Ghana Part I

Judy and me at Africa beach

In Ghana I didn't know what to expect. I thought the two ports, Takoradi and Tema, that we were about to visit would be one of two things, either smaller developing cities in between a whole lot of farmer land (similar to what I'd seen in India) or completely undeveloped towns of dirt roads and shacks (similar to the stereotypical images that comes to mind when someone mentions Africa). The reality was somewhere in the middle of these two scenarios. But, in both ports I was greeted by warm and friendly people. This I've decided makes a port for me. If the people are welcoming then I don't care if I'm sleeping in a concrete room with a thatched roof and goats outside of my door (which I did on my village homestay) or visiting the fanciest of city centers.

For the first two days in Takoradi, I eased into Ghana. I got off the ship mid-morning with the goal of visiting the local market for a couple hours and then off to a ocean hotel with my friends Judy and Louise who had discovered the "African Beach Hotel," on their last voyage in the spring.

As soon as I was off the ship, I was immediately struck by the heat and the smells (a mixture of sewage and other pungent scents) of the area. Next to the ship, merchants had set up stands of goods for sale--glass beaded braceleta, handmade shirts and pants, paintings, bags with colorful fabric, if it could be made, it was being sold (these same merchants packed up their goods and relocated next to our ship in Tema ready to sell to us for two more days). As I passed by each table the sellers called out encouraging me to buy, "Madame have a look," "Madame come inside," "Please see what I have." Ignoring these calls felts strange and rude, but it was necessary to get past without buying anything.

The port was too far away to walk to the Takoradi market so we were shuttled to the port gates. This was the most stressful part of the experience--being dropped off at the port gates made us sitting ducks for the hawkers (much more aggressive than the sellers near our ship) that swarmed us encouraging us to buy their cheap bracelets, necklaces, and hats. If you mentioned your name aloud, two minutes later you would have a bracelet made for you on the spot and handed to you with the expectation that you would pay money in return. The only way to survive was to not make eye contact and talk to no one or play along until a cab came to the rescue.

The narrow paths through the market

The market in Takoradi is winding series of alleyways and stalls. Here you could buy the weekly groceries, shoes, underwear, the latest dance music and even have one of the tailors make new clothes.




This was not a market for tourists, this is where the local families shopped for their daily goods.

Stall of bath products

We were warned in advance that people in Ghana would not want their picture taken so I stuck to taking pictures of the produce. My favorite was the baskets of pre-grilled chili peppers.

Grilled chili peppers

The women managing the booths in the market looked tired and bored. It was not a major market day and we were some of the only people walking by. Halfheartedly they would try to sell to us, but it was clear we were not going to buy used shoes or dried fish. Some of the ladies thought it would be fun to try to sell to us anyway. A lady selling crabs asked us to make a purchase. "We have no kitchen." we said. "I'll find you a kitchen," she responded. "I'll make you a good soup with crabs and vegetables," she teased pointed to everything she was selling.

Live crabs for sale

This seller teasingly called me her sister. [Picture taken by Louise].

Several hours of wandering through the maze of stalls in the market was enough. It was mostly the heat that made it hard to spend too much time exploring. When we had had our fill, Judy, Louise, and I found another cab (and started a huge fight among the cabbies as to who would get our fare) and headed to Africa Beach.

Small shops outside of the hotel

This was a small oasis away from the town and away from SASers (what we fondly call the students on our ship). It was mostly filled with local couples on dates and dock workers escaping their ships for a few days (just like us).  It was a perfect place to relax, swim in the pool, read a book, and watch the ocean. This was all preparation for the village homestay that was to come.

Ocean view from the hotel

There and Back Again

I’ve tried several times to write about Morocco without success. It was just too big and there is just too much to write about. So, I figured the best way to do this was to pretend that I was being interviewed and who better to interview me than Jon Stewart. So here how it would go if Jon Stewart interviewed me about my trip:

JS: So, tell me about Morocco. How long were you there? What did you do?

Me: I was in Morocco for four days. I traveled with a group of friends. There were eight of us in total.

JS: Go on….

Me: We traveled all over. My friend Stacy had contacted a guide and set the trip up. I was just lucky enough to be invited to go along.

She had told the guide that we wanted to see the Atlas Mountains and ride camels. The rest kind of fell into place—we made a quick stop in Casablanca to see a mosque and eat lunch,

Mosque in Casablanca

Mosque in Casablanca

then traveled to Marrakesh. After spending a night in a local riad,

Our riad

Fruit seller in Marrakesh

Medina at night

we drove through the Atlas Mountains

Atlas Mountains

Berber village

 to the very edge of the Sahara where we rode camels to a nomad camp. The next day we returned to Marrakesh, and then drove to Casablanca to board our ship the following day.

JS: Any surprises along the way?

Me: I had a sense that it would be about 3 hours to get to Marrakesh from Casablanca, but I had no idea that it would be 8 more hours to get to the Sahara! By the time we reached the camels, we were almost in Algeria.

Map of where we traveled

Sedate camels

JS: Let’s get the unpleasant things out of the way. What were your least favorite things about the experience?

Me: So, I didn’t love riding the camels.

The camels were pleasant enough. I named mine “Serenity,” so I could yell “Serenity Now,” if I needed to. Actually, I think the camels were drugged--they were very sedate.

But a camel saddle is about the most uncomfortable thing ever designed. It’s not made for a woman.

JS: I know from personal experience that it’s not designed for a man either. They are Uncomfortable [insert a silly Jon Stewart voice].

This is me trying to smile while thinking, “When can I get off this camel!”

Me: I know! I wish each ride came with a free tube of “Baby Butt Paste.”

JS: Ok, so if the camel riding wasn’t your favorite. What was?

Me: The tagine’s were wonderful. We ate a tagine for just about every meal.

It was interesting to see how they were cooked. Each tagine had it’s own flame to cook the food.

Tagines

 

My first tagine in Casablanca. Lamb and prunes.

 My favorite thing, though, was looking at the stars in the nomad camp. I don’t think I’ll ever see a sky so clear again. There was a meteor shower that night and I saw one shooting star that had a green tail that streaked across the sky.

[Close your eyes and imagine a sky filled with so many stars that you can’t pick out constellations. Add in the milky way. Then some shooting stars. Put the desert in the background. There, you’ve got the night’s sky at the Nomad camp]

Nomad camp at sunrise

As I said before, I also really enjoyed the group I traveled with. We laughed a lot and made even uncomfortable experiences funny

 Seconds later our group was chased by a snake charmer demanding money for the photo—I think this will be funny eventually, but not yet.

JS: Do you “heart” Morocco?

Me: To be blunt—no. I loved the people I traveled with and I loved that I got to see so much of the country, but I didn’t fall in love with Morocco. Much of it had to do with the local people I interacted with. I felt that as an adult woman who was clearly not married, many of the storeowners and wait staff didn’t really know what to do with me and therefore ignored me.

I tried to order tea at a shop for five minutes only to be ignored completely. When I tried to barter for gifts to buy, it would take a long time for me to get the shopowner’s attention and then after I gave a price they would often just say, “No” and that would end the negotiation. But, that was just my experience. I’ve heard others that they had very different and more positive interactions.

[pause to thoughtful push a piece of hair behind my ear]

I think if I spoke French, it might have been different. I didn’t realize how many people in Morocco speak French.

JS: That brings up an interesting point. Morocco claims to be a fairly liberal Muslim country in terms of women’s rights and cultural norms. Did you find this to be true?

Me: One of the guides mentioned that a few years ago Morocco passed a law that increased women’s rights. Before then women were only considered ½ a person according to the law. I don’t know enough to really speak about this.

I did notice that women were wearing a wide variety of clothing. Some were wearing modern clothes and a hijab (headscarf) on their heads. Some had on an abaya (full robe over that goes over the clothes) and a hijab. Some had the abaya and their full face covered with a niqab. It was interesting to see groups of women traveling together, each women wearing a different variety of the clothing I just described.

  JS: Well, we are just about of time. You aren’t interesting enough to extend the interview to the web, but if you have published a book, I’ll promote it for you. Have you published a book?

Me: Umm… not yet.

JS: Well, thanks for coming on the show. Julie, come back when you’ve finished your trip and we’ll talk more.

[to the audience] That’s it for our show. Now, your moment of zen:

Dublin, belated guest post from Heather

Our little Georgian home

The Dublin guest blog! Shamefully late from guest blogger Heather :)  Please mentally insert between France and Lisbon in Julie's trekking.

 

Trinity College Bell Tower

As Julie reported, the eating was good. Oh, goodness, was there cheese and cider galore! This may just turn into a post on the many wonderful ciders we drank, but I’ll try to include some real places, too. I arrived a day early and got us checked into the cute AirBnB house we were renting a room in. It was very “Dublin” as marked by the Georgian architecture and brightly colored door. Our hosts—and almost everyone we met in Dublin—were super friendly. 

When Julie arrived on Friday for first official Day 1, we tackled some sightseeing, hitting up a tour of Trinity College, including a very funny recent grad tour guide, the Book of Kells and the library. Or rather THE library. Learning about medieval book making and illustration was cool. The Book of Kells itself was hard to see with so many people, but all of the illustrated were really amazing. 

The highlight of the tour, though, was the old library, filled with ancient books, mostly in Latin, up two stories—and sorted by size! No library of congress or dewy decimal here. It was absolutely beautiful there. 

Oscar Wilde. No monochrome marble for this man!

 

Between the tour and the library we found Oscar Wilde at Merrion Square (it was a beautiful park, with all different street lamps throughout). The statue was cool, and I found a neat blog about it that talks about all the lovely stone in it. We discovered Butler's Chocolate, which we later realized was THE chocolatier throughout Dublin, and saw a bit of the National Gallery. That evening there were pubs with friends of Julie’s from the ship, and some spontaneous live music, Trad One, at a pretty decent pub off the main route in Temple Bar, called the Storehouse. The piper caught me taking the picture!



Day two, hiking in Howth, a great little sea town with a beautiful cliff walk that both my Dubliner native flight companion and one of Julie’s coworkers had both recommended coming in. It was a gorgeous day and 9 of us hiked over the hills of heather like the Fellowship. It looks grey and overcast, but it was quite lovely and even warm once we began hiking. We then returned to town for a great seafood lunch at "one of the best seafood restaurants of 2013," The Oar House. (and dessert of macaroons in the local market).

 

Howth (hoooth)


Julie and I bolted back into town to try to get a tour of Abbey Theatre that I had talked us onto the night before. Although we weren’t able to get an official tour due to a performance, the guide who felt bad about mixing up the days on us gave us a lighting round tour that included an unofficial glance into costume storage, fabric room, shoe storage, and wigs.


Julie's tempura courgette blossoms

 


 

Another great dinner with Mary, Kelly, and Ashley from the ship, and a performance of Major Barbara at the Abbey.  Beautiful production values with a really cool moving set, and Paul McGann (the 8th Doctor!!) was fantastic.









With Mary, Ashley, and Kelly at the Abbey Theatre







Giant Hobbit hole!

Day 3 (tired yet?) was our day trip out to the Cliffs of Moher. We got up at the crack of pre-dawn and slept our way across the country. After a quick photo stop in Limerick to see King John’s castle over the Shannon, we arrived in rolling hills and the Cliffs. The visitor center looked like a giant Hobbit building! The cliffs were amazing (once we dragged ourselves away from the happy Irish cows), and we walked out along the wild side a bit away from the fenced in parkland. These stunning cliffs may be recognizable as the Cliffs of Insanity from The Princess Bride, and the location of Voldemort’s cave for Regulus’s locket. We were promised puffins in all the signage, but no go.

Our trip also took us out to the Burren, a beautiful rock surface along the coast on the West side of Ireland. Note: also HP filming, as one of the cold, lonely camping locales. This might have been one of the more amazing landscapes we saw on the whole trip. It was just so huge, and we continued to see stretches of it up and down the coast as we drove on. After a stop in little Doolin for lunch, and the very beautiful ruins and graveyard of Corcomroe Abbey, we headed home.
 
 


Seems like a good idea!

Looking sadly into the distance like Hermione

Happy Irish cows

 




















Our lovely house-host served us homemade crepes for dinner. Despite it being Sunday night, we tracked down a local pub with more live music--an Irish band doing bluegrass and Americana music!! The crowd was 3 am drunk at 10 pm due to a huge Gaelic football game that day, but the music was pretty good, and we had a lovely last night in Dublin.


The Final day was leisurely shopping and finding a few gifts and photo ops… we returned to our beloved Sheridan’s cheesemongers (they give you lots of cheese tastings to help you find what you want!) for an elevensies of goat cheese, baguette, and pesto, and the met Mary and Kelly from the ship by chance in Grafton Street.


Elevensies from Sheridan's Cheesemongers

The lunch-time play they had heard about was sold out, so we wandered further along town to find the historic district, meandering through Dublin Castle on our way to the Brazen Head--the oldest pub in Dublin and where Robin Hood was rumored to drink. It had a beautiful medieval style courtyard where we had a classically Irish lunch, cider-blacks, and a lovely visit.
 
 


"Falling slowly...."

  
   
  
 

On our way back, we found Walton’s music store, where the piano scene from Once was filmed and Glen Hansard used to hang out, near George’s Arcade (also a great place for shopping, the Arcade, and where I had my first travel-weary lunch on my arrival day!).

 




Thank you, Dublin! And thank you to Julie and all her new friends on the ship for sharing a tiny portion of their trip with me.