Beyin and Stilt Village

So I had decided a few weeks ago I wanted to go here, and at the time I had a work thing out of Accra on the Thursday and Friday before the weekend so it fit in nicely with continuing on my journey as this place is reasonably far away.....

But Ghana is Ghana and the people in charge, not at my work but our client, decided with a weeks notice to change the meeting thing, to shift it a day later, and then weren't even sure until the day before they'd have enough people attending!

But it went ahead and so I was in theory working til 12pm on Saturday which Ghanaian style pushed out to 2pm, by which time I could finally go and start on my journey west.

Meanwhile all the others had left Accra early early morning and were already there waiting for me.

Got to the tro tro station to get first bus I needed to take, thought it would take forever as only three people in a 14 seat van and generally they don't leave until full, thankfully they seemed to have sense in this place and left with the three, and it didn't take long to fill up as they picked up people along the way.

So at around 4.30 got to my changeover point and next tro tro I was on filled up fast and left at 5pm, and this beach, village is maybe 50km away from the city I was in......but in the end took me about 3 hours to get there!!

Unfortunately this was a very slow slow ride, and also people getting on and off constantly, including one guy who got on in one village, jumped off briefly at another village to yell into the trees and houses and bring running out another guy with panes of glass that were then loaded in with us til he got to yet another village and got out.

But I finally arrived, although in the darkness, but which was probably a good thing as rainy season seems to destroy the beaches here worse than normal. In the morning when I woke up and could see, the water is not blue but brown and rubbish is everywhere, possibly washed in from the rivers and washed up all over the beach, so not so tempted to go swimming or lie on the beach!

Although there was one funny point where there was a woman sweeping, and Ghanaians love to sweep, they will fanatically sweep all the rubbish into piles and sweep this into drains or ditches, but this is the best I've seen as the woman was sweeping the beach! And for like at least 4 hours, we went out and when we came back she was still going, but I will give it to her, that but of beach did look a lot more appealing than before.

But the main point of coming this far, was to visit the village one particlar tribe or whatever has built on stilts on a lake, or on wooden platforms on the edge of a wide wide section of river.

You canoe out from the village you stay in, for about an hour, and then can walk around on this village which is, not floating so much, but built over the water. Its pretty impressive just as it would have taken some effort, and there's a section near the end which has nicer looking half built rooms which is apparently some Spanish dude building a hotel.....but don't know how far off that is.

So once back from the village on the water there wasn;t much left to do but go back to Accra as the beach wasn't nice, and the shop had not drinks left as they'd run out.....

So waiting in the village for a tro tro....which can sometimes take a lot of time....we waited half an hour and one came, and said he was going where we needed to go, but once we got on he then headed in one direction for awhile before finally picking up a tyre, washing the car, and changing drivers, before actually heading in the direction we needed to go! Very round about way, but if you ask them why, they cannot explain and just say, we're on the way, we're on the way.

But it was a pretty fast journey back in the end so all good.

Not many weekends left now in Ghana, I have less than a month left here! Very strange, and also a lot of the people who arrived around same time as me or a bit before me are leaving now also.

So next weekend Cape Coast I think, to visit the castle which I haven't been to yet but which was prettied up for Obama;s visit!

Beyin pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/emmajaynedavidson/20090712BeyinAndNzulezu#