It was still dark when I woke up. I've been getting up early lately. I left soon after the first light. I headed towards the downtown where the buses and tro-tros to Accra were. But as soon as I hit the main road that goes along the coast south of my hotel, a guy saw me and shouted Accra? There is a little mini-station that services the west part of Cape Coast for cars to Accra. Cool. Only four more people to go, too. The ticket was GH¢5.50. The wait was about an hour and we departed at about 7:15. I was expecting a 3 hour trip, but we were there in about 2.5 hours. I tracked where we were on the map and when we were close to a traffic circle near the hotel I wanted to stay at, I got out. A cab took me the rest of the way to the Date Hotel.
The Date Hotel is about the only cheap hotel in Accra in Lonely Planet. A single is GH¢11.50 and that gets you a room with a fan and a single shared bathroom with a padlock. The keys are for the room and the padlock. So, the accommodation isn't luxury. Tomorrow I'll apply for my Nigerian visa. I'm not sure how that works. Usually Lonely Planet gives details like number of pictures needed and how long it takes. But not for Nigeria. I'll just have to see what's up when I get there.
I rested briefly and headed out to go to the ATM and internet cafe. I stopped at Funky's and got a beef meat pie and a chicken meat pie. They were so good! The Busy Internet cafe is on Central Ring road. It's pretty nice--a lot like the MouNa in Conakry. The only problems are that it's expensive--one hour for GH¢1.80, no Firefox, and you can't call up the Internet Options dialog to clear your browser history and cookies and stuff. It was good to check up on the election. Colin Powell endorsed Obama. Obama also had a record fundraising haul. A nice pickup that should blunt McCains recent 2 point pickup. I'm not too worried though. As long as the voters don't get complacent, the result should be positive. The real nail biters for me are the Minnesota Senate race and the Washington governor's race. I'd love to see Al Franken on the Senate floor in Paul Wellstone's place.
Well, after that I was thirsty and decided to check out the Vienna Entertainment Complex. I went into their bar. I was the only customer. It was warm and smelled like stale smoke. They only had small Stars but I'm glad because it wasn't that cold. And it was GH¢2. What a rip off. I'll never go there again. I was anxious to get out and I went to Wok Inn, a Chinese place. They had GH¢1.20 large Stars that were very nice and cold. Whew. Their food is salty so I had 2. I just sat there then thinking about stuff.
Monday, October 20, 2008 19:01 Ghana local time
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The concerns I have about the election are voting fraud. The real kind - not the faux Mickey Mouse-filled-in-a-form-crap. And voter suppression. Fortunately, I already received my absentee ballot, so I know I'm not one of the millions purged.
The good news is that most of the GOP efforts are getting shot down in court. Thank goodness for talkingpointsmemo.com which is the only news source pursuing all this. Josh Marshall, the founder, is one of my personal heroes.
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