Cape 3 Points

This weekend was spent with Nancy from San Diego who is a Global Mamas’ volunteer, Maria, an ex-pat from Barcelona who now lives here and is connected with Global Mamas, and her boyfriend James, an ex-pat from Brazil who works as an agronomist in Ghana. We all stayed at an Eco-resort called Escape! in Cape 3 Points, Ghana. I confess, this blog is kind of an advertisement for them, with my added personal accounts. But it really was a neat place, and we had a very nice, relaxing time, aside from encountering the GINORMOUS spider that was in our lodging. That was scary. But that's for later!

It's a 3-hour ride from Cape Coast to this remote eco-resort, with the last 45 minutes spent on a winding and pot-holy red dirt road.  When we left Cape Coast the sun was setting and by the time we got to our destination it was dark, so I really couldn't see our surroundings, and actually I was so hungry at that point that I really didn't care! We had a meal of beans and rice and chicken, a very common meal here in Ghana. At dinner I befriended a little cat that we named Bijou because it didn't have a name, and Bijou sized me up right away. She ended up sleeping with me that night. It crossed my mind she might have fleas, but I had enough DEET on me for the both of us so I quickly dismissed the concern because she was so dang cute.

Here's "Bijou" to the right.
 

Before bedtime I had to use the bathroom, and that’s when I found out how really cool an eco-friendly bathroom can be. Bathrooms are located just outside your cabin. The landing area when you step into the bathroom and the steps up (yes up) to the throne toilet were made of large bamboo stalks. The toilet was composting, so after you do your business you throw in a scoop of sawdust that’s conveniently located next to the toilet, and close the lid. That’s it. A little weird the first time! I know you are dying to see what this looks like so here is a picture of the toilet:

This resort is built right on the coast so I listened to the surf all night. Literally. I had made the mistake, for the millionth time and not for the last, of having coffee with my lunch earlier that day, and I am such a lightweight with caffeine any more that combined with my excitement of hearing the crashing surf, I could not fall asleep. Plus, Bijou was asleep between my calves and I didn't want to fall asleep, move inadvertently, and wake her up! I think I finally fell asleep around 5 AM, and woke up around 7 AM. Here's what our digs for the weekend looked like:

 



There were 2 beds, one on the ground floor and one in a loft. Nancy was sleeping in the loft. At first I thought she got the cooler bed, but by the end of the stay I had changed my mind! (It involves the aforementioned spider!) Anyway, that morning she came down the ladder and motivated me to get up and head over to the beach.

 

 
You can't really see it well in this photo, but if you look really hard you can see a small white lighthouse at the far end of the beach atop the greenery, at the left side of the photo. One of the other guests told us that the walk to the lighthouse was really neat, so after breakfast we headed out. The walk turned out to be down the beach, into a forest, through a small village, and finally up a hill. We passed many friendly Ghanians on our journey. Children are especially inquisitive of outsiders and like to say “hello” and “good morning” over and over again.Here are a few images from the walk. 

When we got to the lighthouse,  we found it locked so we couldn’t get in to see the view from the highest point, but the view we got was nice anyway.

We hung out for about an hour, got some great shots, (yes I took a selfie!!):

 

Then we turned around and headed back. I immediately headed for the shower when we returned to the cabin. The “shower” was a variation of the bucket shower, but instead of a bucket, you take your water from a (very clean) rubber trashcan using a small plastic handled bowl. The showering area was a slab of cement with moss growing on it. Being from Albuquerque where it is so dry, I am always very excited when I see moss. Also, the water is not 100% fresh, it is brackish (fresh and salt) but it felt like it was fresh water, it just tasted a little salty. I thought it was the coolest shower ever.

Anyway, after the shower my day kind of went from very active to very "in bed" due to being really hot, a bit sunburned and sleep deprived. The rest of Saturday I took a nap, got up and ate dinner, then went to bed at 8 PM. So Sunday morning, I woke up feeling much better. I spent the day swimming in the ocean, reading a book in a hammock, talking a lot with my companions, and taking time to be quiet and just breathe in the lovely place I found myself in.


If you want to check out Escape!, click here. 



 Oh, I almost forgot! Here's that spider that was in the ledge above Nancy's bed! It was about 5 inches across from end to end. And brown and hairy. I snapped this picture and when I took a step back, the floor creaked and scared the spider, so it shot off the ledge, across the wall and into a dark corner. That's when I screamed like a little girl. Wondering if it was dangerous, I walked over to the eating area and showed the picture of it to the gentleman who was running the place while the owners are away, and he said Don't worry! Those are everywhere! They aren't poisonous and if one falls on you it means you will find a large amount of meat that day! I relayed this all to Nancy, who was not amused and said he probably made that story up to appease the strange "obroni" taking pictures of spiders he sees all the time.