Beach!!

So, I've been excited about going to the beach ever since I found out that we'd be able to go in Accra (a sentiment that perhaps did me a disservice, as the beach was greatly built up in my mind). Nevertheless, we had a pretty good time!

We left around 1 with a group that fit in 3 taxis. We had a local Ghanaian with us, which insured a good taxi price (which is bargained upon, like most everything else here). We went to a private beach, which is pretty much as must here. Even being private, it still had places that were pretty dirty, and it was common to see plastic bags floating around here and there.

The weather was pretty good, slightly cloudy. The beach was pretty empty, which was a bit strange, especially when the beachgoers at one point were mostly white. We put our stuff down, under the watchful eyes of our sunbathing friends, and ran for the water, interrupted only shortly by a lifeguard warning us about where we could and could not swim due to strong currents.

The water was warm, and a little cloudy. The waves were pretty great for our purposes. Strong enough to knock you down if you weren't careful, but not overwhelming. The strangest thing was when sometimes waves would even seem to come backwards, and crash into the incoming waves.

We swam for a while, then went looking for shells, which, unfortunately, wasn't very fruitful. I'm not sure if this was due to high tide, or if it just isn't a good shell beach.

After that we swam a bit more, then decided to eat at of the restaurants.

The funny thing about restaurants here is that they take SOOO LOOONG. Even if you order an hour in advance, there isn't a guarantee that you'll get it in a timely fashion.

The food was a bit sketchy, long in coming, and the company was a bit frustrating at times, since some in our party had a little too much to drink.

But all's well that ends well. We took taxis back, and our taxidriver had the foresight to take the back roads, as we left during rush hour traffic. Discussions in our cab were interesting, including why the heck is the U.S. Embassy here sooo huge?

After getting home I showered quickly (I've come to rather enjoy these cold showers), as the light was to go off.

We had an early night of reading by flashlight under our mosquito nets, a nice way to finish a day at the beach if I do say so.