LABADI BEACH AKA LA PLEASURE BEACH ACCRA

Well my afternoon nap at 4pm yesterday turned into a 14 hour sleep fest waking up at 5.30am to the drunken return of some hotel guests.  I was awake, so decided to watch some TV and internet and at 7.30am, decided I still needed some more sleep and slept for another 3 hours.  The whole week must have just caught up with me and at 11am I woke feeling refreshed and wondering what I should do with the rest of the day.  I needed to get some water, so I decided after having ‘brunch’ to walk to the local supermarket just down the road from the hotel and quite funnily it was called ‘Koala Supermarket’ with a koala as its logo and all.  A nice little reminder of home!  After entering the supermarket, it looked like you could have been back in Australia.  The shelves were stocked with all sorts of foods and it was clean and bright and full of orbruni’s (foreign people) as well as locals.  As it was air-conditioned in there it was nice to just have a stroll around and have a look at the cost of things and boy were they expensive!!!!  I had a small list of items to get including water, tissues, toilet paper and a bag of chips, but after seeing the cost of the stuff I ditched the toilet paper and figured I could steal the one from the hotel and I downsized my chips and added a chocolate bar for good measure.  So not only in name was the supermarket named but quite aptly they also had Australian prices.  Some prices included Nutella for 30g was nearly 6AUD, Tic Tac’s 1.60AUD, Cadbury 75g 2.50AUD, 4 pack travel tissues 2.60AUD.  So after paying out nearly 8AUD for 4 items, I made my way back to the hotel to drop of my bag of expensive goodies and get Mohammad to organize a taxi for me to go and have a look at what people say are the amazing beaches of Accra.  As it happened I walked in at the same time a lady was getting dropped off, so I let her go first assuming she had just come off a flight when she asked if I was on the Dragoman trip.  I replied that I was and that I was about to head to the beach area if she wasn’t feeling to tired.  So we introduced ourselves, her name is Pat we found out that we were going to be roomies on the trip and she agreed to come for a ride to the beach.  So I only had to wait 5 minutes while she dropped her bags off to her room and then I met a gentleman in the lounge that was also on our trip named Patrick.  So I had a quick chat to him and we organized to meet at 7pm and the three of us would go out to dinner together.  How nice to meet some people before the tour and by first impressions they both seem very nice.  Patrick had already been out, so declined the trip to the beach and then Pat was back and we made for the taxi that had been arranged for us for the 10 minute ride.

Not knowing really where to be dropped off, I had seen at the airport yesterday a sign for the Labadi Beach Resort and I had read somewhere that you could use their facilities for a fee, so I figured that would be a great place to start and we could work out a game plan from there.  We were told the taxi should be around 6GHS (3AUD), so we agreed on a price of when we got into the cab of 8GHS (4AUD) and then the cheeky man didn’t have any change, so effectively it cost us 10GHS (5AUD which is still cheap) we made our way through reception like we knew where we were going out to the pool area to have a ‘captain cook’.  The pool area of the hotel was beautiful with 2 separate pools, lots of palm trees and grass and it really felt like a haven away from the heat and hustle and bustle.  We couldn’t see clearly where the path lead to the beach, so we asked one of the cabana boys where we could access the beach and he asked for our room numbers and without skipping a beat, I told him we were going to be lunching with friends but wanted to have a quick look at the beach before.  He seemed to think this was plausible and showed us the correct path.  When we got to the gate to access the beach, there was a security guard there asking if we were guests, as this section was a private beach area for the hotel guests only.  We explained we only wanted to have a quick look and for him to remember us when we came back to let us back in.  He also agreed to this and we were finally on Labadi Beach.    

Labadi Beach or more properly known as La Pleasure Beach is a three-kilometer sea frontage at Labadi and is the busiest beach on Ghana's coast.  It is one of Accra's few beaches and is maintained by the local hotels.  A gate fee of around GHS5 (2.50AUD) per person applies to those not staying in the hotels which we bypassed by going through the hotel lobby posing as guests, oh yes we were very sneaky indeed!!!!  On holidays and weekends there are often performances of reggae, hiplife, Playback, and cultural drumming and dancing.  While most of Accra's oceanfront real estate is rocky and undeveloped, there are several sandy beaches. La Pleasure Beach, also known as Labadi Beach, is about 8km east of central Accra.  Unfortunately since the swimming area is so narrow it's a little claustrophobic on weekends.  The beachfront is lined with drinking spots serving kebabs, fresh juices and cold beers and artisans also sell souvenirs including masks, paintings, beads and carvings and we got the full experience of it all in the 3 hours that we were there.  After walking along the beach about 100m, we decided to take a seat under some umbrellas and order a late lunch and just soak in the sea breeze and people watch and get to know my roomy.  We were approached more times that I can count by people wanting to sell their goods from pineapples, nuts stacked precisely in baskets on ladies heads, painters, massage ladies, egg ladies, popcorn guys and anything else you can think of.  I got sucked in with the paintings and bought 2 of them and the words I learnt yesterday with Mohammad came in handy today and I think I earned a few brownie points with the sellers.  I also ended up with a necklace and matching earrings for 5AUD and a Rasta came over and played a few tunes on his guitar sucking us in and we ended up buying 2 CD’s for 5AUD, so we will see if they actually work when we get home.  But once the novelty had worn off if you said no thanks they would leave you alone straight away.  When we first arrived just after 1pm there weren’t many people around at the tables, which were set up directly on the beach and 10m away from the water, but as the afternoon wore on people started appearing in their droves and it got really busy as we were leaving around 4pm.  It really was a wonderful way to spend the afternoon and Pat and I seem to really hit it off which is just great news as we will be together for 3 weeks.  Unfortunately she is not going on past Ghana once we get back.  Pat has children the same age as me and some of the sellers asked if she was my Mama, and for the ease of it all we just said yes!!!  The quality of the carved stuff I saw today seemed of a high quality, but I held off as Pat and I had decided that we would go to the markets tomorrow and check out what they had there and we could always come back on our return if we didn’t see anything else, which we used as a line when we didn’t want to buy anything and generally didn’t work anyway.  So we didn’t get out of the afternoon scot free and I left with 2 paintings, a necklace and earrings, a CD from Black Rasta and a contribution to some kids that performed on the beach. 

Instead of heading back to Labadi Beach Hotel, the way that we had come in, we decided to keep walking down the beach and then find an exit point and grab a taxi from there, just to see more action on the beach.  There were kite surfers out on the water and it was perfect conditions for them with the wind in the backs, there was one guy getting some serious air time.  There are a lot of horse riders on the beach offering people a gallop and with the sellers, people throwing Frisbees; balls bouncing everywhere and it was a hive of activity.  Here in Accra, like Australia they prefer that you swim between the flags, which people were doing and they also had a lifeguard on duty that didn’t seem to be watching the people in the water at all while we watched him, as he was eyeing off some eye candy behind him, but at least the thought was there!!!  We found an exit point into a car park that had taxis waiting and we walked up to the first one and asked his price, which he replied 15GHS (7.50AUD) when I told him we only paid 10GHS coming here he said it is a difference price to go back.  Yeah I’m not stupid man, so I said that’s fine we will find someone else and as we walked off he agreed, so we oiled in for the 10 minute ride home.  The upside of using different taxi guys is that they all have their own routes to get you ultimately to the same place and we followed the coast for as long as we could before turning down and around back streets (we had no idea where we were) getting us back safe and sound just after 4.30pm.  When we pulled back up at the hotel our truck was out the front and I have to say she looks a beauty and I’m excited.  Our guide Zoe and driver Sam were also downstairs talking to Patrick and so we introduced ourselves and sat and talked to them for an hour or so and all I can say is thanks to my travel gods for giving me great people so far.  There are only 7 of us on the trip, 9 including Sam and Zoe, so nearly half the group was already here and the dynamic was feeling great.  I also told Zoe and Sam about my local payment drama and as I had hoped they were not fazed and that we would something out.  I was also not the only one, as Pat also didn’t have her local payment, so at least I wasn’t going to be a problem child on my own!!!!  Phew. 

We met back downstairs at 7pm and the 5 of us headed out for dinner.  Zoe was on a mission to get some Ghanaian food and after asking a few people we found the recommended place called Asanka and the neon sign above the door read ‘Ghana’s no.1 Chop Bar’.  Chop bars can be found everywhere in Ghana, serving delicious hot food and snacks at reasonable prices. "Chop" is slang for "food".  Chop chop-let’s eat!!!!!  We were seated in a massive restaurant that would have had over 100 tables and there were just us 5 and another table of orbruni’s in the corner.  We were either really early for dinner or really late and after looking at the menu and placing our orders we realized that we were really late.  The Ghanaians seem to eat early and a lot of the food was already gone for the evening by the time we got there hence as like other African countries when we enquired about food on the menu there wasn’t a lot left and we had to resort to what they actually had.  I wasn’t as adventurous as the others and just had chicken and chips, but the others had banku which is like a sticky version of Kigali and bushmeat (which is like a rabbit kind of animal) and tilapia and okra like stews.  I am glad when the meals came out that I had ordered the ‘western’ meal as I am sure the chilli-ness would have been too much for me.  As it was Patty had a runny nose from the heat of hers and that is always a telltale sign on how hot things are.  We were home at 9.30pm and we all headed straight to our rooms to retire.  I stayed up till 12.30pm typing away on my blog, with pay TV on and the air-conditioned room.

So another day in this wonderful city and I really like the vibe that it gives off.  Tomorrow I get to meet my fellow travelers at 10am for our briefing and then the trip starts in earnest on Monday with us actually hitting the road and I am really looking forward to seeing the rest of Ghana and getting back on the road again in an overland truck.