Accra!
Tis a Friday evening and I returned from Accra at around 12 today, anticipating a busy time at the office. I was not disappointed. It seems like I have a full weekend of work ahead of me, with messages from three clients that my presence is required.
With Albert having rotated back on R&R on Wednesday – I am it!
Well the Lurgy has become a full blown flu with all the wonderful effects that flu has on the body. I am also taking malaria treatment tablets as a precaution and if I am not feeling substantially better by tomorrow, I do think it is time to take a test. This is all I needed a week before I rotate home.
That said – Accra!!!
It is actually the first time since I arrived in Ghana nine !!! months ago that I have actually spent time in Accra. Not very responsible of me, but for some reason I have found it difficult to get away from the Tarkwa region for any great length of time. When I do get away, it is on customer visits and they are unfortunately not in Accra.
I drove myself and had planned a client pre bid meeting, making contact with the ports authority to gain access to the port for one of our divisions and follow up on an airfreight parcel that did not reach the required destination.
I left Tarkwa at 11:30am to avoid (a) driving in the dark and (b) getting lost, and happily arrived in Accra at 5:00 pm after a rather uneventful journey. The road to Accra has improved a lot, and most of the diversions are now completed road. There was only one snarl up at a market around 10kms outside of Accra, but I am Ghana Proof enough to force my way into lanes that suddenly appear. These guys make a single lane road take 4 lanes of traffic so easily it amazes me. There was a cop on point? Duty and all he could do was shout at the people ignoring him totally.
I also got “caught” speeding. Only in this country can they use their little laser gun on the lad in front of you, and then quite happily pull both of you over. I gave my normal “what did you stop me for” speech, and when advised that I was doing 77kmph in a 50kmph zone I asked how they knew that if they had zapped the guy in front of me. A logical “because you were following him” was their reasoning.
I was amazed and reasonably pissed off that they could actually do this and wasted no time in telling said policeman that I was not wholly in agreement with him. (in my own special way of course). True to form I was “arrested”. I have mentioned before, in Ghana there is no such thing as a ticket or *legal* spot fine. You go to court. Of course court was “full” until Monday which meant I was to be detained until then. I am sure highly illegal etc, but hey the worst part about it is they actually can do it. The rule of law is wide in this country.
I paid my “spot fine” of GHC 400.000 with long teeth and continued my journey.
I managed to find the hotel with surprising ease considering I had stayed there but once before and it still been early I decided to take a recce mission to Tema which would be the location of my meeting the next day. Tema is some 30kms from Accra along the Tema Highway. A nice highway – with the obligatory roadwork’s – that culminates in a traffic circle of note. Sign posts are not Accra’s – or Ghana’s for that matter – strongest suites. Based on the assumption the port is near the sea, I headed for the coast.
Tema, peak hour, more traffic circles and 1000’s of cars does not make for easy driving, and needless to say I got (hopelessly) lost in the great town. After driving aimlessly for around an hour, I finally found the port (and around 80 churches, army training centers, peacekeeping barracks, rifle range and loads of hawkers). Deciding I had achieved what I had set out to achieve it was time to go back to Accra. Oh so much easier said than done! It was now dark, and quite honestly all my landmarks had vanished into the darkness that is only possible when 50% of the town has no electricity. I found a few traffic circles, got caught up in a horrific traffic jam which saw me move some 100 meters in 30 minutes and twice ended up on the road to Ho. (137km from Accra – yes that road had a farking sign post).
Eventually I asked for directions – yes I actually asked for directions. I still managed to get lost. *chuckle*. After a lot more aimless driving, I finally found the highway and ended up back at the hotel at 8.30. Yup – only I can turn a 1 hour drive into a 3 hour sight seeing trip.
Fortunately Zack had returned that evening from SA and I hijacked him the next day for the meeting. Zack has been in Ghana for eight odd years and spent two of those years working in Accra. He knows his way around. It was amazing how simple it was to go to all the places I had to when someone knew where he was going. What was also amazing was the one place where I had turned around the night before, would have led me straight onto the highway, had I just kept on going. All part of the learning experience.
That said – Accra and Tema is where we have to be. The potential business there is amazing!!
Food wise: Nando’s (of course) on the Wednesday and Zack took me to a sports bar for a steak on Thursday. Shades of Swaziland as it was obviously an expat hangout with loads of expats coming for the “Thursday Quiz” (In Swaziland it was the Tuesday Quiz).
All in all a successful trip opened my eyes to some opportunities and gave me an insight to the capital.
One thing about Accra’s roads is they are generally double laned freeways with an island in the middle. The one issue which is most frustrating is the fact that if you are heading West and want to turn across the road, you drive past where you want to go until you find a “U turn lane”, where you do a U turn (which is why it is called a U turn lane) and head East until you get to the place you want to be. Time consuming!
Another “innovation” is numerous traffic circles which instead of been run as a traffic circle should have cops on point duty defeating the objective of the circle totally. If there are four exits from the traffic circle, then you have four cops on point duty. All good an well if they are synchronized and allow traffic to flow around the circle, but a god almighty cock up when Cop A lets the traffic flow into the circle and Cop C stops the traffic in the circle. Result – Gridlock! Some shouting, the obligatory hooting and eventually Cop C realizes his error and corrects it, only to find Cop D stopping the traffic that cop C is now letting through.
And of course you have the taxi’s that ignore the cop and go into the circle anyway!
Traffic is Accra’s biggest challenge. It makes the concrete highway at 7.15am at the Rivonia off ramp look like a Sunday morning.
My head is pounding – I am sweating so much that my socks are damp and I am unhappy.
I go now!
With Albert having rotated back on R&R on Wednesday – I am it!
Well the Lurgy has become a full blown flu with all the wonderful effects that flu has on the body. I am also taking malaria treatment tablets as a precaution and if I am not feeling substantially better by tomorrow, I do think it is time to take a test. This is all I needed a week before I rotate home.
That said – Accra!!!
It is actually the first time since I arrived in Ghana nine !!! months ago that I have actually spent time in Accra. Not very responsible of me, but for some reason I have found it difficult to get away from the Tarkwa region for any great length of time. When I do get away, it is on customer visits and they are unfortunately not in Accra.
I drove myself and had planned a client pre bid meeting, making contact with the ports authority to gain access to the port for one of our divisions and follow up on an airfreight parcel that did not reach the required destination.
I left Tarkwa at 11:30am to avoid (a) driving in the dark and (b) getting lost, and happily arrived in Accra at 5:00 pm after a rather uneventful journey. The road to Accra has improved a lot, and most of the diversions are now completed road. There was only one snarl up at a market around 10kms outside of Accra, but I am Ghana Proof enough to force my way into lanes that suddenly appear. These guys make a single lane road take 4 lanes of traffic so easily it amazes me. There was a cop on point? Duty and all he could do was shout at the people ignoring him totally.
I also got “caught” speeding. Only in this country can they use their little laser gun on the lad in front of you, and then quite happily pull both of you over. I gave my normal “what did you stop me for” speech, and when advised that I was doing 77kmph in a 50kmph zone I asked how they knew that if they had zapped the guy in front of me. A logical “because you were following him” was their reasoning.
I was amazed and reasonably pissed off that they could actually do this and wasted no time in telling said policeman that I was not wholly in agreement with him. (in my own special way of course). True to form I was “arrested”. I have mentioned before, in Ghana there is no such thing as a ticket or *legal* spot fine. You go to court. Of course court was “full” until Monday which meant I was to be detained until then. I am sure highly illegal etc, but hey the worst part about it is they actually can do it. The rule of law is wide in this country.
I paid my “spot fine” of GHC 400.000 with long teeth and continued my journey.
I managed to find the hotel with surprising ease considering I had stayed there but once before and it still been early I decided to take a recce mission to Tema which would be the location of my meeting the next day. Tema is some 30kms from Accra along the Tema Highway. A nice highway – with the obligatory roadwork’s – that culminates in a traffic circle of note. Sign posts are not Accra’s – or Ghana’s for that matter – strongest suites. Based on the assumption the port is near the sea, I headed for the coast.
Tema, peak hour, more traffic circles and 1000’s of cars does not make for easy driving, and needless to say I got (hopelessly) lost in the great town. After driving aimlessly for around an hour, I finally found the port (and around 80 churches, army training centers, peacekeeping barracks, rifle range and loads of hawkers). Deciding I had achieved what I had set out to achieve it was time to go back to Accra. Oh so much easier said than done! It was now dark, and quite honestly all my landmarks had vanished into the darkness that is only possible when 50% of the town has no electricity. I found a few traffic circles, got caught up in a horrific traffic jam which saw me move some 100 meters in 30 minutes and twice ended up on the road to Ho. (137km from Accra – yes that road had a farking sign post).
Eventually I asked for directions – yes I actually asked for directions. I still managed to get lost. *chuckle*. After a lot more aimless driving, I finally found the highway and ended up back at the hotel at 8.30. Yup – only I can turn a 1 hour drive into a 3 hour sight seeing trip.
Fortunately Zack had returned that evening from SA and I hijacked him the next day for the meeting. Zack has been in Ghana for eight odd years and spent two of those years working in Accra. He knows his way around. It was amazing how simple it was to go to all the places I had to when someone knew where he was going. What was also amazing was the one place where I had turned around the night before, would have led me straight onto the highway, had I just kept on going. All part of the learning experience.
That said – Accra and Tema is where we have to be. The potential business there is amazing!!
Food wise: Nando’s (of course) on the Wednesday and Zack took me to a sports bar for a steak on Thursday. Shades of Swaziland as it was obviously an expat hangout with loads of expats coming for the “Thursday Quiz” (In Swaziland it was the Tuesday Quiz).
All in all a successful trip opened my eyes to some opportunities and gave me an insight to the capital.
One thing about Accra’s roads is they are generally double laned freeways with an island in the middle. The one issue which is most frustrating is the fact that if you are heading West and want to turn across the road, you drive past where you want to go until you find a “U turn lane”, where you do a U turn (which is why it is called a U turn lane) and head East until you get to the place you want to be. Time consuming!
Another “innovation” is numerous traffic circles which instead of been run as a traffic circle should have cops on point duty defeating the objective of the circle totally. If there are four exits from the traffic circle, then you have four cops on point duty. All good an well if they are synchronized and allow traffic to flow around the circle, but a god almighty cock up when Cop A lets the traffic flow into the circle and Cop C stops the traffic in the circle. Result – Gridlock! Some shouting, the obligatory hooting and eventually Cop C realizes his error and corrects it, only to find Cop D stopping the traffic that cop C is now letting through.
And of course you have the taxi’s that ignore the cop and go into the circle anyway!
Traffic is Accra’s biggest challenge. It makes the concrete highway at 7.15am at the Rivonia off ramp look like a Sunday morning.
My head is pounding – I am sweating so much that my socks are damp and I am unhappy.
I go now!
2 Comments:
Oh Kappiahat - u say the nicest things. *chuckle*
btw: Your company has an amazing website. Congratulate the webmaster for me!
IP tracking is a wonderful thing K. *chuckle*
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