Caboose

After a relaxed start to the day we checked out of the Kokomlemle Guesthouse and walked along to the tro-tro (minibus) stop a little bit along the ring road. It took a while to find the right one, the driver’s mates aren’t constantly yelling out their destination like the Nigerian ones do.

We boarded a tro-tro for Kaneshie market and immediately got stuck in traffic at Nkrumah Circle, sweltering in the heat as soon as the bus stopped moving. After the traffic jam we transferred to another tro-tro, it cost a total of ¢1500 (8p) to get to Kaneshie.

The tro-tro station alongside Kaneshie market was total chaos, even worse than Jabi motor park in Abuja. After asking a few people we couldn’t find a tro-tro direct to Kokrobite, so we entered one going to Kasoa and told the driver we wanted to drop at the junction. This trip cost ¢3000 (16p) each plus ¢5000 (27p) each for a shared taxi to Kokrobite and an extra ¢5000 between us to drop at Big Milly’s Backyard.

Big Milly’s is a bunch of huts in various styles scattered around a lovely garden full of palm trees. Leo had called and booked for us, so Marebec, Dave and I were sharing a self-contained room with two double beds (although my bed was more like a large single, the left-hand photo below) for ¢260,000 (£14.30) per night.


Next priority was doing some washing, I had almost no clean clothes left, then we went down to the beach. Most people I spoke to at Big Milly’s had noticed that the sign warning people not to take valuables to the beach featured a picture two white tourists sitting on the beach, with a small black boy stealing their valuables.

The beach outside Big Milly’s has quite a few stalls selling stuff to tourists, especially Rasta-style clothing. On the beach lots of the colourful fishing boats were coming and going, I sat and watched the fishermen hauling their boats up out of the waves. One boat went out with the usual crew and a load of younger boys, once it was fairly far out to sea the boys jumped off and swam back to the shore. All the fishermen seemed fairly young (under 30) and even tiny boys were helping with the boats.

There were quite a few older white women there with young Ghanaian men, it seems that this form of sex tourism is quite common in Ghana.

Later on I wandered back to the room to wash off the sand, at this point I discovered that my clothes had hardly dried at all in the humidity. As our room was at the back of the garden the palm trees block the breeze too. Down to the bar for a pre-dinner drink, all the beer was warm because of some electrical problem.

The electrical problems continued at dinner, we had to eat by kerosene lantern, the stink of kero is not one of my favourite things when I’m eating. I had shrimps in a creamy tomate sauce, it was lovely to get some seafood again.

The power came on briefly and then went off again, for some reason the staff refused to turn on the generator. Rather than sit around drinking warm beer we had an early night. Of course, with no electricity there was no fan so I spent most of the night lying awake and sweating.

The next morning we planned to move on, annoyed by the (unnecessary) sweaty night, flooding bathroom and holey mosquito nets. We were in no hurry though, still waiting for our washing to dry.

Eventually we decided to stay, on condition that the fan would be working and that they’d fix the blocked drain on the shower.

We walked up to Kokrobite village for lunch, along to another resort, Andy’s Akwaaba Lodge. It’s run by a German couple and the menu includes schnitzel, we just had burgers though. The location seems cooler and breezier than Big Milly’s.

In the afternoon we took a taxi along to Bortianor and then walked to the Solo Monkey Sanctuary. The people in the village there (with help from Big Milly’s) are trying to set it up nicely, a friendly young guy showed us around. There were no monkeys but they’ve filled the stream with tilapia as a tourist attration. A naked small boy was wandering around talking to himself and doing acrobatics.

On the way back we stopped off at the Kokrobite Garden Italian restaurant to check it out. The menu wasn’t too inspiring and Marebec only wanted chicken so we decided to have dinner at Big Milly’s again. I had pepper steak with lovely mashed potato, I think there was actually butter in it!

Had a few drinks after dinner and chatted to a woman who’d been working as staff on a Raleigh International project in Mole National Park. It’s interesting to contrast Raleigh with VSO, Raleigh people freely admit that it’s not about benefiting the community they’re working in but all about personal development for the participants.

Big Milly’s operates on a tab system, so it’s quite easy to lose track of how much you’ve spent on drinks and food. My final bill was ¢510,000 (£28, or almost seven days VSO allowance).