My first steps in western Africa (Ghana)

Member Name: chris-afrika

Product:	Ghana
Date:	22/04/03 (115 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Far away from tourism, Main Language is English

Disadvantages: Not to easy to get around, Plastic bags of money ;-)

First of all this review is a translation of my review on the german dooyoo site. Due to the fact that I'm german there are propably a lot errors. Please send me an Email if you find one and i will corect it. But now read and enjoy.

For all of you how don’t know where Ghana is, have had the same problem half a year ago, in short where it is.
Ghana is in the western part of Africa and there at the southern coastline.
The neighbouring countries are Burkina Faso in the north, Togo in the east and the Ivory Coast in the west.
The 0 meridian passes narrowly east of the capital Accra which is 5,5° north of the equator

Why Ghana?
Because I had only 3 weeks time a flight to southern Africa seemed to long and eastern Africa has got to much tourism. So it had to be western Africa.
In western Africa there are only two english speaking country which are stable, unfortunately I can’t speak french.
Because Gambia is nowadays a main tourist destination there was only one target left Ghana.

What is absolutely necessary to-do before travelling to Ghana?

1.) How want to travel to Ghana needs a visa from the Ghanaian embassy. You can get one for single or multiple entrance. It is valid for a period of three months.
While the multiple entrance visa is more expensive you should know if you want to leave Ghana and enter again.

2.) For entering Ghana you need a yellow fever immunisation. At least for this reason you should visit a tropical doctor. But normally you should visit a tropical doctor before every Journey in to the tropes. My doctor although highly recommended a Meningokoken immunisation because the risk of infection had been very high in my travel season. If it is the first visit to a tropical doctor the visit should be at least a month before the journey. There are immunisations which can’t be taken on the same day and there are immunisations which need a reiteration with a distance
of a few weeks.

3.) You should although know that the majority of the travel money you have to take with you in cash. Changing of traveller checks is only possible in big cities and even there time consuming an often with difficulty. Also the costs for changing are extremely high.
I was told that it would be possible to get many from a credit card but that it would be very expensive and extremely difficult. I didn’t tried.
If you want to change cash, that is really simple in the forex exchange Offices. You don’t need a passport and get your money in minutes. But that is although only possible in big cities. You can’t even change money in a bank in smaller cities. If you are not leaving the big cities you shouldn’t change to much money. If you change for example 100 €, you end up with a plastic bag of money. No chance to hid in a belt or a neck pouch.

4.) How want to plan his travel route in Ghana ahead, I quit this for Africa a long time ago, should now road conditions vary a lot in Ghana. The moment you leave the main roads between the big cities you end up driving 30 km/h even with a local driver. You can hardly call it a street. And the next moment you can speed up to 100 km/h.

How to get trough Ghana? I think there are a lot of possibilities:

1.) With the tro-tro the local bus. If you want take the busses you need a lot of courage to enter one. And the high number of accidents didn’t really increase the confidence. That is why I didn’t take this way.

2.) With the big busses. One the main routes a good way of travelling. But only possible on the main routes.

3.) Hitch hiking I was told does work in Ghana but you need a lot of passion. Maybe if you are a white feller you are interesting enough. There are not a lot of withies in Ghana

4.) Rent a car with driver. One of the more expansive but therefore fast ways of travelling. You although have got the ch
ance of renting a car without driver but that is not cheaper and if you have seen the Ghanaian way of driving you probably prefer to be driven around. What is important about that is you always have to bargain. Even if like in may situation your deal was arranged by a German family member. They always try to get more. I had to pay 20 € plus petrol and always paid the petrol myself. Even there they try to get a bit more money.

Accommodation! There is every level of accommodation even if the really luxury hotels are only in Accra and Akosombo. My cheapest accommodation was in a ecotourism project in Larabanga (1,50 €), the most expansive in Cape Coast (10 €) where after 3 occupied hotels in a more touristy town at 9 a clock in the evening I didn’t want to search any longer.
The quality range I had was from a small room with only a more or less clean bed a chair and a fan to a doubleroom with aircon, minibar, tv, bathtub and toilet.

Now in short what to see in Ghana? There are the partly famous fortresses and castles at the coastline, the Ashanti Kingstown Kumasi, the Mole nationalpark, the mosque in Larabanga and the now second biggest (was the biggest when I was there) manmade lake of the world at Akosombo. But the most interesting to see are the peoples and markets of western Africa.

More of this either on the German dooyoo if you are speaking german or maybe in a few weeks if you ask for after translating in to english.

Summary: