Hunkered down by the ocean, Jamestown looks like chaos in paradise.
It is a slum where poverty blends pitifully with the smell of the beautiful Atlantic Ocean.
The colonial buildings at Jamestown still stand strong and a lighthouse overlooks the harbour that served as a prison.
Orchids growing in long dainty glass vases, artworks costing millions of shillings hang in a gallery at a far corner, a cellist, fufu in spicy goat soup or banku and okro stew welcome you to Kempinski Hotel Gold Coast in Accra.
This coastal city is attracting tourists who want to experience Africa in a different way; stay in comfortable hotels such as Kempinski, Movenpick or Marriott, but venture out with locals.
Just like many experiential tourists, I was told to visit Jamestown, the Cathedral Church of the Most Holy Trinity, Makola Market, Bojo Beach and Osu for its nightlife.
I started with Jamestown which houses the remnants of Accra’s colonial past and slavery.
Hunkered down by the ocean, Jamestown looks like chaos in paradise. It is a slum where poverty blends pitifully with the smell of the beautiful Atlantic Ocean.
Young boys with unzipped jeans run towards the sea, women sitting outside their shacks smoke fish at community kilns or sort out crabs, squids or barracudas for sale as bare-chested and dreadlocked men repair their boats at the shore.
There is no running water and residents bathe in the ocean and then fetch the water for domestic use.
You need a guide to take you around Jamestown. I paid 50 cedi (Sh1,000), apparently a donation to a school for homeless children, but my taxi driver said it was a rip-off.
The colonial buildings at Jamestown still stand strong and a lighthouse overlooks the harbour that served as a prison. You can go towards the bridge where slaves had to walk to get on the ships.
Makola market
Then there is the throbbing Makola Market with sellers of original Kente cloth woven by the Ashanti tribe and mainly worn by kings, to others peddling raw cocoa butter. Most of the textiles are cheap, apart from the Kente, which costs up to Sh30,000.
However, if you go to the Art Centre which is a more organised textiles market, you must be a haggler, because for Ghanaians, haggling is a pastime.
Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum and Memorial Park, which is a few minutes from Kempinski Hotel is a must-visit.
Ghana’s first president, Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah and his Egyptian wife’s Fathia lie side by side at the mausoleum that attracts tourists in droves. They come to see his coffin, his two pianos, his leather chest of drawers, a stained-beigeish bed that he used when he was at Lincoln University in the US, an overcoat that he wore in 1961 to the UN General Assembly and his smock dress when he declared Ghana’s independence in March 6, 1957.
There are also many pictures dating back 71 years ago from those of his mother Elizabeth Nyaniba wailing during his funeral, to Nkrumah who died of prostate cancer in 1972 posing with Nikita Khrushchev, John F. Kennedy, Web du Bois and Fidel Castro. There are also photos when he was in exile in Guinea.
The dusty metallic coffin in the mausoleum was used to store his body after he was brought home from Bucharest in Romania where he had died.
Tourists pay 10 cedi (Sh200) to tour the grounds that have hundreds of trees, peacocks and covered with statues of the man that Ghanians had loved, hated and revered.
Some statues are in a water fountain and another one with a chopped head and a maimed thigh, vandalised during a coup d’ etat have a resting place in Accra.
