Operation: Get Us Home

During my travels, the last thing I was worried about my flight home. After all, I had a plane ticket that was already paid for. Two plane tickets in fact--one from Ghana to Madrid and then one from Madrid to Detroit. Steph and I had the same flight booked from Ghana to Madrid. That flight left yesterday morning and my flight from Madrid to Detroit leaves tomorrow morning. Yet here I am at an internet cafe still in Ghana trying to find a way home, while my sister is running around trying to find an ATM machine that actually dispenses cash.

How did that happen? Did we miss our flights, show up on the wrong day, lose our passports? No, no, and no.

When we showed up at the airport, the Royal Air Maroc attendant wouldn't let Steph board because her ticket was not actually a ticket, but more of a proof of purchase. I had bought the ticket for her in Morocco because you can't buy tickets in and out of Ghana online. So they issued me a receipt and said that we just had to go to the counter and everything would be fine. Well, not so. The guy said she needed the actual, physical ticket in her hand. Even though he could look her up in the computer and see that she did in fact have a ticket, even though she had proper ID and a receipt that said she had the ticket, he wouldn't let her on. But not to worry he said, the Royal Air Marco office, which is closed today because it's Sunday, will be open tomorrow at 4:30 am and you can just get on the same 6:15 am flight. What about me, I asked? No problem, you get one change to your ticket for free, he said.

Well, we were a bit skeptical that anything would open at 4:30am, but seeing no alternative we took his word for it. So the next day, we get a cab to the Royal Air Maroc office, which is near the airport. The office was locked and completely dark and the security guard informs us that they don't open until 8 am. Ok...since we're so close to the airport, we decide to go anyways to see if we can just force our way onto the flight. But, as it turns out that there isn't even a 6:15am flight today, but there was a 4:15 am flight, that was leaving as we got there. Go figure.

So first we try and find another flight to Madrid, so we at least don't miss our flights back to the states. When that doesn't work, we try and change our flights from Madrid to the US for a day later, but everything is full. As panic begins to set in, all we want is to get the next flight out of Africa. But even this is brings a whole set of problems...

1. As I mentioned, you can't buy airline tickets to and from Ghana online. Don't ask me why, you just can't. So you have to go to the airline's office to buy the ticket. Now it seems logical that the airline offices would all be sort of clustered together or at least within close proximity of the airport. But no. They're scattered all over the city. So our strategy has been to search for tickets online for the best prices/times and run to the actual office in an attempt to buy the ticket.

2. You can't buy a plane ticket with credit card, you have to pay in cash. This came as a surprise when I went to the Lufthansa ticket agency (after finding a flight online that leaves tonight). The lady first tells me it's all booked, but then apparently changes her mind and says there's space. I'm starting to relax now because it's almost taken care of. So I hand her my credit card. We don't take credit cards, she informs me, only cash. I'm astounded. How do you not take a credit card for a major purchase like a plane ticket? Are people really expected to have 10 million cedis in cash on them? Apparently.

3. None of the atms take mastercard, which is what I have. This is why my sister is trying to get cash, because she has a visa. But none of the atms within a 2 mile radius are functioning.

After several hours of running around, trying unsuccessfully to get cash and buy tickets for tonight, we resort to a tried and true method of problem solving: call mom.

A working African vacation

The term "working vacation" is somewhat of an oxymoron. An "African vacation," while not a true oxymoron is still somewhat of a misnomer as I've found many aspects of my time in Africa to be more difficult than work. So why I attempted to "work" while on "vacation" in Africa is beyond me. But at some point I thought it would be a good idea to do a story for my former employer. Unfortunately, the deadline came just when we reached a particularly remote area along the coast. There was not a computer, not to mention internet access, for miles.

To reach the nearest computer I had to walk down the beach to the next village and catch a tro-tro to the town of Busua, about 30 minutes away. Even then, it wasn't guaranteed that there would be internet.

So I make my way to the village. It is tiny, but there are two tro-tros parked on the beach. I ask and someone says that yes I can take the tro-tro to Busua. Ok, I say, is it going to leave soon? Yes, soon, very soon is the reply. So I'm standing for about 20 minutes and finally someone motions for me to just have a seat on the bench in the shade. Getting the feeling that this could take awhile I sit down. Two little kids, a girl and boy about 4 or 5, instantly take an interest in me. The girl especially keeps waving. And instead of calling me obruni, which is what most of the kids here yell out as you walk by, I was upgraded to "my friend," which was a welcome change. She keeps getting braver and braver, coming closer and closer to me, before finally she reaches out, touches my arm, and then runs away giggling. An older boy, probably around 10, who seems to know English much better but is too shy to talk to me himself, is whispering to the girl questions for her to ask me. "What is your name?" "How old are you?" "Where are you from?"

This goes on for about a half hour, then a group of girls around 10 walks over. As soon as they see me sitting there they run over to me, clamoring to get as close as possible. I have one on either side of me, holding onto each hand, and the rest crowded in front, firing questions at me. "My friend, what is your name?" They all wanted me to take pictures of them, but of course my camera is back at the campsite. After the initial enthusiasm dies off, there is one girl who remains attached to my side - Cynthia. She sits down onto the bench next to me as close as possible. Every so often she will ask me a question - her English is limited, but what she knows, she speaks perfectly. She is constantly looking at me and adjusting her position so that it matches mine. Every so often she will reach out and touch my arm. In sum, I waited for the tro tro for about 2 hours--longer than I actually spent using the internet and writing my story, all while a Christian song (something about My Redeemer) was blaring on repeat from the speakers. During the whole ordeal I couldn't help but wonder what my readers (or editors, for that matter) would think if they knew the circumstances under which I wrote the story.

Mutiny on the tro-tro

Going from point A to point B in Ghana is never as easy as you think. First there's the fact that nothing leaves on schedule. Then there's the problem of not always having a paved road. Even if you are lucky enough to have the first two, there's the likelihood that the vehicle you are traveling in looks, sounds and feels like it is going to fall apart at any second.

Yesterday my sister and I experienced what happens when you combine all three of those elements. Mutiny. Well, nearly mutiny.

After spending a couple of days on a remote beach in a tiny village (along with just about everyone we met in Cape Coast--Kofi and Benjamin (two ghanaians), and a group of Canadians who had been volunteering), we decide to head up to Kumasi.

Our adventure begins when we all pack into a tro-tro and head out on a very bumpy unpaved road, in a tro-tro that is literally on it's last legs. Maybe about a mile out, there's a very loud clanging noise, followed by a thud. Sure enough, looking through the back window there is a piece of the tro-tro lying in the middle of the road. So we pull over and it turns out it was one of the parts that holds the vehicle up off the tire (bad description, but my car mechanic knowledge is a bit lacking). And not only did it just fall off, it broke in two. The driver insisted it could be fixed. One woman decided it wasn't worth the wait and set off walking, complete with baby strapped to her back and a load of something balanced on her head. The rest of us decided to wait it out. Surprisingly, not too much later, the tro-tro is fixed. Somehow the driver recreated the broken piece out of a piece of wood. Not sure how long that will last, but it did get us to our first destination, Agona. From there, we take an uneventful tro-tro to Takoradi. At this point we part ways. The Canadians head to Accra, Kofi and Benjamin back to Cape Coast, and Steph and I to Kumasi.

We find the tro-tro to Kumasi, which is empty, a bad sign. We're assured we will only be waiting 30 minutes, but 30 minutes African time is more like 2 hours. As it turned out, 2 hours was even a bit hopeful. The way tro-tros work is that there is a driver and then several other people who help with luggage and recruiting passengers. The recruiters stand out in the middle of the tro-tro lot, and yell out destinations, then direct the traveler to the appropriate tro-tro. In this case, our Kumasi recruiter was not very good. About 3 hours later our tro-tro is only half full and some of the passengers (including us) are pretty annoyed. A couple of them get out and begin arguing rather vehemently with the recruiter. Couldn't make out everything they were saying, but they were trying to convince him that we should just go, we've been here so long. And they were also arguing about how many people needed to be on one of the seats before it was considered "full." The passengers said three, the recruiter said four. An hour later, our tro tro is full (but only because one of the passengers accidently got on the wrong tro-tro and we dropped him off a few blocks later), and the still unhappy passengers continued to yell at both the recruiter and the driver (Ali) even as we are pulling out of the lot.

Ali is pretty much oblivious to everything--the yelling passengers, the pedestrians, the other cars...The only thing he really paid attention to was his music - 90's love songs like Bryan Adams' "Everything I do," Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You," etc, that he proceeded to blare the entire trip and sing at the top of his lungs (which was highly entertaining). He also paid attention to the pot holes, which he avoided hitting at all costs, even at the cost of a potential head on collision. It must have been some pot hole for him to swerve out of our lane and into the other lane right as a car was about to go by. Fortunately he swerved back to our lane in the time, but I can only imagine what the driver of the other car must have been thinking. Probably something similar to what the rest of our passengers were thinking--that move elicited a few gasps and more angry yelling, all of which were duly ignored.

We finally arrive to Kumasi in one piece and Ali pulls up to the "station" and orders us all out. Well it's 11p.m. at night, and what might be a small station during the day is pretty deserted now. Again, the passengers are not having it. They begin to yell at Ali that this isn't the right station and every single person refuses to get out of the tro-tro. Steph and I figure they probably know where they're going better than we do, so we stay too. After a few back and forths, Ali drives to the next station, which sure enough is obviously more central and also has several waiting taxis, one of which takes us to our hotel--at the Obruni price, of course.

Stephanie's here!!

After a two day journey from Morocco complete with two overnight flights and a 10 hour layover in Casablanca, I finally arrived in Accra, Ghana. For whatever reason it was cheaper for me to fly from Marrakech to Madrid and then fly round trip from Madrid to Accra, then to just fly from Morocco to Ghana, despite the layover in Casablanca. Gotta love efficiency.

My sister got in the next day and it's been really nice having company. We're staying at the Crystal Hostel, which is less of a hostel and more just a family's house that they've turned into a hostel. So there's the main house with a living room, kitchen and all their bedrooms. And we have our own little room just off the main house with it's own bathroom.

Today, the plan was to explore the city. I had a hard time convincing Steph to put down her book and leave the hostel. She said she was determined to finish her book and couldn't be bothered with site seeing, but I was finally able to convince her otherwise. (j/k)

The place that we're staying is a bit outside the main city center, so figuring out public transportation to get there can be a bit tricky. The main way of getting around are tro-tros, which are basically like the big vans you'd use for high school sports. There's a guy who leans out the window of the door and yells out the destinations the van is going to. The tro-tro stops are also not easy to figure out. My method of finding a stop is to just look for people congregating on the side of the road. Also, it seems that they all have different routes of getting to the same place. For instance the route we took today, was completely different then the route I took to get to the same place yesterday. And, if you think you're making a good choice by getting in a tro-tro that isn't packed full, well you're wrong because the tro-tro won't leave until it's full, or at least close to full.

Our goal was to make it down to Jamestown, where there is a lighthouse supposedly with a view of the entire city, then to walk up through Accra and stop off at the Osu Castle. We did make it to the lighthouse, but only because we happened to see it through the window of the bus as we were driving by. However it didn't really appear that you could go up the lighthouse, and the so called "beach resort," that the sign by the lighthouse proclaimed, was less of a beach resort and seemed to be where everyone dumped their trash. So, we kept walking, and stopped off at the National Cultural Center, where there was an art gallery and other shops. I was instantly reminded of Morocco as the shop owners came out trying to convince us to come see their store. We did take up one guy's invitation to see his drum store, where he and about 3 other guys gave us a demonstration on their drums. They also showed us the different "keys" on the drum, which are the three different ways of hitting the drum.

I have to admit I was a little reluctant to go to the shop in the first place, and the instance they started playing their drums, I had a feeling we weren't going to be able to leave without paying for something, but the guys turned out to be very genuine and friendly and said it was Ghanaian tradition that when you first make a new friend it is your responsibility to entertain them. After that we finally made our way to Osu Castle, but it turns out that you need an invitation to actually go inside and see it and also are not allowed to take photos.

So far Ghana has been a relief after the harassment in Morocco. My interactions with the people here have been much more pleasant and the harassment has been scaled down a ton. Although I have already received one marriage proposal. It cracks me up how people will just ask you right then and there to marry them. I wonder what would happen if someone actually said yes to their request. Would they be prepared to follow through or would it turn out to be just a bluff? Unfortunately, I think that is a question that will have to remain a mystery.

The mountain I almost climbed

Jebel Toubkal is the highest mountain in Morocco. On a rare smog-free day in Marrakesh, you can see it's peak, which is snow covered most of the year. And according to Lonely Planet, the mountain can be climbed without any technical climbing gear. Climbing Toubkal has been on my mind the entire trip. I had second thoughts after my nearly disastrous hiking attempt in Azrou, but after talking to some other travelers who said that Toubkal is frequently hiked, I had psyched myself back up to do it.

Lonely Planet also said that from Marrakesh, you can take a bus to Asni, and then from there a shared taxi the rest of the way to Imlil and "if you are lucky," the trip should take approximately 2.5 hours. The only trick is that the buses to Asni don't leave from the main bus station in Marrakesh, but from a "dirt patch outside the medina walls." Anticipating this particular patch of dirt might be hard to distinguish, I set off early, ingraining the route and location into my head so I wouldn't look like a fool wandering around with my head in my Lonely Planet book, just begging for harassment. I make it to the spot on the map, which also happens to be right next to a graveyard, but there are of course no buses in sight. Determined not to be discouraged, I ask a woman who seems to be waiting for a bus if this is where I get the bus to Asni. Asni? she asks. Oui, I say. "Il n'y a pas un bus à Asni. Vous devez prendre un taxi." (There is no bus to Asni, you have to take a taxi).

By taxi, she means what is called a grand taxi, which are old Mercedes Benz's. There are different fares to different locations, and they squeeze six people into these cars (not including the driver), and the fare is split six ways. There are big lots where people shout out locations and you have to scramble to get a taxi to the right location, or if you're going somewhere no one else wants to go, you have to wait until the car is full or buy the remainder of the seats. Of course, as a tourist, the drivers attempt to charge you more then the regular fare or get you to pay for the whole thing yourself.

When I hear that this is my only option for getting to the mountains, frustration begins to set in. I walk back to medina to get coffee, sit and think. I don't want to stay here, but I have also had my fill of harassment, and don't think I can take trying to get a taxi to Imlil, most likely getting squeezed in with 6 other men, and inevitably getting ripped off.

So after coffee and breakfast I walk to the main bus station and buy a ticket to Essouira, a small, laid back, hassle free town on the coast. The bus of course, is not hassle free, and my "luggage fee" has now been increased from 10 to 20 dirhams (yes, I still insist on taking the local buses). Most of the ride here I'm kicking myself for not making more of an attempt to get to the mountains, see a new place, have a new adventure (bc I've already been to Essouira once) and of taking the easy way out and coming back to a place I already know. But when I get back to The Cave (the hostel that really is cave-like), and receive a warm greeting not only from Sebastian and Kashka (two other travelers I met when I was here before) but also from the guy at the internet café next door, I am feeling worlds better about my decision. Morocco may have won this battle, but at least I will have some peace of mind my last days here.