Tuesday, July 9, Busua Beach, Ghana

You get to Busua Beach by first going to Agona Junction a market town. You hire a taxi. I paid six cedi ($3.00) which I’m certain was too much but I didn’t want to bargain because the driver had helped me find a bank and carried my bag and generally tried to make himself useful to me.

At the end of the 25 minute taxi ride you come to a T. If you go right you enter the fishing village of Busua. The road peter’s out after about 400 yards. There are a few “stores”, really just lean-to’s that shelter various small businesses. When you get near the end of the road you find men sitting around mending diaphanous blue nets. Behind them on the left side are the fishing boats. They look like something out of a Rudyard Kipling novel. Like everything else in Ghana (except building) they are brightly painted. The aft portion is topped by a flagpole and flag.  I couldn’t see any means of propulsion but I assume there’s an inboard motor. I tried to see how many crew serviced each boat but never quite got close enough. There is no dock, they just pull the boats up on the sand and leave them there.

If you go left at the T you are in the resort portion of the town. About 500 yards down the road is a large resort, fancy, expensive, that sort of thing. Before you get to the ritzy place there are about six cheaper places on your right, fronting the ocean. Though Busua is a small town it doesn’t lack for activity on its road. Goats, chickens, dogs (for some reason there were a bunch of dogs) and people constantly fill the street. There are several small eating places opposite the beach hotels. A meal runs about four cedi. Or you can get fancy food at some of the hotels. One boasts a French chef. Since all I ever eat is rice and vegetables or pasta and vegetables there was no reason for me to eat anywhere but the cheap places. An eating place, by the way, is generally either a woman behind a table cooking over a fire, or a tiny roofed structure with a couple plastic tables.