Ghana is definitely not Burkina Faso

most little shops had names like "god is great"
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Accra is definitely not Ouagadougou, nor is it Cotonou, nor Lome. Although we spent only one single day there, both Margie and me can say that it's just more developed than any other cities we've seen in West Africa. Three lane streets abound (with actual lanes painted on the streets, yes), there are no mopeds polluting the air, loads of occidental-looking buildings downtown... we were amazed. We only stayed there for one night, but we still managed to have  good time. It seems that wherever you go in Africa, there is an adventure that awaits you, you just have to be open enough to see it and embark on it. Here we go.

jedi jah and jan
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First, after having paid overwhelmingly too much for a cab to get us to our hotel on a cliff overlooking the Atlantic ocean, we went to eat at the first restaurant that we saw. It turned out to be a Rastari-owned vegan restaurant that was super cheap and offered excellent food. The owner is actually fighting to make Ghanaians understand that the food industry is totally corrupted and most things we eat are terrible for us. He is trying to setup a library of books and movies about nutrition (e.g. license to kill, eating, supersize me, etc.). If you have any, please let me know so that i somehow send it to him. This is a good cause.

jan and kenneth
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At that restaurant we met Jedi Jah, a french-speaking friend of the owner. Very excited to hear french (Ghana is an English-speaking country), he brought us to his friend's place, in Art Village. We went there at after dark, and didn't know exactly where we were going. When we sat down to sip on some tea, we realized we were in a real shantytown! Built out of wooden and metal pieces, this little neighbourhood had an amazing view on the ocean, and was extremely interesting for the two of us, who had never been in anything like it. I understood very well when Jedi Jah told us: "This is real life. We don't have anything and we fight every day to survive, but we love it." We were welcomed with extreme kindness.

accra ocean view
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We walked a bit in the little narrow streets, where we met a few of Jedi Jah's french-speaking friends. Actually, this half-dozen men were the only frenchies of the Art Village! I felt a strange connection with them, because they understood how it is to be a French-speaking minority in an overwhelmingly English world. One of them had spent a few years in Ouagadougou, and it was very interesting and relieving to see that he had the exact same impressions of Burkina than us. So hot, so dry, so hard to travel, so this, so that... This made us really understand, which made him very happy, that the term "Africa" is so much of a generalization that it should be used with caution. Even in West Africa, the countries are so very different, the people are so very different, so are the habits, the culture, the way people dress, etc.

We left Accra the next afternoon, which turned out not to be such a good idea. All the buses to Cape Coast, our next destination, had already left, and we had no choice but to hire a taxi for 150,000 cedis (roughly C$20) to get us to the next town... which turned out to be Winneba, also on the coast. We asked him several times to stop at a bank while we were still in Accra, but he never did.

In Winneba, we met Kenneth, the most extraordinarily nice person ever... let me explain. The situation was pretty scary because we knew we did not have enough money to pay the hotel the next morning, but we thought there would be a bank in Winneba. Wrong! No bank. No money. What do we do? We called Goraczko, who was supposed to Western Union us the money. The next morning, we went to pick up the money, only to find out it didn't work. We tried sending ourselves the money through Western Union online, but that didn't work either... We were beggining to think we really needed to cab back to Accra, get money, and get back to Winneba again. That would be a serious waste of money and time! Oh my god, what do we do? We thought and though... and then a miracle happened. I looked through my wallet to see if I had any hidden money, and found a 20 Euro bill on the inside layer of my wallet! I have no idea where it was from, probably from my last trip to Amsterdam with Jack almost two years ago... The hotel owner accepted the Euro and even gave us the correct change (in cedis). By the time we left Winneba to Cape Coast on our first tro-tro (a Westafali-type car filled with people to the max), we had a bit more than a dollar left...

All this time, Kenneth was with us, and helped us get from one place to another, making sure we didn't get scammed at any time by the taxis, took us to good but cheap restaurants, gave us a tour of the city, and never asked for anything! If you read this Kenneth, thank you soooo much! You saved our asses! :) We will never forget that.