Trip down the West Coast
We are leaving Accra for 4 days to go to a friend’s bungalow in a tiny village near Axim, Miemia. After a 5am start to beat the rush hour traffic ,we decide to take it easy and break the 4-hour trip at Anomabo to have breakfast on the beach. We get back to the car to find a flat tyre, which will give us an excuse to sample some of the creative local engineering skills... After an hour and a lot of thinking we are up and running again. The next stop is Cape Coast, which is just a bit to big for us, so we move on quickly to Elmina.
Elmina, like most town on the Ghanean coast boasts a fort, and in this case also a castle. These relics of the slave trade are now mostly converted into museums, but with a 4 year-old we decide it is better not to go for a guided tour.
After a couple of hour drive we take a left turn on a rough piste, which after 15kms ends up in Miemia a small fishing village nested in a bay. The scene is very joyful with children shouting and waving from every house, it is also rather dirty with the inevitable bits of plastic scattered all over the place. 
The bungalow is basic but clean. As it gets really hot inside we sleep outside on the terrace under mosquito nets, with the noise from the wave underneath as musical background. Miemia is a great spot for spear-fishing and trawling, unfortunately the Kiwi guy who owns the only serious motor boat in the village is away and the visibility when diving from the shore is poor... So we end up going down to the village to buy some lobsters ! 
We also took a day-trip to Axim, a small town surrounded by stunning beaches of golden sands. The town itself is very lively and colourful. The local football pitch is located just underneath the fort and today, judging by the crowd and the atmosphere, there is a serious game going on. The players might be about 6 years old, a few of them play with shoes, many just go barefoot on this dusty pitch. 
The stakes are high since two local schools are playing for the honor of being the best team in the area, one team sports dark blue colours and the other one light blue. Sounds familiar? The several hundred kids in uniforms and their parents, family and friends create a fantastic atmosphere and the goal scored by the dark blues brings a mighty roar.
The bungalow is basic but clean. As it gets really hot inside we sleep outside on the terrace under mosquito nets, with the noise from the wave underneath as musical background. Miemia is a great spot for spear-fishing and trawling, unfortunately the Kiwi guy who owns the only serious motor boat in the village is away and the visibility when diving from the shore is poor... So we end up going down to the village to buy some lobsters ! We also took a day-trip to Axim, a small town surrounded by stunning beaches of golden sands. The town itself is very lively and colourful. The local football pitch is located just underneath the fort and today, judging by the crowd and the atmosphere, there is a serious game going on. The players might be about 6 years old, a few of them play with shoes, many just go barefoot on this dusty pitch. The stakes are high since two local schools are playing for the honor of being the best team in the area, one team sports dark blue colours and the other one light blue. Sounds familiar? The several hundred kids in uniforms and their parents, family and friends create a fantastic atmosphere and the goal scored by the dark blues brings a mighty roar.
Cape Coast - Elmina - Axim
Tuesday, 13 February 2007
