Have bike, will travel

Our main adventure since my last post has been getting our on our bikes and getting very dusty and sweaty in the outskirts of Accra.

In fact, this bike ride encapsulated the many different sides we are starting to see of Accra.

Accra is modern – we meet in a shopping mall car park, where there is a fully kitted out gym with a swimming pool, and apparently one of the best coffee shops in town.

Accra is crazy busy and noisy – even at 6 am on a Saturday morning the church next door to us was in full swing with music blaring out.  As we started to make our way towards the group meeting point the roads were already busy with trotros (rickety old minibuses which ply certain routes through the city), hawkers and people starting their weekend shopping.

 

Traffic here comes in all shaped and sizes – we are used to navigating the roads of London in rush hour, but here is a different kettle of fish.  The rules of the road are totally different, in fact I don’t think there are even any rules.  One advantage to that is that cyclists are expected to be pushy like everyone else.  When it's not your right of way, the general idea of our new cycling friends was to just shout at the on coming minibus, 4x4, hand cart or goat, wave your arms around and pedal as hard as you could.  Slowing down at a roundabout was certainly not on the agenda!

Accra is full of contracts - Even when you are right next to a motorway you can feel in the middle of nowhere.  We rode parallel to the Tema-Accra motorway, but far enough not to be able to hear or see it.  The dirt road tested our bikes (and us – we used to complain about Surrey being pot-holed).  The dirt road with a line of brightly coloured cyclist fanned out ahead of us was a fantastic sight.  We thought we’d caught an amazing tan, but turns out it all came off in the shower…

And who can complain when the pit stop is a coconut stall?

 

A New Obruni in Town

Midnight, 28 degrees, surrounded by men shouting out different advice and trying to pile us into different taxis – welcome to Accra!  Moving around when you have 16 pieces of luggage, including two bikes in large boxes is not easy.  Added to this were a group of ‘porters’ who were not too happy that we hadn’t paid backhanders to either the customs officials or the bag check lady and our absent transfer.  Two white kids stranded in the airport car park – no one said moving to Ghana would be easy.

Waiting to be picked up from the airport with all our luggage

Over a week on and our moment of despair when we first arrived has pretty much been forgotten, eroded by the friendly nature of the Ghanaians we have met, the noise, music and bustle of the city and the sun.  Who has the energy to get worked up when you break into a sweat just stepping outside?

Here are some of the highlights of our first week in Accra.

1. Signs, posters and brand names – my personal favourite is the ‘Sugar Daddy’ sugar.  Stay away kids!

2. Oxford Street – The real name is Cantonments Road, but it has been dubbed Oxford Street as the place to see and be seen.  During the day it is just a busy road with lots of hawkers and shops selling pretty much everything you could need (there is a supermarket with a cheese counter… we are saving it for a really really bad day).  At night street bars take over the pavements, the music is turned up high and a troop of children performing acrobatic stunts come out to entertain the drinkers.

3. Ussher Town – This is a neighbourhood right on the coast in central Accra.  It is a melee of old colonial buildings (including a train station), markets, street hawkers and people milling around.  It took an hour to walk a kilometre, and by the end we were hot, tired and ready for a break, but it was great to see another part of Accra and break away from the secure residential area where we are staying.

 

 Coconuts = yummy and hydrating

Yes, those are sweat patches

Is it a market or a street?

4. Labadi beach – The beach itself is dirty, the sea is grey and full of black plastic bags floating around, but this is a great place for people watching.  Towards late afternoon families, teenagers and couples flocked to the beach to take photos posing with a horse, take a dip in the water or have a beer and watch the world go by.  I don’t think I’ll be using it as my open water swimming location, but it was the perfect place to finish off week one in Accra.