"Accra" a Accra Travel Page by grets

Accra itself does not offer the visitor a great deal in terms of sightseeing, but it is a great base from where to begin an exploration of the area. We were booked on a tour with a company called Imaginative Traveller, taking in some of the major sights in Ghana, Togo and Benin, a tour that was arranged through a local company called TransAfrica.

The text below is taken from my travel journal:

We flew to Accra from London Heathrow Airport with British Airways on a direct flight, which we paid £690 for each. One of the disadvantages of travelling over Christmas, is that it seems half the British population are also planning to do the same. The queue at Terminal Four did not look too daunting at first glance, so we joined what we thought was the end of it. Wrong. We were told to move along to the outside of the terminal itself, where a marquee had been erected to cope with the influx of passengers. We didn’t even get as far as the tent though, we were made to stand outside in the cold! After what seemed an eternity, we were finally allowed inside, we were called by flight number, to join another queue inside. The whole procedure took over three hours to reach the check in counter, as people whose flight departures were imminent, were given priority. So much for arriving early!

After a fairly painless seven hour flight, we landed at Kotoka Airport late at night. Having arranged an arrival transfer from the UK, we were expecting a TransAfrica representative to be waiting for us somewhere past immigration. With no obvious representation, we were approached by one of the taxi hawkers, who kept insisting that “if they were meeting you, they would have been here by now”, and “you need to take a taxi, they are obviously not coming”. We managed to resist their suggestions, when a man appeared, asking if we were going to Airside Hotel. We confirmed we were indeed going there, and he advised us to go with him. An argument ensued, as the original taxi chap was adamant that we should not go with this man, - in fact they began a tug-of-war with our bags and argued loudly in the local language! Welcome to Ghana!

As we are watching in utter bemusement, somewhat unsure about what to do, yet another man approaches us, this time with the reassuring question “TransAfrica?” Confirming that we are in fact to go with the man from Airside Hotel, he goes off to pay for the car parking. The transfer to the hotel takes a mere five minutes, and our West Africa adventure has begun.