More Christmas at the beach

Merry Christmas!!!

Once we had all had a sufficient lay in, from all the dancing the night before, Beagle brought us a complimentary omlette for Christmas, only one. Bless him though! We spent the whole of Christmas Day relaxing in our secluded section of bay, and after nipping into town quickly, we phoned our families from Kez's mobile on a Ghanaian sim card. We thought it would be really expensive, but only cost a few pounds each. Absolute bargain!



In Busua there are three men who you will come to know - Daniel the Pancake Man, Joseph the Lobster Man and Frank the Juice Man. They are all a novelty, and then become pretty annoying as you see them a few times a day and each time they ask you if you want a pancake/lobster/juice. We decided to check out Daniel the Pancake Man for a late breakfast. He brought out some banana and chocolate pancakes with a thin chocolate bar still in the wrapper. he'd obviously just thrown it on the heat after the pancakes!



We spent the rest of the day swimming and enjoying our version of a Christmas nibbles table (tonnes of sweets from roadside shacks - popcorn, lollies, chew sweets, chocolate etc), before heading to Busua Inn for a 3 course Christmas dinner. The main course - lobster! It was a really good meal, but more than we've eaten for the past few months together! We went to Sankfora afterwards for a drink and watched some of the local kids doing fire spitting ( any excuse for them to drink gin I think!) and then doing some somersaults and jumps over a line of fire, and a brave man standing on his head!



For Boxing Day we headed to the beach to see the surf competition. The waves picked up as we sat there, and it was cool to see some locals get involved! They were all far better than I could've been! We went to Alaska (resort not the place) for lunch, which was overpriced for a basic BBQ chicken menu, but almost everywhere else was shut. Barney tried kenkey - one of the dozens of fermented-maize-type, grey blobs - and immediately regretted it. Gotta be tried though!



That afternoon me and Barney took a wander (getting to be a regular thing now....) down the beach to the other end. It didn't seem too far, but was a good kilometre if not more! By the tile we got to the end, we were too knackered to climb the hill to the white house we could see from a distance. Instead, we got chatting to a few local kids, who were digging for crabs in the sand. Wherever a hole was, there was usually a crab. They dug down with bare hands, and usually the crabs made a run for it to the sea. This was the best part of the exercise, as we all then ran after the crab, trying to flick it back up the beach, diving all over the place! Great fun.



Then the kids challenged me and Barney to a kick around. We were trying all sorts of keepy-ups, but they made two ridiculously tiny goals and carved out a pitch. 2 on 2; England versus Ghana; me and B versus two 13 year olds.... Guess what happened. We got trounced. They were just too quick, with too much energy. And I have two left feet. Sorry dude.



Another meal at Okorye Tree followed, and we headed to a shady bar called 'Sly Joint' to buy some sachets of gin. Double shots of 'Striker' gin were only ten pence per sachet! We took a fair few back to the hut and sat outside playing cards and chatting. Some people also went for a skinny dip as well....

Barney got up early for one of his walks, and I had agreed the night before to go. Reluctantly I dragged myself out of bed, and we headed around the beach before cutting through a small path in the undergrowth that led up to the ridge where the white house was. The heat was ridiculous for so early in the morning, and I had to take a few leaps into the sea along the way. Climbing up, we arrived at the house, or set of small bungalows, that had washing outside and tyre tracks leading up to them. Looked a lot like a drug dealer's place so we carried on. Heading past some guys chopping up palm trees for either palm oil or wine, we were treated to a great view back across Busua and our bay. We could have gone down an even steeper decline on the other side, but we'd have had to come back up it! Therefore we headed back for some breakfast.

After a quick breakfast on the beach at Okorye Tree, watching the surf and chatting to a couple of US Peace Corps volunteers, we met up with Kez and Dree at the 5-star resort at the end of Busua. We thought we'd 'splash out' (get it?) and pay a few cedis to use the pool. The resort was well out of our budget - rooms going for about US$200 - but we made good use of the pool for a day! However, as it was Christmas there was a DJ blaring out hip-hop at a ridiculous level; it was like being in a night club. I asked him to turn it down, and he did, but just enough to hear each other speak. Seemed kind of inappropriate music too, about being very friendly with a lady, in the morning with kids about...

That evening we went back to Daniel the Pancake Man for a dirt cheap fish supper: tuna, rice and plantains for the magical price of 4 Cedis (£2!). I do love the Ghana prices, and the fresh seafood. Shame we had to leave tomorrow, but Togo and Benin were beckoning.