Land Rover Beach Show at Green Turtle Lodge

4-6 march. big milly’s to green turtle lodge (akwade, near dixcove)

It’s sad to admit, but we’re too old for Big Millys at the weekend. Everyone else is much closer to 20 than we are and the live music goes on far too late and far too loud. Coming back from Franco’s restaurant with Andy and Esther (another overlander couple) on Saturday night, we all head off to bed... while the band is still setting up before their set. We lie there in the tent in the dark listening to the racket of the world’s worst drummer giving his drum kit a right bashing in the wrong order and at mostly the wrong times. Heading to the toilet to give my diarrhoea a brief run out, I overhear a couple of American volunteers chatting outside. “We rock!” one says. “We’re so tired!”. Feeling more and more like Victor Meldrew, I head back to the tent to listen if the drummer can hold his beat for more than a few bars. Ear plugs in, I drift off.

Claire and Jamie haven’t turned up, but send an email to let us know they are having “problems” and ask us to come and join them along the coast near Green Turtle Lodge. Driving along the coastal road, we pass a number of the old colonial trading forts, mainly British, Danish, Dutch and Portuguese, that remain as another reminder to the influence asserted over the last 500 years by Europeans in West Africa. Guns and alcohol coming in; slaves and gold going out.

Green Turtle Lodge was built by a lovely English couple, Tom and Jo, two years ago. Like Big Millys, it has a backpacker/volunteer clientele, but the atmosphere is totally different. Very chilled and laid back. No live music. No trinket or clothes stalls. Just a long stretch of beach and some killer waves to flip you over if you’re not careful. People relax on bamboo sofas, legs dangling in the sand, and read the days away. We park up under the cocunut trees at the edge of the beach and crack open a cold beer and watch the sun go down.

Claire and Jamie are staying a few minutes down the beach with James and Angela, an overlanding couple of Americans who reached here in December, stopped, and bought another stretch of beach. They are in the process of building their own beach lodge. When we turn up, their well is dug, the pit for the self composting toilet is also dug and the wooden frames of half a dozen or so chalets are dotted around the site, nestling among coconut trees. Workmen are putting on the first of the grass roofs to one of the chalets as we wander up off the beach. Everything’s very relaxed, but all we want to know about is what’s the “problem” Claire and Jamie have told us about that meant they couldn’t come and join us at Big Milly’s. They’re both standing there with goofy smiles as they tell us that they too have come down with the Ghana bug! They love it here and have bought themselves their own stretch of beach! “Secret beach” is about an hour’s walk down from Green Turtle Lodge as does a very passable impression of “The Beach” from the Di Caprio movie. It is lovely.

7 march. ankasa national park

(MJ writes) It’s difficult to tear ourselves away from this idyllic location, but we decide to go explore Ankasa National Park. Ankasa is a tropical forest located 100 km to the east from Agona, borders the Ivory Coast, and boasts a bamboo cathedral, which we are keen to see. It is a relatively easy journey on a good road and when we reach the park, we are directed towards the Staff Camp, as high winds and falling trees have made tracks through the park impassable.

The camp has a toilet, shower and we’re told, very pure water but unfortunately, the only place we can park the Landy is next to a huge tractor, which does ruin it a bit. We’re surrounded by this lush tropical forest, where the vegetation makes us feel very small, the humidity is palpable, and the birdsounds pierce through the silence, but we’re camping next to a tractor... Oh well.

We join our guide “King David” who offers to take us down to the Bamboo Cathedral and set off on a steep downward path torwards a river. We stop to watch a colony of red ants cross our path and try hard not to disturb their march. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many ants! At the bottom of the slope, down by the river, the Bamboo Cathedral is majestic! Rows upon rows of bamboo clusters, three to four stories high surround us and once again, we feel very small. King David leaves us and we cross a shaky bridge and climb up the river bank to an abandoned house on stilts. The air is very still and we sit in hope of glimpsing one of the many birds we hear high up in the canopy overhead. Unfortunately, we only hear and decide to head back to camp.

We hear a plane engine overhead and see a UN plane carrying evacuees out of the Ivory Coast. I’ve mentioned to Mark it would be interesting to see the coast from the air and suggest we drive through the border to be evacuated out by the UN; free plane ride, plenty to see...

The sky looks very menacing and the wind picks up; we can hear loud cracks from the forest and falling branches. The tractor’s not much to look at, but at least we’re safe. We’re treated to a cracking tropical rainstorm which rids the air of some of the humidity and heat; the thermometer goes down to 21C and it almost feels cold!

8 march. axim

We’ve decided that we’re going to move on and travel back to Dixcove and Green Turtle Lodge, stopping for the night along the way. We meet Micheal, an American botanist/environmental scientist whom we’d bumped into at Big Milly’s. He’s backpacking his way through Africa and, after picking plants and spending time with witch-doctors in the South, is on his way back North again. His destination today is Elubo - on the Ivory Coast border - to catch a bus for an onward journey to Kumasi and we offer to give him a lift. I climb onto the cubby box and make myself small for the 25 km journey to Elubo, but luckily we make many stops en route to look at plants, pick flowers and familiarise ourself with the cocoa tree and fruit. It’s a short journey during which Mark and I learn many things about native plants and Michael reminds us of a modern-day Victorian collecting species of plants and seeds to bring back from his expedition.

After dropping Michael off and a lunch of ‘red-red with fish’ at Ankobra Resort, we head for Axim. We meet Jonas Tettey, the friendly owner of Axim Beach Resort and set up camp there for the night right next to the beach.

Cape Coast Castle

Go on take my fort

What more can you ask for?

Bamboo Cathedral

Jungle Jane, check out my wellies

You get chocolate from this fruit (with Michael, the Explorer)