Paradise Found

This weekend, a group of us went to Ada Foah, quite possibly the most beautiful place I have ever been. We got up relatively early to go catch a tro-tro with a planned timeframe we wanted to follow. I guess we still haven’t learned that timetables don’t really work here in Ghana. Everything you plan is subject to change. We got to Kaneshie Market where we were told we could get a tro-tro. After wandering around for a half an hour and asking countless people where to go, we found out that we needed to go to Tema Station for a tro-tro to Ada. We made our way to Tema Station, asked another bunch of people where to go, and then finally made it to the right tro-tro. Now you see, tro-tros don’t leave the station unless it is full, and when we got there, there was only one other person in it. Luckily since there were six of us, we were able to fill up half of the car. But we still had to wait about an hour for the tro-tro to fill up and leave. About 2 hours later, we made it to Ada Foah.

Okay, I want you to close your eyes and picture in your mind what you think Africa looks like. If you’re anything like me, you probably imagined something like this:

While that may be true in some parts of Africa, Ada Foah is a tropical paradise like I’ve never seen. It is nestled between the Volta River and the Pacific Ocean. We stayed in little huts along the river, but it took about a minute to walk to the ocean on the other side. Basically all we did was swim, eat food, and lounge around in hammocks and beach chairs. Most of the time we had no clue what time it was. It was pretty much the most amazing and relaxing weekend I have ever had. Before we left, we took a little boat tour around to some of the other islands along the river and stopped at one island where they produce rum from sugar cane. My fellow volunteers sampled and even bought some of it. Apparently it was pretty good.

We were all very sad to leave and go back to Accra. Everything was just so different in Ada Foah. The air was actually clean and I didn’t feel like I was developing cancer with every breath. There were very few people at the beach camp we stayed at, and not even very many tourists. There no hawkers or anyone trying to get us to buy things. Seriously, it was wonderful. Being in that place made me realize how blessed I am to live on this earth and witness the beautiful handiwork of our creator. Here are some pictures of Ada, but they don’t really do it justice.

This is where the river meets the ocean:

This is the hut we stayed in. It was pretty cool.

So yeah, that was my weekend. Hope you all had a great one too!