Christmas at the Beach

Five days at the beach seemed to turn into 11 very easily. Halim, Sally, Demetrio, Helen, Ruth and I left Koforidua on Saturday 22nd. We were split into two tro tros they were estate cars that could hold seven passengers rather than minibuses. Ruth, Helen (suffering from typhoid, but which at the time we were treating as malaria) arrived in daylight and walked up Butre beach (pictured) to the resort. The others arived after dark and we were joined by Alex and Katie. The next few days involved a boat trip on the bay, a Christmas day sandcastle competition on the beach, some messing around in the water and not much else. The most strenuous thing I did was visit Fort Metal Cross at Dixcove (pictured), where I met two Texan Peace Corps volunteers from Burkina Faso who were marvelling at just how what Ghana offered by comparison with their postings. The resort was very good but we found ourselves regularly migrating to the adjacent one. Indeed, when we left the first resort we moved into Ghana Spirit for another couple of days. The place was run by a couple from the UK and had only been open a couple of days. The food was excellent, particularly the Christmas Day barbeque. There was also a games area with a fantastic range of board games and books and even some recent British magazines. I hope to go back before I leave Ghana. The website at www.ghanaspirit.com gives a better idea of the place.

When we finally left the place, we moved the short distance to Cape Coast (Queen Victoria above) stopping only in Takoradi for an excellent English breakfast, complete with that rarity in Ghana - bacon. There are pigs here but aprt from the odd trotter in the markets you almost never see piece of pig in the shops. From Cape Coast we visited Elmina Castle (pictured) and I went to the slave village at Assin Manso. We spent the final minutes of 2007 at a bar right on the coast with fireworks (pictured).