Trip without a map

This morning we headed to church and planned to take a new route but had not printed the route that we wanted to take. While the route seemed rather straightforward we felt it a little risky to make the trip without some directions. We did not want to be late and we did not know how long it would take or what difficulty we may have so we took the route we had always taken and were getting to know well. Following church I asked Stephaney if she felt a little adventurous as we came to the first paved intersection on our way home. She hesitantly said yes so I turned right at the intersection feeling somewhat confident that this was the route we would have traveled on our way to church. We traveled for awhile and turned left at what we thought was the appropriate next turn on the route home. This next section was supposed to merge with another major road and continue on eventually turning into the road we follow to return home to the temple complex. The road became very poor and went through a community where there was a lot of humble shacks and stands with very poor conditions. We continued as the road was heavily traveled with a lot of traffic going in the opposite direction. We assumed it had to be the road we meant to follow only it was not a straight road as the map had indicated. In fact there where places where the road appeared to be ending in someone’s yard. We thought for sure we were definitely lost in no man’s land. At one point I thought I was driving into a auto junkyard only to see what appeared to be a road going around a shack so I followed it. It was only wide enough for one car to travel and passing was only possible by driving on the the dirt shoulder. We drove along it passing several cars going in the opposite direction toward what we thought was a main road. Stephaney said I believe you are driving on a one-way road. I thought “One way roads in Africa”, can’t be but when we reached the other road it apparently was true. We had missed a turn that we should have followed to reach this main road. (It at least had a dotted white line down the road.) Once on this road we began to feel a little better but still things weren’t as the map we had seen showed so Stephaney said we need to stop and ask someone. A trotro had just dropped off a couple men so we pulled over and asked them for help in getting to Accra. They pointed to the intersection that was just a few feet in front of us and told us to turn left there and then follow the road back the way we came and we would see the road. We turned the corner and traveled a short distance to another road. I questioned turning back left in the direction we had come but concluded we had to trust them and turned left instead of right. We traveled not far when we saw a blue sign that pointed the direction to Accra. We turned right and followed the broken up dirt road in the direction of the sign and after a half mile or so driving over a dirt road dodging big ruts we came to the beginning of a paved road that was the road we had expected to travel. It turns out the road we thought was there was only under construction and did not really exist. Just like about everything in Ghana, construction cannot continue until money is in hand to pay for the work so homes, buildings, etc. remain in progress for years and sometimes are never completed - picture below. Being back in familiar territory we could now relax. Unfortunately we were so anxious about our little escapades that we did not get any pictures. What a trip – not to be repeated soon!

We did get some pictures of a building still not completed, some hawkers and people carrying their wares on their heads. Something we have wanted to get and have not done so yet. Also we have a picture of the trotros and taxis loading station where they stop, double and triple park to load and unload their passengers. Many times they block lanes of traffic at busy popular stopping points.

With that said, it apparently had not taken all the adventure out of us so we decided to extend our outing and go down and see if we could get a picture of the coast – Gulf of Guinea. These next pictures are taken at what is called Independence Square. Independence Square was built to commemorate Ghana’s Independence from England in 1957. The grandstands (a series of pictures) in the distance will seat 30,000. The area is mostly used once a year to celebrate their independence in March.

The these last two pictures are of the Gulf of Guinea one taken from inside Independence Square. The other has a story all of its own involving a soldier with an automatic weapon, Ghanaians tying to flag us down, and another Ghanaian blocking our path leaving the area. A story for another time, IF we dare tell it, and WHEN our heart rate returns to normal. (Seems maybe it is prohibited to take pics of that area :-( Yikes! Avoided disaster by just not looking at those who wanted to stop our car, and moving out as fast as possible! If they don’t track down our license plate, we may be off the hook!)