We said goodbye to Big Millys and all the staff, I think we will be back there at sometime in the near future. The New Years plan is to head to Cape Coast, the old colonial capital of Ghana. Rumour has it the best party is going to be here, and if it isnt we will try to make it the best. We stopped at a place called Winneba junction for food, it was our second visit to this place, we like it so much we thought we would return. Its a special place because there are about 30 restaurants but finding one that sells food is a real challenge. The best part was buying a drink, Tute asked for two bottles of Coke, and what do we get? One can of Fanta, after a bit of persuasion we managed to get a can each, although the waitress looked at us like we had just shown our asses at a funeral. Winneba junction a great place, I recommend it.
Cape Coast turned out to be a picturesque city with some great colonial architecture in a fairly crunbly state. The city was pretty relaxed and people let us go about our business pretty much un-hindered. We were staying at the Oasis beach resort, a nice little spot right on the beach and the venue for the big party. New Years eve rolled around, not wanting to arrive at the party too early (the True Ambassadors of Cool that we are) we headed to town for some street food and beers. The local drinking spots are always good fun, the speakers cranked up to maximum so your brain is rattling around your skull, people asking you for drinks and making you dance, but no it actually is good fun. We stopped at the juice and chips bar, they were all out of chips so we had juice, mixed in with a bit of local Gin (delicious). After a few drinks we bumped into Sam and Corinne and headed to the party (sneaking then in for free - tut tut) where we joined Brian and everybody else. Due to the lack of clocks midnight came and went with a bit of confusion, but after a while the fireworks came out. It became apparent that the firework safety adverts never came to Ghana. The locals let off fireworks by lighting the fuse and waiting until it was nearly ignited and then throwing them into the air, and seeing what direction they went in, this was particularly effective with the Catherine wheels. As far as im aware everyone survived.
The party got a tiny bit flat after a while, and I think this was mainly due to the lack of Africans in there. So we got back out on the street where the party was a bit more exciting, the memory gets a bit hazy at this point but it involved dancing, kebabs, beer and popcorn. I went to bed while Tute attempted to sit out first light with the resort owners. We spent new years day lazing around the beach, unfortunately our car insurance had run out so we were unable to drive anywhere, all the more reason to sit around doing nothing. As it was New Years day we thought it only fair to nip into town for a quiet beer, with the Aussies we went to ‘Mothers Inn’, a place we had popped into last night. Its a proper drinking hole and we love it, they love us too, and cheered and hugged us when we walked in. Before long the locals had dragged us to our feet for a bit of dancing and it was abosolutely baking hot in there. Unfortunately ‘mother’ dropped a bottle getting a shard of glass in the eye, she was rushed off to the docs leaving the locals in charge of the bar. Allot of confusion occured, because only mother knew we had paid for the beers. After lots of negotiation we got hold of another beer and made a hasty exit.
We decided not to visit the fort at Cape Coast, although an impressive building we felt having done one guided tour (Elmina) to do another might be a bit samey. Instead we decided to walk up to a smaller lighthouse/fort which overlooked the city. The guidebook says it is not possible to enter the building but the view from close by is good. It turned out the lighthouse was now inhabited by some locals, who had well and truly taken over, washing was hanging out to dry on the canons. They were more than happy however to let us in for a small payment (we gave about 50p), a young lad took us to the top for some fine views out to the city and the sea. The next day we said our goodbyes, got our insurance sorted out and headed back to Accra.
