Busua Beach…

Last Friday night the two other Fulbright teachers and one of the Fulbright researchers met here at Accra Girls’ and we all went out to dinner with Akordy. We all had a nice time talking about our experiences thus far. Everyone spent the night at my house and we got up at 4am and caught a bus to Takoradi, about 5 hours away. We then took a trotro and taxi another 45 minutes or so to this tiny little village named Busua on the ocean. It is beautiful! The town itself is all of about 200 yards, but the beach it sits on is a pristine sand beach of about 2 miles! We checked into a hotel that was right on the ocean (you hear the waves crash all night), and then went to the beach. There is one surf shop in Ghana, and it is Busua. So I rented a surf board and spent about 4 hours learning to surf and getting pounded by the ocean. The water is so warm though that it was a blast. In the evening we all took a walk around the little town an talked with some of the locals, it is mainly a fishing town, very poor, but really neat as well. We had dinner on the roof of the hotel, looking out at the ocean and the sunset to the west. It was such a neat experience, that it was a bit surreal, like many of the things I have experience here in Ghana. Saturday night we went down to the beach and just sat looking at the ocean and a crystal clear sky, and say a handful of shooting stars! The last time a saw a shooting star was probably 15 years ago!

Sunday morning, I was way too excited to sleep, so I got up as early as was possible and I went down to the beach to go for a run. When I stepped on to the beach, I looked up and down, and did not see a single person; I had a tropical beach to myself to go for a run at sunrise! I ran for awhile, went swimming and then went back to have breakfast with everyone. We stayed until noon and once again I spent about 2 hours or so trying to surf (the waves were bigger on Sunday) and got up on my knees but never was able to stand up, but it did not matter, it was a lot of fun regardless. Also, there is an island about a mile off the coast of Busua. So I talked with one of the local fisherman and he agreed to take us out to the island. We got into a traditional, handmade, African fishing canoe (about 30 feet long) and had to paddle out to the island! I had never been on a boat on the ocean! Within the first 3 minutes we had hit two whitecaps and the bottom of the boat had a foot of standing water that we had to bail-out like mad. But, we kept going and eventually reached the island. There were 5 locals that took us out and I asked if I could help paddle, I thought, I am in good shape, it is only a mile, it will be cool. Well, these men do it everyday and after about ¼ of the way to the island I was spent, and they were still going strong, there was no possible way I could keep up with them! The island itself was very cool too, beautiful with tons of beautiful shells, plus a very interesting visual perspective of the coast and the ocean.

When it was time to go we took a taxi back to Takoradi to catch our bus. The taxi driver told us that he was the son of the chief and would be the new chief soon. He also told us that he was a Rastafarian in this heart but “not on his head” (he did not have dreads), and proceeded to sing along with the Bob Marley tape he was playing. The bus trip back to Accra was fine, but by the time I got back to Accra Girls’ the sun, surfing, and lack of sleep caught up with me and I was exhausted. The trip was incredible and I would love to be able to go back to Busua.