Weekend Visits: Bojo Beach

This past weekend I joined my friend and fellow CCI volunteer, Matt, his housemate, Duncan and a New Zealander, Andrew, to Bojo beach. Located about an hour outside of Accra (though the trip is likely to take about 2.5 hours with traffic), Bojo beach is one of Ghana's nicest, cleanest beaches.

The beach is actually located on a sand bar a little off the coast. To get to the beach you take a canoe across a small body of water. On our return to the parking lot at the end of the day, Andrew, feeling adventurous, opted out of the minute-and-a-half canoe ride and decided to swim the distance from the sand bar to the coast (equivalent to a city block or so). Upon leaping into the water, he discovered that the water level rested pretty much at waist-level, forcing him to actually just walk across. He still managed to arrive to shore before the canoe, though! Unfortunately, however, the sea floor was covered in sharp spikey shells which were unkind to the man's poor feet.

Bojo beach was quite beautiful, spacious and relaxing. I had completely forgotten how fun the ocean is! Quite different from my usual summer swim at Toronto Island where e coli and arctic temperatures are a strong deterrent to playing in the water. We played catch with a tennis ball in the waves and although I found my aim to be quite spectacular (the boys might suggest otherwise) I seemed to lack the powerhouse throw demonstrated by Matt and Andrew that enables one to launch the ball far(ish) distances. I chalk their strength up to their higher levels testosterone and the presence of muscles on their arms. Both are physiological qualities I sadly lack. Alas, there goes my dreams of becoming a professional tennis-ball-thrower-in-the-ocean.

We had lunch and a few beers, I read and wrote while the guys played an abridged form of cricket. Afterwards we drove about 15 minutes along the coast to a fun and touristy hotel/camping ground called Big Milly's Backyard. Our little bungalow was very quaint and pleasant save for the absence of a bathroom door (the curtain was a poor surrogate). Not to get into too much detail, but any person who has travelled to Ghana and consumes the local dishes, recognizes the importance of a bathroom door.

The night ended with a live Reggae band and dancing but I, being a loser, became exhausted at around 11pm and crashed.

Here are a few pics from the beach. Enjoy!

In the distance, a mother dog is feeding her little puppies. SOOO cute! It takes everything in my power not to pet the dogs and cats here. I took this picture because Andrew happen to be holding a cricket bat next to the dogs and we all thought it would make it look like he was returning from giving them a beating. Rest assured, just a photographic coincidence - no animals were harmed in this photo.

You can't really read the sign in this photo but it states that the swings are for children only. No Adults! Obviously this was ignored ("What sign? where? I'm not an adult?")

The canoe ride back to the coast. More specifically, the canoe ride back to the coast that we missed.