The line between adventure and misadventure is especially thin while traveling abroad. A misadventure doesn’t have to be a catastrophic disaster or a voyage ending incident. It can be a simple culmination of unexpected events like: taxi cartels, police bribes, and flat tires. This is my recent misadventure in Ghana, West Africa.
Jane, Catherine, Sarah T and I ventured out early one morning with a vague agenda of taking the day off at a remote beach with a mysterious island. Our first hurdle was finding the safest taxi amongst a mob of eager drivers. It could have been a scene from the Sopranos as we selected our driver amongst the chaos only to have been overruled by the micro-taxi-cartel-boss who had another driver in mind. The mob boss carefully checked his notebook, selected our driver, and negotiated a fair price for us. Clearly this was not his first time manipulating the mob and he was ready to squash any driver unfortunate enough to be left outside looking in.
Before departing Accra our driver stopped at a roadside shack to top-off the tires, which is generally a sign that we chose the wrong car. Our destination was about an hour and a half outside the city and the ride was filled with friendly small talk. It was uneventful until our driver wanted to know if the ladies were married. I quickly chimed in and exclaimed that Jane was looking for a husband. Without looking back I could feel her piercing-death-stare while she jabbed me just out of the driver’s site. That may have been the wrong thing to say, oops. Soon after, our car was flagged down by a police officer. After exchanging words with our driver the officer was quietly slipped a small wad of cash. If it was that easy in America, I would have a clean driving record.
The beach was beautiful and mostly deserted except for a few fisherman selling their catch. We had the tropical paradise to ourselves while swimming in the crashing waves. After a bit, our driver found two local fisherman who were willing to chauffeur us to the off-shore island via hand-carved canoe. With every wave conquered we traveled further from shore and closer to the island until the swells grew large enough to crest over the bow of the rickety canoe. The captain told us more than once to remain still or risk capsizing. We motored closer and closer to the mysterious island with great expectations. Being the only guy, it was my responsibility to prepare for the worst. What would we do if we were marooned? Could we survive? How will we get the buried treasure home? And most importantly, who would we have to eat first? I would have voted for Catherine.
Countless tourists and fishermen have visited the island before but the moment we landed, it became our island as if no one else had ever stepped foot on it. In reality, it was little more than shrubs, sea urchins, and a few weathered trees. The fishermen were intrigued and annoyed at our desire to explore their tiny rock. We walked from tip to tip and around the perimeter searching for long lost treasure. After throughly exploring every nook and failing to find anything we departed without ever knowing who would have been eaten first.
The ride back to the beach was reasonably calm until we reached the sandy shores of our tropical paradise. We may have been in an old canoe but we just as well could have been Greek gods returning from war with an armada. That is until our “armada” crashed onto the beach and promptly rolled on its side. We were caught in the undertow and quickly filling with water. The Captain desperately pleaded with us to remain still but it was too late. My fantasies of being an explorer/pirate/Greek god were sunk by the hilarity of the situation. In the end, the danger was minimal and it must have been amusing to see us come ashore only to promptly roll over.
We carefully calculated the distance and time required to make “on-ship-time,” the time that everyone must be on back home or risk being left behind. We left paradise with several hours to spare only to get a flat tire just outside of town. We found ourselves sitting on the side of the road nearly two hours from the ship and starting to consider the possibility of being late. Holding up a thousand people on a passenger vessel has serious consequences that we were not prepared to face. Our driver lacked the proper tools required to change a tire so he called a few friends as the clock started ticking. Are we going to make it back? When is help coming? Is help coming? After a mere twenty minutes, that seemed like hours, help arrived to get us back on the road.
Back in Accra, our driver took us to an unexpected location for lunch. It was a simple cinder block building in a residential area far off the beaten path. Ghana isn’t known for tourism so most everywhere is off the beaten path but this was especially out of the way. We found ourselves eating in a restaurant where few tourists, if any, have eaten before. The food was a traditional fish stew, insanely cheap, and an experience to cherish. In the end, we made ship-time and although we didn’t find pirate treasure, we did survive a proper misadventure and were better friends for it.
