It seemed inevitable

I knew it had to happen sooner or later. After all of my time on this continent and all of my long bus rides, I have been rather fortunate in the fact that a) I have not been in a bus accident and b) the bus has never broken down.

I finally experienced the latter yesterday.

I was travelling from Accra to Takoradi for work and I arrived at Carnation station in Accra to catch a bus in the afternoon. I think the entire day stated off on the wrong foot as it was unbelievably hot, I had to meet up with colleagues among the masses of people not to mention ward off those who were trying to entice me to buy their goods or take their bus to Takoradi.

Finally, we all meet up and it was decided that we would take a nice looking, bigger bus, as that seemed "more safe" as one of my colleagues said. I have learned that better looking things do necessarily mean better quality as I have taken some pretty beat up buses with no issues. I should have fought for my instinct.

About an hour outside of Accra the nice, air conditioned bus that we were on made a weird noise. The driver acknowledged the noise but proceeded driving. About 30 minutes after that we were pulled over on the side of the road. Most of the men got off the bus in attempt to find out and fix whatever the issue was. About 30 minutes after that we were on the road again...driving about 30km/h! As I watched cars and buses whiz past us, my only thought was that at this pace a 4 hour trip will take all night.

Finally the driver pulled over and we all disembarked from the bus. At this point it was about 6pm, the sun was fading and I wasn't sure how long we would all be standing on the side of the road fighting to get a seat in one of the buses passing by. Fortunately, we didn't have to wait too long when an empty bus pulled up. As usual, there were some elbows thrown in attempt to get on the bus but I sucked up my Canadian politeness and pushed my way on!

Thankfully, we made it to Takoradi. I will be co-facilitating a 2 day workshop here Friday and Saturday then heading to a near by beach for some relaxation.

Take the good with the bad!