BACK ROADS AND BICYCLES ...We escape the cyclone that is Accra traffic by bumming a lift on the back of a truck to Awutu Beraku on the outskirts of Accra. Once on the bikes, we make good time despite the considerable weight of my photographic gear and a constant stream of manic drivers armed with murderous intent. Villages come and go, as do a selection of eclectic signs, including gems such as Good God Haircuts and Jesus Never Fails Communications. We schedule our first stop for the little harbour town of Apam, with sunset beating us to our lodgings in the forbidding Fort Leydsaamheid, a Dutch slave castle dating back to 1697. I wake up at dawn to gaze across the castle ramparts at an amber sliver of sun edging its way above a steely Atlantic ocean. Akru longboats and square-sailed pirogues, splashed in brilliant rainbow colours, drift in the morning breeze while fishermen engage in an age-old duel with shiny sea creatures. Crowds of vibrantly attired people spill from the waking village onto the beaches to flutter like flocks of tropicbirds engaged in ritual preening. I scramble downhill to join the multitudes in their early morning ablutions, scrubbing my body with coarse sand before crashing into the waves . |
