Green Turtle Lodge

Ah, so I ran out of gas last night, and stopped my journal on Thursday.
Now today is Tuesday. So I shall be up do date by the end of this hour.

Actually, I will start with Thursday night.
We were originally going to go to the beach we went 2 weeks ago, because not many people preferred to go on a 20 hour tro ride to safari.

That plan was in place until many of us realized that we should go somewhere different. The beach is nice, but boring if we go there again!

So we decided to go to this Green Turtle Lodge in West Ghana. Approximately 8 hours away, but in reality, took closer to 10 than 8. This place is also a beach, but we also went to visit the floating village on stilts. 

It definitely was a very long and bumpy tro ride. It took about 3 and a half hours to get to Accra from Ho. We stopped at the local mall to shop for a couple of sweets!

For the first time in my life, (i think), I had a Cadbury chocolate and a kinder chocolate!
They were very rich and tasty! The English chocolates were very good! After we came out of the mall, we actually saw a mini accident of a truck bumping into a car. It happened so casually that not many of us noticed. I guess this is not too uncommon in Ghana!

So after a nice snack, we headed West again. The ride from Accra to the Lodge was about good 6 hours. I thought my back was going to crumble to pieces because the road was so bumpy and rough. To add even more spice to this journey, we got lost in a really sketchy neighborhood around 6 o'clock, when the sun set and darkness prevailed. We also thought that we had flatted the tire. The journey was definitely long and tough.

But when we got to the lodge, everything felt just right!
The breeze and the relaxation took place, and we sat in the booth at the local bar talking about American and British cultures. I told the 4 girls who came on the tour with me all about American parties and special events like the Prom! They were so surprised because they thought prom only existed in TV shows! They told me they don't really have Prom in Britain! (Gasp!) Oh what fun they were missing out! We had a nice chat and a nice "tea" (british word for dinner). I had a delicious tuna pasta. I couldn't finish everything because there were just too much to eat!

We thought we were going to stay in the nice huts we saw when we got here, but we ended up sleeping in tents! (a bit disappointed but oh well!) The waves were so strong that i felt like they were going to flood our area while we were sleeping!

A beautiful morning, and a great breakfast as well! I had a "half-English" breakfast. It was basically an American breakfast with beans and lots of bread.

Jess and Rhi!

We had a relaxing day. Lots of swimming, tanning, soccer (football for Brits), volleyball, and body-boarding!

Loads of pictures were taken, a lot of food was consumed, and fun filled day presumed!
Jess and I pretended to be models at the beach, holding the half broken/mutilated surfboards! Our tro driver took some photos but didn't realize his fingers were in the way haha

At night, we met new friends from the U.S. and Switzerland! Most of them were medical students and undergraduate students from Brown University (well, the U.S. people were).
I asked them about how they came to Ghana and other questions about college and med school. I feel so blessed to be able to talk to these new people and learn so much from them!

The campfire kept the chilly shore cozy and warm. I actually felt cold during that night, wasn't too well. I hope that I wasn't going to be sick. Thankfully, when I woke up the next morning, I felt fine. Thank goodness!

We left early Sunday morning around 6 for the village on stilts. It was a 2 hour ride from the lodge. When we arrived, we took a 45 minute canoe ride to the village. Our steersmen and Issac, our tro driver Kuma were rowing very diligently throughout the entire ride.

Jess, Maz, Rhi, Kuma!

The boat was a bit leaky so we had to keep shoveling water out to keep ourselves floating! When it started to drizzle, we hoped that it didn't rain too hard or our boats might sink!

The village was very exotic. I really wondered how could people live on water! They even had a school on water as well!

Becky, Kuma Me, Maz, Issac, Rhi, Jess!

 After the nice visit at the village, we came back to the place where we left from.
We also had a nice lunch at the spanish cafe. I had a fantastic fish meal. The four 

girls had pasta for meal but I went out of the ordinary and had a Tilapia!

The way back to our hostel was yet again long and bumpy. We left around 1 and arrived around 10. I slept so much on the tro, and the girls talked so much (not that it was a bad thing, the talk is usually interesting!).

What a long day! My back ached, and my cough hasn't gotten better. I really need to go to the doctor when I go back to the States in a week or so.

Really relaxing trip though. Totally worth it!