Ada

We enjoyed James’s company so much that we hired him for our last day in Ghana to explore the south coast east of Accra, toward the border with Togo. We left early and drove east toward the border with Togo.  After a couple of hours we turned off toward Ada, a small fishing village on the coast nestling under tall palm trees, under a clear blue sky, on a perfect beach. It looked idyllic, just like the bounty advert. The simple life of a hut on a pristine beach, a little fishing and some swimming in the sea held a momentary appeal. Walking along the beach we saw thirty or forty people, men, women and children hauling in a huge fishing net. Stopping to help we chatted to the village headman, wearing a bowler hat.  He explained that everyone in the village was expected to help. If you didn’t help to pull in the nets then you couldn’t expect to have a share of the catch. Despite their effort and concentration people smiled and chatted.  The catch wasn’t enormous, maybe a dozen big fish, a hundred smaller silvery ones, about three inches long, and a small collection of shrimps, crabs and starfish. Everyone was friendly and happy to chat, even when we did decline to buy one of the bigger fish. 

We had a nice lunch, with James at a small beach hotel. The circular trip east to Denu and then back along the coast road through Keta was well worthwhile.  A long causeway gave lovely views across the ocean on one side and the Keta Lagoon on the other.  New housing had been built to replace the huts lost to the sea.  It was refreshing to see the Ghanaian government being so proactive. 

Next day James collected us from our hotel and delivered us to the airport.  The Slok Air flight left more or less on time.  We stopped twice to pick up passengers, once at  Monrovia in Liberia and once at Freetown in Sierra Leone.  So we arrived back in Banjul after dark and were immediately asked for money from the porters, and hangers on at the airport. Home again to the Dependency Culture of Gambia.

Our welcome back to our compound though was ecstatic.  After six weeks of travelling through Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana and meeting so many interesting and friendly people it was nice to be back to the familiar comforts of home. For those of you reading this who are thinking of travelling in Africa it is worth reflecting that we met nothing but warmth, friendliness, humour and assistance. We were not robbed, cheated or harassed. In fact there was no unpleasantness at all.   

We sent notes of our trip to the Rough Guide and they sent us a Rough Guide to South East Asia to thank us for the extra details we provided.

This article is the last part of a series describing our tour of West Africa
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