4.5 Hour Bus Ride...At Least Give Me a Challenge

Whatsup Everybody?!?!?

Well we left Ghana late last night and are currently making our way across the Atlantic headed for Brazil. It is crazy to think that we have been to 3 different and unique African countries and are now on our way to the last port on this incredible voyage.

Shout Outs – First of all, Dan-the-Man, don’t know if you are reading this but I wanted to say congrats! Heard you are getting to play some varsity tennis as a freshman (or at least that’s how I interpreted what mom and dad said). Dude that is crazy cool!! Can’t wait to get back and come to one of your matches!! Esther – Girl peeing your pants would have been fine…most of the people peed in their wet suits anyway because it warmed em up in the freezing cold water. And duh I had to mention the hippo sex…according to our guide it was a huge deal so I had to pass that on. Besides it was just too funny not to mention. And yes I am NOT the planner….glad you all finally realized it. We are just gunna let that little ridiculous joke die once and for all. And my panties are never in a wad…neva! Chris – Hey man I know you didn’t comment but I have some info for ya. I have some South African currency left (it’s called Rand) and I was wondering if you wanted to buy it from me so that you can have some when you head over there. It’s not an outrageous amount but it will be enough for a meal or two or a couple cab rides. Anyways I was going to just exchange it at the Fort Lauderdale airport but if you want it I would be happy to bring it for you to buy from me. Let me know stud…just wanted to give you the option.

Picture – The picture I chose is of me in front of the Wli Waterfall I visited on the 2nd day. I gave a pretty detailed description down below so I won’t bore you with repeating it lol. Although I do want to point out that the picture doesn’t do the waterfall justice as far as how tall the sucker really was. Look how small the people are in the background and then you have to keep going farther back to try and get some perspective. It was absolutely huge and one of the prettiest things I have seen in nature. God is so GREAT isn’t He?!?!? (Click on the pic to make it bigger)

Ok so Ghana was CRAZY COOL!! Like Mauritius, I knew nothing about Ghana before Semester at Sea and had no idea where in Africa it was, let alone anything about it. No one really knew what to expect from Ghana because SAS had only been there once before and that was in the fall on the last voyage, so basically we were still a sort of guinea pig group in a way haha.Well that is not the case now. I loved traveling in Ghana and it reminded me a lot of previous places that I had visited. The people were amazingly friendly and we so interested just to talk to us and ask us a thousand questions about our lives and our views on Ghana and other areas in Africa. It was kind of intimidating because none of us wanted to say something offensive so we were pretty generic with our conversations so that we didn’t get put into any uncomfortable conversations. Anyways let me just tell you about it!

Day one in Ghana was different than most of our entrances into countries. We didn’t have to do any face-to-face immigration (I actually haven’t seen my passport since South Africa) and there was no diplomatic briefing so we basically just waited for them to clear the ship and then got off the ship ASAP! Originally Adam, Theresa, Brooke, and I were planning on going hiking in one of the major national parks but found out it was a 10+ hour round-trip depending on traffic so we had to scratch that idea…so we proceeded to do what 8 countries of experience had taught us so far on Semester at Sea…we headed into the city with no plan except to experience the country to the fullest. Wingin It!!!!!

Our ship was docked in a city called Tema which is actually about a 45 minute bus ride from Accra which is the capital and main destination of our ship. There was a complimentary shuttle that was “supposed” to run every hour on the hour between Tema and Accra. Let’s just say that besides the first shuttle every morning it was never on time and you were basically just stuck guessing and hoping you got lucky with timing the shuttle departures right. The other thing that SAS didn’t bank on was every student getting off the ship as soon as we could; although why wouldn’t we? We were in Ghana, Africa!!...of course we wanted to get off the ship!! Duhh!! So there were about 500 students standing next to the ship and the shuttles had only taken about 90 something on the first run. So we said forget this and started walking to the front of the port and were just going to snag a cab. There were about 19 of us with this idea and at the port entrance there was actually a tro-tro (basically an old van converted into rows of seats) that took all of us into Accra and basically just dumped us in the middle. We were all crammed and we had no clue where we were but that was part of the adventure so we didn’t care!!

We wandered around where we had been dropped off because none of us had any money so we all needed an ATM. We eventually found one that wasn’t out of service. By the time we had our money it was around noon so we were like “Alright lunch time!!” Now it was a Sunday and Ghana is a fairly religious country so nothing was opened around us. We hailed a cab and asked a nearby security guard to help us tell the cabbie that we wanted some traditional Ghanaian food at a place that was opened on Sundays. The cab driver understood and drove us to a different part of Accra to a restaurant that was opened. Well just about every other SAS group had run into similar trouble finding a place to eat and all of their drivers had taken them to this place too. There were about 20 SASers there when the 4 of us arrived and while we were there another dozen or more showed up too. The place was called Papaye and the food was amazing!! The menu was simple (kind-of reminded me of Cane’s back in Norman…dang that sounds so good right now…oh great, now I’m drooling cause I want Cane’s…great haha) but the food was so good! We all ate all our food and then headed out. Brooke and Adam wanted soccer jerseys so we went and found a guy selling them at his shack and they picked out some cool ones.

Afterwards we heard there was a local Ghana league soccer match at 3 so we were like “Uh yeah we are totally going to that!!” On the way we were able to stop at some of the Independence monuments in the middle of the city and some sort of huge political rally center that we didn’t really understand but it was still cool to see.

Okay the soccer game was definitely the highlight of the day! It was insane! We paid the general admission fee and entered the “stadium” through a little side gate. It was basically just like a high school stadium with wooden bleachers on the ends and some shaded seating on the sides if you wanted to pay more. We didn’t mind the heat (and it was hot…Ghana is like right on top of the Equator) and we ended up having seats with a bunch of the locals in the end zone so we got to sit in the middle of all the cheering and chanting. Gahhhhhh it was SICK!!! The match was between the Olympics vs. Arsenal (and no not the English Premier league Arsenal…just the same name). As soon as we walked in a local yelled “Hey Americans, come sit with us!” His name was Kevin and we ended up sitting with him and his buddies. We were like “So what team are you all cheering for?” They were like “Olympics…we hate Arsenal.” So we were like “Alright then we are cheering for Olympics too! Wahoooo!!”

The game was close the whole way through but our team ended up losing 1-0…oh well it was still fun! At one point we got into a yelling match with some of the fans from the other team that walked by and even though we have no clue what they said it was just fun to scream “Go Olympics” and hoot and holler whenever we did something good. The Ghanaians we sat with were awesome and it was a blast getting to know them and just relax (well kinda…in between the yelling) at a soccer game for the afternoon. Made me miss watching you play Court…which reminds me, level someone at your next game for me.

After the game we wanted to check out one of the local beaches because that is supposedly one of the highlights in Accra. We asked our buddy Kevin and he told us that we needed to go to this one local beach because it was a huge local hangout spot on Sunday nights (ironic but whatever). We grabbed a cab and headed off for the beach. Well Kevin wasn’t kidding about it being the place to be. You had to pay an entrance fee to get onto the beach and there were literally thousands of locals chilling on the beach, playing in the water, and of course, soccer on the beach. The best part is that there were like hardly any other SAS students around. We only saw like 10 others besides the four of us so we were pumped that it was just us and the locals.

We ended up being at the beach from like 530 till 9 because we found a spot where we could also eat right there on the beach (literally like chairs and a table in the sand watching the sun going down about 10 feet from the water coming in). We met a group of locals who were playing soccer on the beach and they all absolutely loved Brooke and Theresa…must be the long blonde hair appeal like in Nicaragua and other foreign countries. Anyways they both got like 2 dozen email addresses so they are going to have some serious emailing to do haha. Two of the guys ended up eating dinner with us, Shammoo and Mike, and we talked to them for about two hours while we ate and asked them all kinds of questions about their daily lives and families etc. They in turn asked us about everything from Beyonce to Barack Obama…for those of you who didn’t know, Obama recently visited Ghana over Nigeria and South Africa so the people there are literally in love with the guy and that is all they want to talk about. Let’s just say that I bit my tongue a lot when I was talking to the locals and they brought him up. Oh and by far their greatest interest is British Premier League Soccer. Man U played that day so that is all they were talking about. They wanted to know who I cheered for and who my favorite player was and when I told them the truth that I didn’t follow it and didn’t have a team they were shocked. They were like “You don’t watch futbol? Then what do you do?” Haha Mike and Wes you guys would have had great conversations with them but I however wasn’t able to talk about soccer. That is when all the other stuff I just mentioned came up.

After dinner we made our way to the shuttle bus stop to catch the bus back to the ship and got lucky enough to get there while one was still sitting there so we didn’t have to wait in an abandoned parking lot for too long. We waited about 30 minutes for the bus to fill up and then headed back to the ship…arriving a little after 1045 I think. I called it a night because I had an early trip the next morning. As a whole day 1 in Ghana couldn’t have been better. We got to experience a soccer game which was one of the sickest things ever because they are crazy about soccer. It is on every add and all they talked about. Then we got to walk around the streets, interact with the vendors, find some locals on a beach, and talk to them over a nice African dinner. Couldn’t have been a better day and to think we had no plan when we stepped off the ship…that would have driven my parents nuts hahahahahaha.

For the second day in Ghana I went on an SAS trip to see the Wli Waterfall and the Mona Monkeys. Now the road system in Ghana is one of the worst I have ever experienced…actually very similar to Nicaragua when you get outside the bigger cities. So to get anywhere takes a significant portion of time. That was the case with this SAS trip. The bus ride to the waterfall (our first stop) was 4.5 hours. Now some kids definitely didn’t like this but again Henderson Hills has trained me well. After you drive to Florida and back every summer on a bus, 4.5 hours is a joke. My friends Sally, Bekah, and Torrie were on the trip with me so I also got lucky because that made the ride better. Torrie and I had known each other but after a 4.5 hour bus ride there wasn’t much we didn’t know about each other lol. Like I said earlier, the road system is not in good shape and most of the time we weren’t even on paved roads so it was so bumpy that sleep was definitely not an option. That left talking and riddles to pass the time as we made our way to the waterfalls.

When we got to the waterfalls it was about a 45 minute hike (would have been faster but we stopped to look at random stuff on the way) to the waterfall. On the way we were supposed to pass over this river 11 times so each time we took a picture holding up the number of the bridge we were crossing. It started out as a joke between Sally and Bekah but turned into a must-do at every bridge. Okay you guys this waterfall was insane. I thought the ones in Hawaii were cool…yeah not anymore. We were like walking through the jungle and all the sudden there is this giant waterfall that literally took our breaths away. It was huge! This specific waterfall is the tallest one in West Africa and just the amount of water was impressive! The scenery around it was also really cool! It came out of these cliffs with vegetation growing on them and there were hundreds of bats flying around where the water came out. Someone joked that it was just like the movie Avatar and it definitely was. There were huge plants and then the bats were kinda like those flying creature things. It was absolutely gorgeous and so cool to get to experience. Like I said the picture doesn’t really do it justice cause it looks smaller than it was so just kind of think of it bigger.

We were given about 30 minutes at the waterfall so of course we all got in and headed toward the waterfall to get under it. The water was really shallow and it never even got above our waists, but I still got soaked cause you better believe I charged right into that sucker. About 15 feet away there was a pretty strong mist like what you see in movies and once I was under the water it was way cool. Best free massage I have ever gotten. Although it was so much water there was no way you could look up and some people didn’t like how hard the water was falling. Like I said, I just acted like it was a really good massage but it was definitely the most powerful amount of water I have been hit with. Ahhhh it was just so cool!! Our 30 minutes went by WAY to fast and we were all really reluctant to put back on our shoes and start the trek back to the bus. It was just so surreal that no one wanted to leave.

After making it back to the bus we drove another hour and a half to the Mona Monkey sanctuary located in some random little village. The Mona Monkeys are considered sacred to the tribe of people living in the region of Ghana and many of the monkeys inhabit the jungle surrounding the villages. We were able to buy bananas and the monkeys would come up to us, peel the banana while we were still holding it, then run off with the fruit back into the safety of their tree. They were quick little rascals too…they would just run up and within seconds they had about 2 inches of the banana peeled away and the fruit stuffed into their mouths. The monkeys were about the size of a big cat (uggghhh just saying the word cat makes me wanna hurl) and really cool looking. I had never seen monkeys that looked exactly like these (not even in pictures) so that was cool to see and experience for the first time. We were only able to interact with the monkeys for about 10 minutes, mainly because they ate the bananas so quick and once they are gone they really have no reason to stay around so they just run off haha. We walked around the village for about 20 minutes but weren’t able to stay because this was just a small part of the tour. Although like I said, we pretty much saw everything at the monkey “sanctuary” (really not much security) and I felt like we had a really good experience.

We loaded back onto the bus for our trek back to the ship which took about 4 more hours because the monkeys were kind of on the way back from the waterfall…although not really. We ended up back at the ship around 7 and ate dinner on the ship and just decided to stay on the ship for the evening. It took effort getting from Tema to Accra with the shuttle irregularity so we just decided to rest and recover because we all were on other SAS trips the next morning as well and wanted to get some sleep. Fine with me and I was tired…actually ended up being a really good decision to sleep but you will have to wait until my next blog for the reasoning behind that haha.

That sums up my first two days in Ghana and I will tell you all about the next 2 in my next blog which will hopefully be sometime in the next couple days before I get to Brazil.

I really wanna pass the following on to you guys cause it has been on my heart for the past couple days…

Now the day light flees…now the ground beneath…quakes as its maker, bows His head. Curtain torn in two…dead are raised to life…finished the VICTORY CRY!!!!!!!! This the power, of the cross! Christ became, sin for us. Took the blame…bore the wrath…we STAND forgiven at the cross!! Oh to see my name…written in the wounds…for through Your suffering…I am FREE! Death is crushed to death…life is mine to live…wraught through Your selfless love. This the power…of the cross. Son of God…slain for us. What a love…what a cost…we stand forgiven at the cross.

For the past week and a half since Easter Sunday this song has been on my heart and every time I hear it I just get chills. I have heard the Easter story a hundred times but it NEVER gets old. Death no longer matters to us…we are free you guys…FREE!!!! Free to live! Free to love! Free to pass on the knowledge of this new life! We are victorious through Christ…we have already won! Doesn’t it just make you wanna cry out in praise! Just couldn’t help but pass on this feeling! Join me in crying out to God!!

I love you guys so much and, as we are getting closer to the end of this voyage, I can’t wait to see you guys and chill! Miss you guys and can’t wait to hang out here in a couple weeks!! Speaking of hanging out…there are a lot of American foods/restaurants I am craving so we will need to hit up a lot of those ASAP!! Praying for each and every one of you! Hope all is well!

T

(oh and ps mom – my hair is the longest it has been since middle school and I definitely have “wings” as my friends on the ship are saying haha)