Accra: A Tour Cursed From Beginning to End

Being cursed did not mean that everything on the tour was bad. Many things were very good but, overall, this day had more than its fair share of setbacks. Before coming on the cruise, Richard and Joan, our leaders on Cruise Critic, had set up a private tour in Ghana for 12 to 14 people. So many people wanted to join them that they tried to be nice and arranged for two more vans. Richard printed off a list for everyone of what to expect on the tour, including what sights we would see, that no lunch was scheduled and that people should bring their own water and snacks. He also asked Pat and Sara to serve as tour group leaders on Vans 2 and 3. Because we had crossed the equator recently and we were heading inland to the capital city of Accra, he assumed that people would know it would be hot. Unfortunately, it seemed that many people did not read Richard's carefully prepared outline and that no one could cope with the 110 degrees F. temperature. Lesson Number 1 turned out to be that if you are not making money off of an endeavor, keep your trip to one vehicle. Lesson Number 2 would be that you should not expect people to read and understand information while they are on vacation. You need to get in their faces and tell them face to face what to expect and then have them repeat it back to you. Lesson Number 3 would be that when the temperature is well over 100 degrees F., you should never expect anyone to be rational.

Sara was really excited about serving as a tour group leader because this role could be a possible third career for her after the corporate world and college teaching. Even people on the other vans who continued to be very friendly to her told her that she should not let this horrible first experience of being in charge color her opinion of this possible new career.

Because Tema is a huge, commercial port, the ship provided a shuttle to transport people to the gate, supposedly a 10-minute walk from the dock. The shuttles were small and part of our group of 36 were ushered to a second shuttle. While the first shuttle took off, the second shuttle waited at the dock. After 10 minutes, we asked if we could leave but were told that our shuttle had to wait until the first one returned. We waited for almost 30 minutes before leaving for the gate, which we learned was more like a 15-minute ride away. Lesson Number 4 is don't always believe the literature a cruise ship or a tour operator provides. Even after everyone was seated in their assigned vans, we did not take off. The tour company wanted its money and informed us it had to go to a money changer to get it changed. The temperature kept rising, the air conditioning on the vans turned out to be anemic, if not nonexistent, and several people had to get off the vans because they were getting grossly overheated. Would this tour ever begin?

Once we did pull out onto the incredibly crowded highway, the first site we saw was a shanty town quickly constructed for the workers who had built the harbor. After they had finished the project, many of the workers had decided not to go back to their homelands but remained in Tema, making this shanty town the biggest slum in the area. The unemployment rate is more than 55 percent so everyone makes a living anyway possible. The emergence of technology has created some new jobs but not nearly enough. Along the road were many unfinished homes. Most of the foundations were concrete, which is expensive, so people would stop building until they could earn more money to continue.

Someone noted that we were driving on the right side of the road, which was odd in a country that had been a British colony. Our guide Nii informed us that when the country was under a military government in 1972, that government had changed the driving lanes from left to right. Nii also informed Sara that he was the only guide for all three vans so he would be switching to another van when we made a rest stop. When Sara asked the driver if he spoke English, he answered, "Very little," which really meant almost nothing. Lesson Number 5 was not to expect much in a third-world country that had only gained independence in the last half century. But why should we expect more because our country has been working at it for more than 200 years, and with what was happening with inflation, unemployment, a staggering national debt, skyrocketing prices for gasoline and a budget that saw far more spending than saving, has not gotten it right yet. Lesson Number 6 about dealing with only one tour guide for three vans and drivers who did not speak English was get everything that you want from a tour in writing. However, we were not sure that a written contract would have guaranteed us anything better with Ghana Welcome Tours.

Our first stop was the National Museum about the life, culture and history of Ghana. While the museum's guide tried his best to inform us about the exhibits, what impressed our group most was the good prices on authentic African art that were fixed. No one wanted to go upstairs with the guide when they could buy crafts with no one harassing them like the vendors on the streets. We even had a difficult time getting the tour group leaders out of the gift shop when our tour ended. As we were leaving, a group of Chinese tourists entered for their tour in Chinese.

As we drove to the next stop, which we had no idea what it was, we noted that the women carrying baskets on their heads had fashioned a device from twisted scarves that they wore underneath the baskets to make it easier to balance them. Now that we were in the city, traffic was much worse. People walking along the sidewalk were making better time than our van. The driver told Sara that Friday was the worst day for traffic, but this was Thursday. Being in the front seat next to the driver, Sara witnessed up-close and personal when two vehicles from either side tried to merge into our lane. No wonder so many cars and vans sported huge dents and scrapes! A billboard that impressed us touted, "Justice is not for sale. Resist from taking or making bribes." We needed this sign in the United States.

When we finally arrived at the second stop, the Kwanie Nkrumah Memorial, where the first president of the country was buried, we learned that the Chinese tourists who were behind us at the museum had beat us to this stop and had already started their tour. We later learned that the group had paid for a police escort. Lesson Number 7 was do not always believe what a country touts on its billboards and in publicity. Money talks, even with the police who are government workers.

The first statue we saw was the separate body and head of the first president. Before being moved to this location, the statue stood in front of the old Parliament House. During a coup d'etat on February 24, 1966, a mob had vandalized it. For Sara, this was what should happen to passengers who do not listen to their group leaders. We had learned about the fate of the first president, who ruled for six years as president, from one of our fellow passengers on the ship, Ronni, who had lived in Ghana from 1967 to 1970 while her husband had a contract as a trainer with Kaiser, that Kwanie Nkrumah was a dictator whom most of the people hated but for some unknown reason was now canonized by the same country that had overthrown and exiled him.

The major monument in the park resembled the trunk of a stylized tree that represented the unfinished business of the first president who wanted to free all of Africa, probably to be jewels in the crown of his dictatorship. Growing in the memorial park were trees planted by the leaders of other countries who had visited Accra. The best thing about the museum on the grounds, where we could not take photographs, was the air conditioning. The first president, who lived from 1909 to 1972 when he died of prostrate cancer, was married to an Egyptian, Madam Fathia. He also wrote 14 books (the most notable being Africa Must Unite) and numerous pamphlets after he had received degrees from several British and American universities, including the University of Pennsylvania. How did he have the time to write so extensively while being imprisoned and then governing a country, when we cannot seem to keep our blog up to date? At the museum, several people on our van admonished Sara that we needed to change the itinerary of our tour so we could go to places that were not duplicates of sites we had seen in other countries. Lesson Number 8 was to realize that people whom you thought respected you could rise up against you it they did not get their own way.

On our drive to the artists' market, which was clearly presented as a stop on the information sheet that Richard had provided everyone, we passed a funeral in which the mourners were wearing white. Fortunately, Nii was riding in our van so he told us that if the deceased is 70 or more, the attendees wear white because that person has fulfilled God's promise of three score and 10 years. If the dearly departed is 50 or more, the mourners wear brown, and if the newly dead is between 20 and 50, they dress in red. Outside of Accra, mourners dressed in black. We passed Independence Square, which is the second largest open space after Tianaman Square in Beijing and a billboard proclaiming "A New Accra for a Better Ghana."

When we arrived at the market, the passengers on our van voted to spend only one-half hour there rather than the allotted hour. Even Richard said this was fine but he did not consult with our tour guide, drivers or the young Dutchman who managed the tour company who had been following us in a taxi. When we returned to the van after being harassed by the vendors and buying more things than we wanted to buy just to get out of their shops (TIP: Never get taken alone to the back of a store by the owner because you will not be able to escape the store without spending more money), we could not find one of the passengers. Finally, the Dutchman told us that she was in another van and he would be riding with us. When he disappeared, Sara, trying to be a good tour leader, searched the other two vans for the missing passenger because she did not want to leave anyone behind. After being at the market for more than an hour because four passengers on one of the other vans had decided to eat lunch at the only diner in the market, the Dutchman returned to our van with the message we could leave. But still no lost passenger. Lesson Number 9 was that even if you had booked and paid for a tour, do not assume that you are in charge because the non-English speaking drivers in Vans 2 and 3 may not know their way around the city, and they need to follow the first van. Also, we later learned that the manager of the company had loaned his taxi to our missing passenger because she had spent the whole tour complaining and wanted to go back to the ship immediately.

Sara told the tour guide that everyone would be happier if we stopped at a place where we could buy sodas or other drinks. He agreed and informed the other vans to follow him. He had our driver stop at an Italian restaurant in a section of the city that he said was known for its restaurants and night spots. After we all used the restrooms there, we learned from the waitress that the place did not accept American dollars. Why had the guide chosen this establishment? Lesson Number 10 was do not be an arrogant American who thinks that every other country in the world should accept our currency. Does the United States honor theirs? Also, make clear to your guide exactly what you want and how you want to pay for it.

At this point on our ill-fated trip, everyone in Van 2 wanted to tour the W.E.B. Dubois House while the passengers on Vans 1 and 3 were divided. To Sara's disappointment, only she, Ken and another passenger wanted to continue the tour with the remainder wanting to return immediately to the ship and put an end to their misery. To add insult to injury, Ken would have joined the majority if Sara had not been the tour leader. So Sara jumped ship and abdicated her leadership on Van 3 to join Van 1 on the continuation of the tour.

Actually, this was the best stop. Dubois, the first black Ph.D. graduate of Harvard University and the founder of the NAACP, had been a mentor of the first president who invited him to come to Ghana at the age of 92 to write the Encyclopedia Africana. Dubois' trip was postponed for a year because the United States would not provide him with a Visa to return, thinking he might be a Communist. At the age of 93, he and his second wife settled into the house where he supervised the research for the set of eight volumes until he died at age 95. As a friend of the president, he was given a state funeral. The tour was wonderful but it kept getting extended and extended and extended while Van 2, which had left the restaurant before ours, failed to arrive. After we had been shown the original bathroom in the home and learned what all the symbols on the benches circling the burial place of the ashes of Dubois and his wife meant, we inquired about where the other passengers were and noticed that our van was missing. We were informed that one of the passengers on the second van had raised her camera to take a photograph of the American Embassy, the largest embassy we had ever seen, before noticing the "No Photography" signs and put the camera down without snapping the picture. However, a Ghana policeman noticed the camera and forced the van to stop, taking the passenger off the van in the direction of the American Embassy. The manager of the company had contacted our driver to bring our van to the embassy. Lesson Number 11: Do not take photographs of any building or police officers unless your guide tell you that you can.

While we were concerned about our shipmate, we were equally dismayed that we were vanless and had left most of our things on our van. The owner of the tour company finally appeared with a different van and driver who promised us that we would get back to the ship before all passengers were required to be aboard. Staying an extra night in Ghana and trying to make airline reservations to the next port of Dakar were not what we wanted to do. On the way back, we learned that Pat was the one with the camera who was marched off the bus. After the owner of the company had explained that she and her group were on a cruise ship and needed to return to the port immediately, and Pat showed a copy of her passport proclaiming that her blood ran red, white and blue, she and the manager were finally released. So everything should have been fine, right? Are you kidding? It turned out that the driver of Van 2 had started an argument with another policeman who demanded that he show his driver's license. He vocally refused very loudly and very long (perhaps he did not have a license) and was marched away. Because the manager did not have a Ghana driver's license, he sent for our van and engaged a fourth van to take us back to the port.

We drove along a paved, and then unpaved, extremely bumpy road along the shore, which was selected as an alternate route because of the traffic jams on the highway that we had used when we came from the port to the city. Sights not to be missed were the people standing along the road and on the median trying to sell everything from toilet paper to food to the people in the vehicles, the miles and miles of vendor stands along the road, the juxtaposition of the military firing range on the beach near a Peacekeeping Center and the shops that sold Fantasy Coffins of Pa Joe and Pa Willie in the any shape one desires. Ken said he wanted to be buried in a casket shaped like a beer can so he will know that he "has died and gone to Heaven." Someone suggested that it would be cheaper to cremate him and put his ashes in an empty beer can. Custom caskets may be an idea for a new business in the United States.

When we arrived back at the gate to the port, we learned that all our belongings were waiting for us. Sara was one of the last passengers off the van because she was sitting in the back, not in front by the driver, and had not had to use her newly acquired skill of jumping up onto the seat. Instead, she had to put down the jump seat in front of her. When another passenger tried to help her, she had her left hand in the wrong place, and the bar snapped on her hand. It's a good thing she is right handed because her left hand was badly bruised and still hurt sevem days later. Lesson Number 12 was that no matter how bad things have been and you think that everything is finally over, things can still get worse.

When we boarded the shuttle to the ship, we were greeted by the passengers on Van 3 who told us they had been waiting for us. Actually, they had taken the major highway, been delayed and had just got back minutes before those of us on the extended tour of the Dubois House returned. The passengers who were detained at the American Embassy made it back before either of the other two original vans. Their van got behind a bus carrying passengers on a ship's tour that had a police escort so they told the driver to follow that bus. The traffic had come to a standstill when a policeman escorting the bus got out, motioned for the traffic to move back, and then directed the bus to cross over the median strip and drive on the wrong side of the road. The van followed the directions.

Richard, the organizer of our tour, has determined to develop a questionnaire to hand-select who will be on any of his future private tours including questions on how long passengers can go without food and drink in extreme heat. Sara has decided that she will probably not plan a third career as a tour guide or travel agent. Instead, she will develop a training course for tour guides and travel agencies in developing countries so that they are prepared to handle the worst. Punxsutawney Phil refused to come out of his make-shift burrow in Sara's purse during the entire tour and was rejoicing when the Pacific Princess sailed away.