots of rules

Then we wandered the port area looking at the fishing boats. It was not as bustling as we were told it could be, yet it was still pretty busy. Apparently, ‘fisherfolk’ (what they called them, I like that term!) take the 8 days around full moon off…guess what happened recently…full moon. Most people were fixing

fishing nets

their boats, mending their nets and still keeping somewhat busy.

I saw my first African rat, at least I think it was a rat. I haven’t seen a lot of rats in person (being from Alberta and all!!) but have seen my share of mice and their tell-tale scurrying. This could have been some other rat-like rodent, but it was definitely a rodent.

There were also kids selling peanuts in the shell. They were carrying them on their heads on round trays, like pizza pans. Even more interesting than them carrying trays on their heads, were the perfect way the nuts were organized – I don’t know many kids who would have organized things like that! I wish I had a closer pic of the nut trays.

nut selling kids

Ghanaian beer

another shot of nut sellers

A cultural show and refreshment stop at a hotel was our next and last stop. Usually, these shows are maybe 5 minutes, this one was about 30 minutes. It was fantastic. There were a percussion group of about 5 and 5 dancers. I tried to get shots of the instruments for my

random cows, there were tons of goats too

brother…Rod…are you reading? I messaged you some extra shots and a video.

One thing about African cultural shows is that they don’t drag spectatrs into their show. Although Sam told us to feel free to dance, in no way was anyone

interesting sign at the fishing port

pressured or dragged as so many European cultural shows do. This makes things a whole lot more enjoyable and serious, maybe serious isn’t the right word, but un-hokey…what’s the opposite of hokey? That’s what it is in every one of the African shows.

ship building

By the time we got back to the ship it was after ‘lunch time’. There’s always the pool grill, but we figured splitting a room service burger was all we needed. We also got the cheese plate…too much food.

The evening’s entertainment was an electric guitar player named Emilio Valle – he was great. A good balance of old and new – very high energy.

Oh yeah, and I saw the world’s largest grasshopper looking thing. I tried identifying it

Ghana

with my phone, but had no luck.

tried hitching a ride