I'm dying!!! Its so bloody hot here!!! Thank God I have a room with air-conditioning!! I don't know how people are able to sleep in their tents - or sit around all day without being able to go hide in the A/C!! It doesn't get this hot where I come from...I just can't handle it apparently!!!
So - today is our last full day in Kumasi...I had to help prepare breakfast
(Eti has a great picture of Geoff cooking over the fire in the garbage pit...it is the epitome of this entire trip...) and then Geoff, Eti and I snuck away from the group and went to the market. It is (according to the guide book) the largest market in West Africa - and I well believe it!! Its huge and easy to get lost in. First we went through the meat section - they had snails that were the size of my arm!! HUGE!! We should have gotten some of those for dinner last night - since everyone wanted meat :P Then we walked through the area where they make shoes. I don't know who is wearing or buying all these shoes. Its like hundreds of pairs of fake name brand sandals. They must ship them all over Ghana and Africa...there were at least 100 stalls making sandals. Then we wandered and wandered and wandered and found the fetish area - where they keep the animal skulls and furs and stuff to use for medicines and animist rituals. AND - the highlight was finding shea butter. Its like proper shea butter made directly from the nut with no added chemicals or perfumes or anything. Its really good stuff!!! And SUPER cheap!! If I recover from the heat enough to go back outside - I might try to get some more. Luckily the shea butter stalls were just along the old railway tracks - so it shouldn't be too hard to find again. Although I feel like I am constantly lost - so its unlikely that I will ever find them again!!
After that we found our way to the military museum. We were meeting a couple of the others nearby for lunch so we wandered around in there a bit with a lovely guide. Then we went to meet Jenny (lovely Irish girl) for lunch at a vegetarian restaurant she was so happy to find. We knew she would be stuck with her hangers on - so Eti really wanted to meet her and maybe save her for a bit. Of course they were like 30 minutes late (poor Jenny) so we only chatted with them for a minute before heading back to the museum. The museum was quite interesting - but since the guided tour lasted over an hour - I started to get super bored and hot. Especially as towards the end we were just looking at pictures of old admirals and stuff and a few like army coats or something. Blah!! We were finally able to run away and now I am at the super nice Vodaphone internet cafe! Its huge and air-conditioned and the computers are super fast. And the happy news is that I checked my email and the hotel that we are staying at for my last nights here has really nice rooms that are available for me. They are the most expensive rooms yet - but they are beach huts and I made sure to get one with air-con and bathroom. So I can spend my last couple days in style. So I will stay with The Trans until the bitter end!! They'll drop me off in Accra on the 24th and I fly out that evening to head back to London. My flight isn't until 11:30 at night though...so I'll have to wander around Accra with all my luggage otherwise, I'll have to find a place to store it - or just give up and go sit at the airport for a few extra hours. Sadly - I just learned that I am like one flight away from a higher status on BA - which will get me access to the BA lounge - but not yet.
We made dinner last night - it was disgusting. I didn't eat any of it. But it had meat in it (minced mystery meat) so no one complained and everyone ate it. The tour leader was like - is anyone going out tonight...no one said a peep...then immediately after dinner (I made a show of making sure I started washing dishes as soon as the pan was empty so people would hurry up and eat) but immediately after dinner Geoff, Eti and I snuck out and had a nice dinner around the corner!!! Yay!! Things are looking up - as long as I don't hang out with the group too much - everything is ok. Although I would like to hang out with Kaye and Kris a bit more since I really like them and will miss them after...but its too risky to invite them or hang out with them because they have too many hangers-on that are always watching them and following them. So - its safer to just hang out alone and even Geoff has now realized that everyone sucks and we need to not invite them places and sneak away. In the beginning he always invited people places and Eti and I would have to yell at him...but now he's a bit better and we seldom have people following us.
So that's the end of what I have to say today. I'll probably be back online tonight and then I don't know if the next place has internet. I assume since the lady at the hotel emailed me back - they have some kind of internet...but we'll see what happens when I arrive. But this may be my last post from Africa - sorry its so boring. I'm sure there will be an adventure when we drive tomorrow...some fights or hatred or something that I'll be able to write about for the last couple of days on the truck...
That's about all I have to say for today. I am going back to my room to take a nap now.
So - today is our last full day in Kumasi...I had to help prepare breakfast
(Eti has a great picture of Geoff cooking over the fire in the garbage pit...it is the epitome of this entire trip...) and then Geoff, Eti and I snuck away from the group and went to the market. It is (according to the guide book) the largest market in West Africa - and I well believe it!! Its huge and easy to get lost in. First we went through the meat section - they had snails that were the size of my arm!! HUGE!! We should have gotten some of those for dinner last night - since everyone wanted meat :P Then we walked through the area where they make shoes. I don't know who is wearing or buying all these shoes. Its like hundreds of pairs of fake name brand sandals. They must ship them all over Ghana and Africa...there were at least 100 stalls making sandals. Then we wandered and wandered and wandered and found the fetish area - where they keep the animal skulls and furs and stuff to use for medicines and animist rituals. AND - the highlight was finding shea butter. Its like proper shea butter made directly from the nut with no added chemicals or perfumes or anything. Its really good stuff!!! And SUPER cheap!! If I recover from the heat enough to go back outside - I might try to get some more. Luckily the shea butter stalls were just along the old railway tracks - so it shouldn't be too hard to find again. Although I feel like I am constantly lost - so its unlikely that I will ever find them again!!
After that we found our way to the military museum. We were meeting a couple of the others nearby for lunch so we wandered around in there a bit with a lovely guide. Then we went to meet Jenny (lovely Irish girl) for lunch at a vegetarian restaurant she was so happy to find. We knew she would be stuck with her hangers on - so Eti really wanted to meet her and maybe save her for a bit. Of course they were like 30 minutes late (poor Jenny) so we only chatted with them for a minute before heading back to the museum. The museum was quite interesting - but since the guided tour lasted over an hour - I started to get super bored and hot. Especially as towards the end we were just looking at pictures of old admirals and stuff and a few like army coats or something. Blah!! We were finally able to run away and now I am at the super nice Vodaphone internet cafe! Its huge and air-conditioned and the computers are super fast. And the happy news is that I checked my email and the hotel that we are staying at for my last nights here has really nice rooms that are available for me. They are the most expensive rooms yet - but they are beach huts and I made sure to get one with air-con and bathroom. So I can spend my last couple days in style. So I will stay with The Trans until the bitter end!! They'll drop me off in Accra on the 24th and I fly out that evening to head back to London. My flight isn't until 11:30 at night though...so I'll have to wander around Accra with all my luggage otherwise, I'll have to find a place to store it - or just give up and go sit at the airport for a few extra hours. Sadly - I just learned that I am like one flight away from a higher status on BA - which will get me access to the BA lounge - but not yet.
We made dinner last night - it was disgusting. I didn't eat any of it. But it had meat in it (minced mystery meat) so no one complained and everyone ate it. The tour leader was like - is anyone going out tonight...no one said a peep...then immediately after dinner (I made a show of making sure I started washing dishes as soon as the pan was empty so people would hurry up and eat) but immediately after dinner Geoff, Eti and I snuck out and had a nice dinner around the corner!!! Yay!! Things are looking up - as long as I don't hang out with the group too much - everything is ok. Although I would like to hang out with Kaye and Kris a bit more since I really like them and will miss them after...but its too risky to invite them or hang out with them because they have too many hangers-on that are always watching them and following them. So - its safer to just hang out alone and even Geoff has now realized that everyone sucks and we need to not invite them places and sneak away. In the beginning he always invited people places and Eti and I would have to yell at him...but now he's a bit better and we seldom have people following us.
So that's the end of what I have to say today. I'll probably be back online tonight and then I don't know if the next place has internet. I assume since the lady at the hotel emailed me back - they have some kind of internet...but we'll see what happens when I arrive. But this may be my last post from Africa - sorry its so boring. I'm sure there will be an adventure when we drive tomorrow...some fights or hatred or something that I'll be able to write about for the last couple of days on the truck...
That's about all I have to say for today. I am going back to my room to take a nap now.
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