The journey started not in Ghana. But in Ethiopia, at the airport during my layover.
As soon as you reach the airport, nothing feels different. But the moment I truly knew I was in Africa was when I saw all the awaiting passengers carrying their suitcases on their heads.

Some Back-story

It starts in university, 2023 when I enter an architecture competition with my uni friends (yes, this is actually relevant). Tasked to design a school in Ghana’s Busua Beach (As second year architecture students we came no where near winning). I called the organization and expressed my interest in joining them as a volunteer teacher for a few weeks (or months or years?), but unfortunately neither of our schedules aligned so I had to tell him he’d be seeing me after my degree when I’m free to travel the world. We’ll get back to this later.

Some time passed and:
Degree: Finished. So I’ve moved out from my share-house in Brisbane back to Gold Coast with my mum and brother. Soon after I’m house sitting my grandmas place in Burleigh for 3 months (didn’t realise at the time this was a good warm up for living out of a backpack and sleeping on the couch). My partner moved out of her home and in with my at grandmas. When that was over, we both lived at mums for an awkward 3 weeks before my trip, sleeping on a mattress in the spare room on the floor. But for the cheap rent it was worth it I suppose.
We had agreed to do long distance while I was gone, and that I’d meet her again in the UK when she flies back to see her family for christmas. And we also had planned to go on a trip together kind of as a half way point for myself that we can both experience. We decided on China, cheap to get to from here, cheap (relatively) to get to Ghana from. We found it was actually cheaper to fly to Japan first and then Shanghai from there, so screw it, 4 days in Japan it was.
We met her family half way through our 3 weeks in China, the day after I’d been food poisoned and they took control of the second half of the China trip. Now’s where things get interesting...
Derick (as I’ll refer to him in this story) from the volunteering place in Busua messages to inform me of his payment details, and that the price volunteers have to pay to be at their place is 150 euros a week. A price he had not mentioned in the 2 years we’d been in contact, even after all the times I had asked him
“hey anything important I should know or that we may have missed?”

He played it off as just forgetting and assuming I was aware already of the cost, and my naive heart tried to believe him. I had to tell Derick that after 2 years of saving and budgeting, I did not plan for an extra 1200 euros (2 months is how long I planned to be there), but after all the vaccines, visa headaches, flight itineraries and my plans for before and after my Ghana volunteering, I couldn’t simply not go?

I decided to go to Ghana anyway and skip the volunteering. It’s a decision I made based on more than just the cost, I’d researched a bit in the week before I left China that it’s quite common for organisations such as this to do similar things. I discovered the term “voluntourism”, a practice that is sometimes beautiful all round, but sometimes deeply evil. Where tourists come, take some selvies at underpriverlaged communities, and feel good about themselves while actually contributing to a vicious cycle. Some orphanages have realised tourists will pay for an experience, and if there's no orphans, there's no money, so they’ll pull children away from their families to keep their horribly unethical practice going. I had no way of telling whether Derick was legit or not, so my safest option was to simply pass on it and be a tourist, using my time and money to contribute to the countries growing tourism scene.

I did try frantically to find other volunteering options, and came across Pam (her names not actually Pam), who you’ll find is a big part of the story. She gave me tonnes and tonnes of options, she calmed my nerves over our exchanged messages and told me a good place to stay when I arrived.
So the plan was no longer to arrive and volunteer for the 2 whole months, it was arrive, and figure it out day by day. Did I research much of Ghana?
Not really, only what was relevent to the volunteering place. What to do, where to go, what to see, what to be aware of? No idea.

But I was about to find out.

Hello Accra

I arrived in Accra at midday, though my body had no idea what time it was, I barely even remembered my own name at that point. A great time really to attempt navigating an African country for your first time, alone. After the shock on peoples faces back home when I told them I was heading to Africa, I had no idea what was in store for me, how treacherous is it, can I trust anyone? I was feeling repulsed, like I was making a big mistake; after touring China my body was begging to be home to at least recuperate for such a trip.

All the luggage came off the belt except mine. Naturally, in my state, my mind catastrophised, has it been lost? Stolen? Is this only the start of a series of unfortunate African events?
… It arrived soon after the belt came back on.
I needed a SIM ASAP to let mum know I made it safely, there was a lady selling them near the bag pick up. Should I trust her or is this a tourist scam? At this point, gut feeling was out of the equation. A photo of my passport?! Gulp. She could tell I was skeptical, so she said something, it eased my mind. I suppose this was my first instance of understanding the deep souled beauty that rest within the Ghanians. She said "You have nothing to worry about in Ghana, no one is out to get you and no one will hurt you." Somehow, I knew this was genuine.

Of course the airport taxi is going to cost ten times more than something local, but I was in no state to figure out how to get to my hostel the local way right now. The taxi window gave me a glimpse of Ghana, I was not fond. Loud, messy, bustling streets, I could not find a single place during that trip where I could take a deep breath and rest, it was hecticness at every corner.

My hostel was unlike anything you'd see in Europe or South East Asia. A run down old building along a messy decrepit street, no bars, cafes, sites or tourists anywhere close by. I checked into my 12 bed dorm waiting to meet some other travelers, a chat to help my mind calm down a bit. I was alone in the dorm. Alone in Ghana. I was hungry and thirsty, but I did not want to leave the safety of my hostels walls. Even if I did, where would I find a restaurant, or a place to buy water?

After a mental breakdown and a few manic message sent to my mum and my partner, it was time to brave outside. The road was chockers with speeding cars, bikes and people, there was no sidewalk, so I walked between the road shoulder and the deep drainage ditch, passing all the shacks. My Western brain is wired to associate a certain building characteristics with different shops, I can point out usually a restaurant, a café, a retail shop, clothes shop etc. But along the road, I didn't know what was what, they all just looked like different unrecognizable shacks and old buildings, with no signs to help either.

I was getting more panicked the further I walked, but eventually I found an established restaurant, a fried chicken joint.
"wow really trying out the local cuisine aren't y-"
Nope! Not now, I don't want to hear it internal monologue. I paid a shitty western price for a shitty western meal, shit fried chicken and shit chips which I ate uncomfortably with all the locals eyeing me at my table. That really did not do wonders for my already upset stomach after 3 weeks of Chinese food then 35 hours of airplane food. I found a corner store on the way back selling water so I got a few bottles, I was yet to realise you can buy water sachets for basically one cent each.

Back at the hostel I staired at the ceiling in my bed, trying not to lose my mind, 2 months ahead of me, half a day down. I'm not looking forward to all the adventure ahead, I'm dreading it, thinking about how good it would be to be back on the Gold Coast in my bed. It's 4 pm and my body is shutting down from jetlag, I don't want to sleep yet because that'll make me wake up hideously early the next morning. I just need a way to stay awake and calm my brain before it explodes. Netflix is the solution, normally you'd never catch me watching mundane American drama, but it turns out this is the remedy for numbing your brain. This kicked off my low-key addiction to 'The Good Doctor' which would actually help me at my lows quite a bit throughout this trip actually.

Out cold at 5pm, before the sun set. Not even the booming music of the neighbors or the street light blaring inside would wake me up.

I woke up once at 4am, then 5, then 7. No sleep would be enough sleep right now. What's on for today? Make it through.

Blog number one, I've made it short and sharp to set the scene and act as an introduction to my epic West African adventure. Though it was seemingly off to a frantic start, I soon found myself thriving, eventually riding a push bike around the country! Stay tuned as I release weekly blogs, detailing my 4 month jouney up the West African coast. The coolest stories and insider information that you won't find on any trip-advisor page.
Leave a comment if you read this so I know my efforts aren't completely wasted, and feel free to ask any questions about Ghana, travel, or anything really.

Thanks and seeya next week!