Travelling in Ghana

By Stephanie Fox -
As a Fox, it's in my blood to deeply appreciate efficiency. For all of the apparent disorganization in the Ghanaian transport system, I, in fact, love it. There is three essential forms of tranport here: buses, which go between major cities only, trotros (minibuses) and shared taxis, which travel on set routes for set prices, and drop taxis, which are private taxis like we use in Canada. There are some organized trotro and bus stations and taxi ranks and here there is not usually a set schedule for departures. The vehicle simply departs when it is full. If you are not at a station or 'stop', you can also just stand at the side of the road and flag down passing cars. At the end of the day it feels much like an organized public hitch hiking system. Here is why I like it so much:

1) On the odd occasion one ends up waiting several hours to catch a ride, but for the most part I find that the system forces you to travel without expectations for arrival and departure times, leaving you in a mindset that is hard to disappoint even if you are waiting, and instead often feeling triumph when you have caught a ride so fast! And you can’t really be late and end up missing your bus, because you don’t know when it will leave anyway.

2) I love the mindset that any empty seat in a car is an outrageous waste. Ghanians are carpooling champions.

3) Shared transportation is extremely affordable.

4) You can purchase a terrific variety of things from your trotro window. Mainly I appreciate the snacks and water readily available - a far more efficient version of a drive through. Medicines, mousetraps, toothbrushes and toothpaste, soap, towels, flashlights, blankets, and shoes are among some of the other products commonly available.

5) You don't ever really need to know how to get somewhere in order to get there. Ghanaians are extremely useful at telling how to make the next leg of your journey, and sometimes go far out of their way to walk you all the way to a trotro station or flag down a car for you or bargain the price down of a taxi for you. This week a lady even insisted that I take her phone number and told me to call her if I had any problems.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Donna, game driver and total badass

By -
Image
In early May, my mom, sister and I went on a safari in Murchison National Park. My mom had booked the trip through a local safari company. When I got word that our safari guide Donna would be picking us up, my ears perked up. Donna. Perhaps a woman safari driver? Huh. That would be cool. Were we that lucky? Yes. Yes we were. It's rare to see women driving in Uganda, let alone driving a standard transmission vehicle, let alone driving tourists around, let alone while simultaneously spotting leopards and lions in a four-wheel drive safari van. Indeed, Donna Katesi is one of four female game drivers currently working in Uganda. People did stare a lot – construction workers literally stopped working and stared, mouths gaping, as we drove by.   Donna is a skilled game driver and total badass. She joked that she makes her way among her male colleagues by being a bully. Case in point – when she sent us off on a boat tour one day, I heard her tell the guide t...
Read more

photos from the month

By -
Image
One day last week, the chimps took us to the top of one of the highest hills at about seven in the morning, just in time to see the sunrise. The hills in the foreground are all part of Kibale National Park, and in the far distance you can see the Rwenzori Mountains. This mountain range is also the border with the Congo. I haven't yet learned what this plant is, but I saw it in the forest this week. Isn't it crazy!? I think probably a fly trap of some sort.  The view from my porch, watching a storm roll in. My house looks just like the other two in this photo - each one is a duplex and I have half the house to myself.  A particularly large elephant, as you can see from this footprint, was hanging out nearby us in the forest a few weeks back. I could also see prints from its wrinkly skin in the mud. I got poured on while I was trying to get to town to get groceries. Luckily anyone will let you stay on their porch to wait it out.
Read more

and we're live

By -
I've spent the last few days setting up shop in Uganda. I unpacked my three pieces of luggage (each weighing in at a full 50 lbs), hired a cook, helped the cook sweep a nest of army ants out of my kitchen, harangued some cooking equipment and bought more groceries than my cook and I could carry. I had five people working on the house today fixing lightbulbs, sweeping off the roof, setting up the kitchen, and literally banging various things back into shape. Then I convinced someone to give me a table, a bookcase and some chairs, and pushed the few pieces of furniture around in circles until finding a satisfying arrangement. Hazah - feels like home. The humidity, the smell of the forest, the rain pounding on the tin roof, the incessant chirping from birds and bugs, the small plumes of smoke rising from village homes, hearing colobus roar in the morning and the rich color of the red dirt roads all bring back fond memories. 
Read more