Extortion on the Seas or My Weekend at the Lake Volta Seaside

Shout out to my 'rents, who are not only reading, but commenting! Very cool, especially for my mom, who has barely conquered email!

Since Jennifer arrived Monday (6/18), we've been planning how we would spend our weekend (my last weekend in Ghana!). We had decided to go to the eastern shore of Lake Volta, Kpando (Kp makes a sound like an explosive 'p' so it's pronounced Pan-doe) and then down to Tafi Abuipe and Tafi Atome. We left Friday afternoon (6/22) and would return on Sunday.

Leaving Ve-Deme Junction, we got the first tro-tro that went by and got dropped off at Golokuati, about 12 km down the road. From there, we got onto a very sketchy old tro-tro and waited in the heat of the day for the car to fill so we could head to Kpando.

We make it to Kpando in about 45 minutes, the tro-tro struggling the entire way and it dies suddenly and loudly at the last stop, Kpando market. Smoke filled the tro-tro as we clamoured out, grateful to be there after the rough ride. We chalked it up to experience (which turned out to be the word of the weekend), and made our way down to the market in hopes of finding a taxi that could take us to nearby Fesi. In Fesi, there is a woman's cooperative that makes and sells pottery, and we wanted to go and observe, take pictures, and make some purchases.

We find Kpandu Potters (Kpando and Kpandu are interchangeable) with the assistance of some children. There are about a half-dozen women on a covered porch, working with clay in various forms and stages. It was a really nice place, and they had some lovely artwork. I bought some, but you'll just have to wait to hear more about that. :)

Anyways, we round up our purchases and hop a tro-tro back into Kpando proper, only a 10 minute drive or so. We consult our map and head toward Catherine's Lodge (or so we think). After about 25 minutes of walking and not seeing the landmarks, we hire a taxi to take us there. When we arrive, we see that we were going in the completely wrong direction. Sigh. I can't read a map for the life of me, I swear.

But Catherine's Lodge is very nice. It costs us more than double what we had expected, but still only about $5.50 when split between two people. There is running water and a fan and it's clean, all of which means a lot here. We shower, then go sit outside in the gazebo, reading until just before dusk. We head out in search of dinner, but we don't know where we're going (of course). Luckily, Isaplan, the guy that runs the hotel ran into us and led us to Rosie's, a decent restaurant. I'm growing very weary of Ghanaian food, but I figure I'll make it for the next four days.

We eat, return to our room, and sleep. The next morning, we head to Afram Plains, the port area of Kpando, in hopes of catching the ferry that crosses Lake Volta East-to-West. It quickly becomes apparent that this isn't as simple as it should be. Instead, we decided to charter a smaller boat, shared with others. An older man dressed in all black helped us negotiate terms with a father and son duo with a boat. The deal was that we would pay 25,000 cedis each to cross the river with them, buy them lunch and allow them a break, and then we would return for the same price. Thus, we would pay them a total of 100,000 cedis plus the cost of lunch to take us there and back.

When we arrive on the shore, neither of us are sure where we were exactly. The trip took a lot longer than we had expected: nearly 90 minutes, and we were expecting more like 45 minutes. We figure out that we have crossed Lake Volta, meaning we are in the small village of Agordeke.

This is were our plans begin to fall apart. The father grunts and points out the "resthouse" to us, which we don't really understand. We try to sit in the little "canteen" (this is a really small place, so it's more like some one's outdoor kitchen) and get our lunch started so we can head out, because it's so much later than we thought. We had arrived at the port at 8:45 am and it was nearly 1:30 at this point. Then the son makes it clear that they do not intend to head back to the other side of the lake today.

Inside, I'm instantly freaking out. We are on the other side of the biggest man-made lake on the continent. There are no taxi-cars, no tro-tros, not nearby. Even if we could get one, we would have to go west and then south around the lake, then back north and west again to get to Kpando. It would take many, many hours: Like 12. The men are trying to say that they will take us back for 200,000 cedis. We're not sure if this is just a misunderstanding or if they're swindling us. It's so frustrating. We just barely speak a common language and I'm trying to be firm without being rude. We are not staying here and they are taking us back to Kpando today.

After about 2 hours of them hemming-and-hawing and doing nothing about the situation at hand (in a way that only Ghanaians can do), we finally agree to them taking us back for 130,000 cedis. We're not happy about it, because we feel like they are going back on their deal and are just ripping us off because we have no other options. I don't know if this was the plan from the get-go, and I guess we'll never know, but it was stressful and scary and just awful.

I was really proud of the way that I (well, both of us) handled the situation, it could have easily turned ugly. It was pretty ugly as it was, with the father kind of storming off and leaving the son to deal with us.

It takes forever for us to leave, because we have to make a stop at a fishing village a little further up the shore, where the father leaves us out in the sun for about 90 minutes, just waiting. It was nearly 4 pm when we started the trip back to Afram Plains. Luckily, the wind was with us and it only took us about an hour. We were hot, tired, sunburned, hungry, and haggard. When we finally got back to the hotel, we showered and just locked ourselves in for the night, without dinner (or lunch or breakfast, too). We were both asleep by 7:30 and slept hard until about 6-7 am.

So, I spent yesterday (6/23) on Lake Volta, had a uniquely African experience, and survived to tell the tale. And I earned a wickedly-bad sunburn out of the deal.