The Cape Three Points lighthouse is about 14km away from Busua, but you can't go directly there with a taxi or tro-tro, first you have to go to the Agona Central Station. The station is indistinguishable from the Agona Main market: taxi's mix with fruit sellers, fish-mongers--a word still in wide use in Ghana--weave in and out of the congested taxi traffic and between large stands balancing platters of smoked fish on their heads. It's like they are wearing smoked-fish sombreros. I've never been brave enough to buy one of those fish, because I know the fish sellers aren't good at English and I would have to bargain with them. And as we bargained in whatever newly borne pidgin language circumstances would force us to invent she might spill the fish.
Once I saw a spill in the Agona market (and caused a spill myself in the Accra main market, which is also indistinguishable from the Accra main station). In Agona a man carrying a bunch of wooden logs on his head dogged out of the way of an overly aggressive tro-tro minibus and spilled the plastic cups and toys perched upon a womans head. I couldn't stay to see the situation resolve because Emmanuel was hurrying onward and I had to keep up with him.
But today there was nothing worse then a slightly aggressive taxi-filler who was trying sell us a charter. No charter for us, we're savvy (and cheap), we go tro-tro. Whenever possible of course.
Tro-Tro's only service bigger towns. For example they only come to Busua on Wednesday, market day. Interestingly Butre has tro-tro service, although I don't think it's much bigger then Busua, but maybe that's because taxi's refuse to drive to Butre. Every once in a while I see someone walking from Butre to Busua along the beach in business clothes, maybe they are going to work that way to save on taxi fare, or maybe they are just coming from (or going to a funeral).
So, we walked from the taxi side of the market/station to the tro-tro side. A tro-tro for Three Points had just left so Sonja and I were the first people in the next bus. The tro-tro attendant put my backpack in the back. I kept eyeing it nervously until so much luggage was stacked around it that there was no chance it was going anywhere. Sonja and I sat at the very back of the tro-tro, on the fourth bench. It started to fill up gradually: two women with red turbans and black dresses, maybe going to a funeral; a man in a blue shirt of the type we wear in America on casual Fridays; another man who also looked like he was dressed for work; a woman who had bought several trays of eggs. Eventually twelve of us packed in, including the driver and the attendant the cost to go to Three-Points was 3 Cedis per person (~1.5 Euro). I thought that this was a little steep for a Tro-Tro fare; but by the end of the ride I couldn't believe that it was that cheap.
Even though Three-Points isn't far from Agona the road that leads to it is rough [although still good]. And it took us a long time to get there, because Tro-Tro's stop all over the place (there are no official stops, anyone can flag a Tro-Tro down). In addition it seems to me like the drivers are engaged in all sorts of side businesses, because they often stop by the side of the road to pick up or drop off various foodstuffs.
The Chief had encouraged us to go visit Three-Points on account of the unspoiled natural beauty of the area. It was very beautiful, surprisingly isolated and very quite. At first when we stopped in Three-Points Sonja and I felt a little bit panicked, we had expected Three-Point to be a major stop, but it was just the dead end side stop of the route between a Agona and a bigger bigger town some 4 km away from Three-Points. We were worried that we wouldn't be able to catch a tro-tro back.
Cape Three-Points is a small town with about twenty small homes at the base of a peninsula. This peninsula is the southern-most point of Ghana and the nearest land to zero longitude, zero latitude. The Tro-Tro attendant introduced us to a guide in the town who took us up to the Three-Point's lighthouse. The view of the three capes was beautiful, much of Cape Three-Points is a preserved natural area. A pleasant breeze blew.
The lighthouse has been in continuous operation since 1925. When we got back to town we decided to walk to the next big town so we could be sure to get a Tro-Tro, and to stop at a beach lodge on the way to get some rest. We wandered into the Escape Point resort and went to the beach and then relaxed in some of their hammocks after we bought 3 liters of water and a coke.
Then we headed back to the road and walked for what seemed like a very long time. We could hear the surf breaking in the distance underneath the sound of hundreds of chirping birds. That and our footsteps were all we heard for about an hour, unless we talked. We began to see people harvesting palm nuts along the road and eventually we came to the town. After wondering around a bit and talking to various people, who all told us different things, we eventually sat down by the town water pump to wait for a tro-tro; a goup of ten children wanted to shake our hands and give us high fives in innumerable variations, over and over again :). A tro-tro eventually came and we happened to sit down next to another passenger bound for Busua, he had also been one of the carpenters who had worked with Ebenezer when he was first building the library.
Originally we had planned to go shopping at the market, but we were both just to tired, and went home after a long and wonderful day.
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