Thu, April 25 - Back to Accra, and on to Amsterdam

blurry photo of a Black-winged Bishop

Breakfast at 5 AM, and off in the van, back to Atewa Forest by 6:30.  The day started out cool and hazy and comfortable as we walked quickly past the area we had covered yesterday.  We started climbing up a rough dirt road and it started to get hotter and more miserable!  We stopped and checked out a few birds; our goal was to see the Blue-headed Bee- Eater and the Western Bluebill.   The Bluebill, a red bird with a blue bill, we saw shortly after we started up and were hopeful of a good day.  We continued to climb and were soon absolutely drenched with sweat!   The Bee- Eater is usually seen near the top of the hill, but finally at 11 half of us gave up and started down the somewhat slippery road.  We did see some spectacular butterflies, and I managed to step into an ant stream and Andrew rescued me and helped pluck off most of them, but I continued to be bitten for a while. The others caught up with us and we finally returned to the bus.  We had walked 5+ miles and climbed over 1200’.

We returned to the hotel by 1 PM and had 40 minutes to shower, pack up our sodden clothes, eat lunch and leave for the airport.  We drove for 90 minutes up onto an escarpment of 1600’.  We stopped at the top for our second cultural event of the tour: a group of craft stalls catering to Ghanaians.  I wanted to see the fabrics I have been missing and there seemed to be some Adinkra, stamped fabric, and some beaded work.  I had no Cedis left, so Andrew bought some things for me and I’ll pay him in dollars later. 

A Patch-work Sample of Ghanaian Fabrics

As we descended, we could look over the vast landscape of Accra, a city of 2.9 million and were soon at the airport.  Phil and our guides bought us cold drinks, we all took photos of each other, said our goodbyes to all these pleasant and congenial people, and then they dropped us off at the airport at 5:30 PM

The Group!

.  Getting through immigration and security was quick and easy as the airport is not busy in the late afternoon and our flight doesn’t leave until 10:10.

Bob and I went to the only food outlet after Security which was a bar selling sandwiches, etc for about $6, but they also had beef pies for only $2 which must have been locally made and turned out to be really delicious!  We ate two with shots of rum (at last!) and a couple of Cokes.   We finally got on the KLM jet at 9:30 PM and into our Economy Comfort seats with more leg room - really worth it - and slept most of the way to Amsterdam.