Fourth Day in Accra: Tickets Home

Day 4. I had 2 goals. First, get postcards mailed. The main post office is downtown, due south of my hotel. I haven't been there yet. So I walked down. Wow! This part of town is just one huge market. Tro-Tros running everywhere, trucks, people loading and unloading goods and setting up their shops. A crush of people. I kept going south while walking east to west and west to east through this pulsing scene. I got a meat pie and a GH¢0.05 bag of water. These nickel bags of cold water are great. Finally I got to the post office and mailed the post cards. Then I headed back up buying another meat pie on the way that turned out to be a curry meat pie.
Now, to find the travel agency near me that's in Lonely Planet. Nope, no longer there. That's 2 travel agencies I couldn't find in 2 days. I was pretty sure I saw the M & J Travel agency over by Osu, though. So I walked there.

And there it was right on Ring Road not far from Osu. I went in and sat down by the unbusiest looking woman (who was also quite pretty) and asked her if she could help me get some tickets. She started looking for flights from Douala, but since they all go through Paris--Charles de Gaulle, the cheapest was about US$3200. Hmmm... She said that what I could do was to get a flight from either Lagos or Accra since they go through cheaper cities and then get a less expensive flight from Douala to that city. Since I have a multiple entry visa for Ghana but not for Nigeria, I decided on Accra. I wouldn't mind staying here a few days either, so I figured I could get a flight a few days before my flight to Chicago.

So we decided on a Virgin Nigeria flight connecting in Douala to Accra on the December 12. Then on December 15, a KLM flight from Accra to O'Hare connecting in Amsterdam and Detroit. Home just in time for Christmas. :-)

But first, there I gotta pay. Here's the hitch--M & J Tours doesn't have credit cards machines. The KLM flight has to be paid for at the KLM office since they have a credit card machine there. And the Virgin Nigeria flight has to paid for in cash. Yikes! It's GH¢561. That's a lot of cash. More than my ATM daily limit. So I decided to take it out in 2 chunks--GH¢300 from my debit card and GH¢300 from my credit card. I did it at the Barclays in Osu and it worked--my only fear was that the fraud department at the bank would reject the KLM part. I headed back with bulging pockets and paid. Whew! But now, we had to go to KLM. The man at the travel agency would accompany me to the KLM office. It's a ways down on Ring Road. We went in to pay for the ticket. Credit card declined. Yikes! The mn at KLM said it required a preauthorization. I didn't have a phone. So the travel guy offered to lend he his if we I would buy a phone card. I got a GH¢4 phone card and he charged his phone and then we called the bank. I explained my situation and answered all the security questions. They turned my card back on. We went back into KLM and I got my tickets. Then the guy had to go by himself to Virgin Nigeria to get the tickets from them. I didn't have to go since they already had the money. I just had to return to M & J at 2pm to get the final ticket.

So I walked back to Osu and hung out at the Venus bar having a cold beer and 1.5 liter bottle of cold water. It was pretty hot and it was good to cool off. At 2, I went and got my Virgin tickets. Actually they are all eTickets. Nice. That means I don't have to carry them in my money belt. Yay!

Then I went to check the internet sites. It was late afternoon and the 2 meat pies from the morning were starting to wear off, so I thought I'd try Papaye's--a Ghanaian fast food place. I had 2 pieces of fried chicken with fries and cole slaw. Actually, Papaye's does fries quite well. It's so hard to find properly cooked fries in Africa. Then back to the Venus bar for a couple more beers and some spicy chicken wings that were very good as well. By now it was just gotten dark and I decided to walk home. I didn't get very far and decided that the road had too many uneven spots and walking would be too dangerous even though it not long after sunset. There was a tro-tro across the street. The conductor was shouting "Se se se se se" or something like that. I have no idea where that is, so I asked himif it goes to Nkrumah Circle which I'm pretty sure it did since it probably just plies the East, Central, and West Ring Road. I got on. It took me to Nkrumah Circle after a few minutes and I got out. Only GH¢0.25. Like a quarter. I just had to walk down Nkrumah road to the hotel which is only about a 5 minute walk. Funkies' Fast Food was already closed so meat pie snacks.

The night was still young, but I just stayed in the rest of the night. I don't normally go out at night. It's just so much easier in an Anglophone country than a Francophone country.

Saturday, October 25, 2008 7:57 Ghana local time