Eco Villages and Pirate Towns

Accra's pretty blah so most people here take to traveling to the rest of Ghana, which is fabulous, on the weekends. Friday I left for the Western Region. After almost 9 hours of waiting in tro-tro yards and cruising along to Ghanaian covers of early '90s hits, Anna, Claire, and I arrived at the Green Turtle Lodge, which is pretty much Middle of Nowhere, Atlantic Coast, Ghana. For a second I thought I had died and gone to eco friendly, tropical paradise heaven. The lodge is completely solar powered, recycles its wash water on soap loving plants, and utlizes self composting toilets...you get the idea. plus its entirely locally staffed and all the money goes back into the community so you can feel good about dropping your 400,000 cedis there. Plus, its right on a completely deserted gorgeous strech of ocean.
Friday afternoon we mostly beach hung and played scrabble like big dorks (i lost despite inventing words such as "brines.") during an evening rain shower.
Saturday morning we walked 15 minutes down the beach to the nearest town, Akwidaa, population 600. There, we hopped in a dugout canoe and were pattled through the mangrove swamp for an hour and a half. Saw lots of birds: ducks, egrets, something blue looked like an egret and had green feet. Also lots of bright red and blue crabs scuttling along the muddy banks. It reminded me of the part of Harry Potter when they are following the giant spiders in the forest. We also got to see some men at work: one guy fishing or spearing fish or something from high up in the mangrove, another macheting oysters off the mangrove roots, another one just naked and paddling along in his little canoe...
We got back to the resort ealier than expected so we thought it would be a good idea to spend our afternoon hiking to the next significant settlement over, Cape Three Points, which is the southern most point of ghana and also has a neato lighthouse. Mmmmhmmm. Well its a bout a 6 mile walk in one direction and we set out at 11AM. By the time we got there I was so delirous with heat, exhasution, dehydration that I really didnt care where we were. We collapsed in a heap at the cape, rested a bit, gazed a the ocean...it was lovely...though I thought the veiw at Apalm was better personally. Then we set out to go back. The village had no electricity (meaning no cold drinks) and no bottled water so we rehydrated with super fizzy cokes at the only place in the whole village that sold beverages. Talk about rural. A taxi diver offered to give us a ride back and then left without us making the return trip slightly more painful. We managed to take a little detour or "get lost" you might say and ended up in a village next to Akwidaa on the return trip. From there a horde (sp? im sure thats wrong) of children led us back over the hills on a footpath over looking the beach. It was gorgeous. They left us at Akwidaa where we were promptly befriended by the local children there who led us back to the main beach we had come from.
At this point I was about ready to collapse in a heap and die, but I decided to throw myself in the ocean instead. From there I crawled onto the beach for a rest break, then into the most amazing shower I've possibly every had, then to the bar for happy hour. I had a drink with a 3rd year med student who's working at a clinic near by (go me! haha jk) and then gorged myself on dinner and fondu. Ahhh, amazing. We all slept like babies to say the least.
Sunday was reserved for more beach hanging/hammock reading etc. Then we hit the road back to Accra and the "real world."
Round trip this three day adventure to tropical paradise cost me about $40 and thats by far the most i've spent traveling so far. Jealous yet? :)