July 1 Back in Accra

A short blog tonight, another day of riding.  We left the hotel about 9:20 or so.  Chuks had secured a taxi that was a station wagon.  Our luggage has expanded a bit.  I still just had my computer case and backpack, but Chuks had acquired a painting and an extra bag of various items.  The Torgusons Jeff and Sue) had acquired at least two paintings plus a few other items.  It was a fairly short ride to the bus station about 30 minutes or so.  There is bus service between Kumasi (I think I have been spelling in wrong) and Accra in large Greyhound buses, as Chuks as said.  The depot was chaos, as normal.  As soon as the taxi gets close, men swarm around it.  Chuks had actually purchased the tickets through the passenger window before we came to a stop.  Large buses are trying to back into narrow slots, others are leaving and taxis are looking for any space available to let out their passengers.  And there are lots of people standing around, passengers with luggage, employees, and others.  The way the system works is as soon as a bus is filled up it leaves.  Our tickets indicated our seat numbers, we were 28-31, the four seats across the back.  So as soon as our luggage was tagged, paid for and loaded we boarded.  We had to pay extra for the luggage, a person just looks at the pile and gives you an amount.  Shortly after we boarded we started to leave, but it took another 5-10 minutes to get the cars out of the way so we could actually pull out.  By the way these were the most spacious seats I have had on any vehicle, arm rest on both sides, headrest, seatbelt, nice cushion, reclining, and I could barely reach the seat in front of me with my feet out straight.

The trip to Accra was about 5 hours.  We made one stop at a rest stop, I suspect owned by the bus company.  For a small fee you could use the bathroom and there was various types of food available.  I passed on the food.  The stop was only about 10 minutes.  At Accra we collected our luggage and after a bit of negotiation with several different young men we got a station wagon taxi to take us back to our original guest house in Accra.  I am not feeling to adventuresome tonight.  I guess I will take a shower and read.  It has been great having access to the Internet again.  I am so glad that Phil and Melissa are back in DC.  I have had several chats with Marcia.  I suspect Melanie is with clients, since I have not heard from her.

I should mention the roads quickly.  After we were outside of Kumasi we were on a four lane divided highway (with speed bumps, of course, but the bus rode better than our car to Mole).  Sometimes it became a two lane highway then back to four.  A short distance after the rest stop it became a dirt road, similar to the road to Mole.  No slick spots, but plenty rough.  Again, we were sometimes driving on the left and sometimes on the right.  Of course with the bus, we seemed to have fewer cars cutting us off. They are still building the road, that is why the middle portion is dirt.  In a couple of places we drove down and around a bridge that was partially constructed.  But the road doesn't go over it yet, it goes around it.

Time for a shower!