Transport in Ghana 1: STC buses (and toilets)
by typecat
So, there are a few transport options available to you in Ghana and they all involve four wheels. There is no rail service, which my regular reader will know is a shame because I do like a ride on a train when I am overseas. Ah, Bulgaria. How beautiful your communist-era rolling stock.
I sampled the delights of four of the four heeled transportation devices, these being STN bus, Express Minibus, Taxi and most exciting of them all – a Tro-tro.
Let us begin with the STC bus. It is a coach.
Ah, I found that hilarious for some reason so we had a small break in writing there, during which I was bent double literally howling with laughter.
Anyway, this coach, right? It’s supposed to having air conditioning? Not so much. But no matter. The STC bus station is a marvellous place. It’s basically a big concrete building and some bus stops.
There a cafe and a shop also. The cafe is the most frightening and marvellous place. There are two girls in there who will make you have banku. This banku is the most disgusting and vile food you will ever eat. It comes with a glutinous fish stew which, literally, has the consistency of something that has been decomposing long enough to have reached the half liquid half solid state. You will have to eat a reasonable amount of said food or you will be the source of great concern. I think this is what gave me the upsets of the stomach.
I did have a very exciting trip to the toilet here. Just for a number one. I asked one of the girls where the toilet was and she asked me if I needed to urinate. I thought this was a bit forward but agreed that yes, just a urination was in order. She then took me past another secret bus station where there were hundreds of people seemingly waiting to transport their livestock somewhere. We also passed the Accra Fire Station and a lot of ancient fire engines. Then we arrived at some nice wooden huts with washroom signs on the door and a strange edifice made of breeze blocks, with a symbol of a woman pointing one way and a man the other. Why I had not realised the implications of this arrangement I will never now but when asked about urination or toilet I re-confirmed my desire to urinate and found myself ushered into a…well…I am not sure how to describe it. A long trench in the ground, with bathroom tiles. Here is a drawing.
There. I had a little bit of trouble with the urinal as my knees are not up to a deep squat having run over 1,000 km in the last nine months, so basically I peed up my leg and over my shoes. Nice. If I want you to take anything away from this story, regular reader, it’s not that I have urinated on myself without the presence of jellyfish but this: while in Ghana, if someone offers you a urination or a toilet – take the toilet.
Right, back to transport. The STC bus takes three hours to get from Accra to Cape Coast. I can’t tell you what time they go at becaue I don’t know. We left sometime around 12.30. There are other buses at different times I think. On our bus we had a very angry man who was constantly in a state of intense rage about something. He had come to Ghana from another country and was happier with how things were in Cote d’Ivoire. I am not sure if this meant he was from there. If he was I would be surprised because this was the time that there was a lot of fighting in Abijan and he would have been well up for a rumble, I suspect. Angry Man was offset by Anxious Girl. Wow, she was tense. She was very concerned that she be let off the bus in Cape Coast town centre and kept leaping up every two minutes after Winneba to make sure the whole bus knew she needed to get off at Cape Coast town centre. The Ghanaians did not respond very well to Anxious Girl. I think they were a bit baffled by the anxious vibe she was giving off. They kept trying to reassure here but she wasn’t convinced and then it became really annoying because the bus was going to Cape Coast, but it was going to the STC station which is not in the centre. She it was hard to work out what she was talking about once you analysed it. Which there was ample opportunity to do. Angry Man was not a fan of Anxious Girl. Whatever was going on with her, it was epic. When she got off people were backing off to get out of her way such was her frenzy.
Anyway, we were much more chilled and relaxed and with no fuss at all the bus stopped and let us off at Cape Coast STC station. A man got our bags for us and a taxi driver asked us where we were going. Now, my regular reader will know that I have been to Marrakech and there you will find the most unpleasant, cheating, thieving collection of taxi drivers I have ever encountered in my life. Anyone who says different didn’t get the taxi drivers that I got. In fact these taxi drivers have so besmirched the reputation of Morocco that I refuse to get a taxi in any part of the country should I ever return. Which is very unlikely. I mention this because when said taxi driver asked us where we were going we immediately felt hassled and oppressed. But there was no need because this was Alex, our joint-favourite taxi driver in Ghana.
Who I will tell you about tomorrow. Aw, do not worry gentle reader, I have put on timed publish thingy so it will be here….
