Detailed accommodation and trip report

Thanks to Nitharshan Srikanthapalan for the wonderfully detailed report below:

Here’s some info from the trip I’ve just had in Ghana (1st – 27th March). Mainly involving prices although I think others have already provided a bit of an update on that front anyway…

FYI I rated each hotel out of 7 (likeart scale) so will provide those ratings as well:

1. Afrikiko’s (just outside Akosombo):
$75/85 single/dbl B&B
An adequate room, pool needed chlorine and lots of it – it was not at all clean. The setting was stunning and the food was very good.
Rating: 4

2. Bob Coffie (formerly Freedom Hotel in Ho):
70 cedis for a twin room (with huge beds) B&B
Room, pool and food all good. Setting was ok – it’s central, walkable from the market/lorry-park. We found the staff very friendly and with a sense of humour.
Rating: 6

If you’re staying elsewhere then using the pool at Bob Coffie is pretty pricey (compared to other hotels in Ghana) at a whopping 10 cedis.

We stopped in at Chances on the way – we found it lacking character and the staff seemed miserable and unhelpful. It had a corporate feel to it and we weren’t keen. It was 90 cedis for a twin.
Also, VIP hotel was nowhere near completion and looked like construction had stopped.

3. Tafi Atome Guest House
20 cedis per person (in a twin room) including breaksfast, dinner and the guided tour
No longer bucket showers – they have a poly-tank providing running (cold) water and flush toilets (although the flush wasn’t working so we had to throw buckets of water down them after, ahem, doing our business).
The room had a ceiling fan (that’s not mentioned in the guide).
Rating: 4 (although it was great value for money)

4. Wli Water Heights (near the falls):
45 cedis for a twin room with bathroom. (B&B)
35 cedis for a twin room with shared bathroom. (B&B)
Phone number had changed: 020 938 7176
Room was nice, there’s no pool, the setting was nice and the staff (particularly the owner) were very friendly. Food was outstanding.
Rating: 6

Big Food Safari Lodge has opened nearby. We didn’t get to see it but there are signs advertising it all over the place. The number is 020 788 2334. It’s worth noting that phone signal in the Wli area is pretty horrendous (I think there’s one network which had an ok signal there – which wasn’t MTN) so if you’re going to call them to book, do it in advance of leaving Hohoe.

5. Galaxy Lodge (in Hohoe):
50 cedis for a twin
The room had AC, a fridge and DSTV but we were disappointed with it:
bathroom door didn’t close, the towels were not what I’d call clean, neither were the sheets – one of which had holes and there was a dead cockroach under one of the beds. Breakfast was not included here but the quality of the breakfast that we ordered was reasonable.
We didn’t have dinner there.
Rating: 2

6. Tsarley Korpey (Ada Foah)
$180 for a family room (B&B)
$110 for a double room (B&B)
Everything about this hotel was excellent apart from the value for money (which was mediocre at best). Rating: 4

If, like us, you are two people who don’t fancy sharing a double bed for whatever reason then Ada Foah is a tricky place to be – we didn’t find anywhere with a twin room apart from Garden Club which we weren’t very impressed with.

For info in Ada Foah, Brightest Spot’s prices are now: 35 cedis for a single, 45 cedis for a double.

And there’s also a newish-looking place not mentioned in the book (it was called something like Emizile) which we liked the look of when we went in to have a look at the rooms and they are charging 60 cedis for a double room.

7. Mole National Park:
18 cedis for a dorm room
70 cedis for a dbl/twin room (plus 18 cedis if you want an extra mattress in there)
Dorm room was reasonable (space to sleep 8 on four bunks although they also threw an extra mattress in there), twin room was lovely.
Obviously the setting (looking over the watering hole) is excellent especially if, like us, you got to see eight elephants go in and have a nice long sit in the watering hole just after we got back from a walking safari where we’d got very close to the same aforementioned eight elephants.
Pool was very clean and good.
Value for money was good too given the location (and their monopoly on accomodation) although breakfast was not included.
Only down side was that the running water wasn’t working for one of our two days that we were there.
Rating: 5

8. Premier Palace (Techiman):
35 cedis for a single, 60 cedis for a double (B&B)
Rooms: good (although the single was a little odourous)
Setting is poor
Food was very good and we felt it was good value for money.
Rating: 7

9. Noks (Kumasi):
45/65/75 cedis single/dbl/exec. suite (B&B – sort of, see below!)
Rooms were good
Setting was reasonable (in a quiet suburb which appealed to us)
Food: Breakfast was good but slow. We didn’t eat dinner there
Value for money: Pretty decent but rather disappointingly they claimed that only one breakfast is included per room so if you’re two people sharing a double room and both of you want breakfast then one would have to pay. Bonkers.
Rating: 5

10: African Rainbow (Busua):
125/135/180/25 single/dbl/family/mattress (added to a room) (B&B)
Thinking back, I think these were the prices of the rooms with AC and they had some slightly cheaper rooms without. The AC is very unreliable because of the whole town’s electricity issues. The AC only works if there is no ‘light-off’ AND the backup generator is on (while neighbouring Busua Beach Resort don’t have that issue as they have more than one generator).
Room was good, setting was excellent (given the balcony that each room has and the excellent, breezy, roof-top bar). Food was superb and the value for money was reasonable (and would be good if the electricity wasn’t an issue). They also had free wifi available in the bar area.
Rating: 6

The prices at Busua Beach Resort next door were:
$175/185/50/25 single/dbl/budget/extra mattress.
A non-resident guest can pay 5 cedis to use the pool (hence our decision to stay at African Rainbow). 5 cedis to use the pool was a bargain.

11. Coconut Grove Bridge House (Elmina):
55/65/75 single/dbl/tpl (B&B)
Room was good and the setting is convenient in that it’s central but also you can smell the fish because you’re right next to the town. It’s busy and bustling which might be good or bad depending on your point of view. The food was very good – particularly their signature dish (which was very coconuty)
Value for Money was good bordering on excellent given the alternatives in the area and especially because use of the Coconut Grove Beach Resort facilities (e.g. the lovely, clean, big pool) is included.
Other info:
Elmina Bay Resort were charging: $135/195/15 for dbl/suite/mattress
Eshu in Cape Coast has closed.

Other info you might be interested in is that there was construction occurring at Step-in Gallery when I went there and was duly not open. It was not clear if this was temporary or not – I couldn’t close enough to nose inside and see if any art was displayed.

It’s worth noting that some of the big cities e.g. Accra, Kumasi, Takoradi etc have “Ford stations” where you can pick up what is essentially a comfortable, new version of a tro-tro for longish journeys in relative comfort (they have AC) and safety (although they also drive pretty fast). Price is slightly more than the same journey by tro-tro.

And finally, as a traveller, I felt it would have been useful to have more Forex Bureaus marked on your maps. For someone travelling cash (which is how you’ll get the best rate), these are the most economical places to get your cedis.

Annette’s updates

I spent 4 months in Ghana during 2007 in which I lived just near Kumasi and travelled North to South and recently spent another 2 weeks in 2010 travelling mostly East to West. I have a few updates to the Bradt Guide which I hope will prove useful for the next edition (I was travelling with the 4^th edition as the 5^th edition was not yet out).

ACCRA – I stayed at the Silver Gate Hotel. It is located in Demalt (North Kaneshie) and rooms cost between 15 and 25 cedi. The rooms are very large, self-contained places with a fan and TV. The staff are very friendly and helpful. I stayed here twice and both times it was excellent.

CAPE COAST – Stayed at the Red Cross Hotel. Actually quite impressed. It was really clean and the staff were eager to help even going so far as using their mobile phones to call our next port of call to see whether they had rooms available. At Cape Coast Castle they employ policemen to help tourists (and  keep hawkers out). They are really friendly and even gave me lunch while I was waiting for my friend to finish.

ELMINA – Mabel’s Table. We walked here from Elmina Castle and it was quite a trek! It was a bit more expensive then quoted in the 4^th edition but the food was excellent and they were really large portions. Probably one meal between two would have sufficed.

BEYIN – Beyin Beach Resort. This was our favourite place. The new budget accommodations cost 20 cedi a night (huts with beds and mosquito nets). It was very clean, the shared bathrooms were the best I have seen and it was in such a beautiful location.

NZULEZO – We didn’t stay here. The boat ride was so beautiful although I didn’t see too much as I was constantly bailing out the boat! Did seem a bit gimmicky. The chief’s daughter brought her purse along to our ‘meeting’ to pocket any money we seemed obliged to fork out. Interesting place though.

PRAMPRAM – We set out to find the Turtle Conservation and Ecotourism Project but could not find any sign of it. We asked around the village and nobody seemed to think that they were still around. I have big question marks next to this project in my book. Hotel de Vas was closed, nobody seemed sure if it was going to reopen. We stayed at Sealane and had the same problems as other readers. The ‘Western-style’ food was very expensive. There no water and broken lights. It looked like a very tired place. When we told them we weren’t going to pay unless we got water, they fixed something and we had temperamental water but no hot water. For 30-60 cedis a night, we could have hoped for much more (just take Beyin Beach Resort for instance!). The breakfast which is included is just tea and bread (egg is extra!). Highly recommend not staying here. On the other hand, the ‘Who is your friend chop bar’ had excellent fresh food and really good service.

KETA – From Ho we caught a tro-tro to Denu and then one to Keta. We stayed at Abutia Guesthouse for 12 cedi. The shared bathrooms were absolutely full of mosquitoes (as were the rooms…). I guess that’s what you pay for being so close to the lagoon. The restaurant was not serving food and they instead sent us to Angel Food (on the road to the Lighthouse) which had really good and well-priced food.

BIAKPA – Mountain Paradise Lodge. Unfortunately the weather was terrible while we were staying here and I got the feeling that they were trying to charge for every single little thing. Everything came at a cost. There was no mention of the shared bathroom accommodation (maybe it was full?) and we were not allowed to use tents as it was so wet. The self-contained room was priced considerably more than the book said at 25 – 39.5 cedis. There is now electricity at the site. Taxis were expensive to get there but we were lucky enough to meet the owner of Mountain Paradise at Fume who, although on his way to Hohoe, took our bags so that we could more easily walk the distance from Fume to the Lodge.

FUME – Hanson’s Spot was closed and didn’t look like it was going to reopen anytime soon. We asked many, many people in the village about the unsignposted guesthouse but nobody seemed to know about it.

TAFI ATOME. Accommodation cost 15 cedi. The beds were the most uncomfortable that I came across in Ghana. They do have a running shower now though (no buckets) and the drinks in the shop were cold. The monkey tour was at 6am and we had an excellent guide. Food at the chef’s house was amazing! Seemed the ONLY way to get to and from Tafi Atome was by motorcycle for 1 cedi each way.

HOHOE – Stayed at Grand Hotel. The bar was really loud. I slept with earplugs. Had breakfast at Taste Lodge. Reasonable food but service was very slow (even for Ghana!).

KUMASI – I stayed with friends but when I did have to stay in a hotel in the city, I went to the Kumasi Wesleyan Guest House which is on Asomfo St. It was quite disappointing. There were many stairs to get there and it was not that clean (hair in shower and when we asked to move rooms because our air conditioner didn’t work there were tissues under the bed…). 32 cedis a night for TV and air con. Good location. Nurom Inn Annexe was closed for renovations.

LAKE BOSUMTWI – 2 cedi entrance fee for white people. Good lunch and drinks at Lake Paradise Resort.

Regards,

Annette.

 

 

 

Updates from Thor Young

My wife and I traveled to Ghana on vacation recently and relied heavily on the 4th Edition of the Bradt guide in our travels. I have comments on some of the places we visited for your internet readers or next edition. I’ll go in order from west to east with a general comment on tipping guides up front:

TIPPING GUIDES: We had a number of excellent “institutional” guides in Ghana at the castles, parks, reserves, community ecotourism sites, etc. I realize they don’t get paid well, if at all (some seem to be volunteers) so I tried to tip well, generally about half the admission price and sometimes higher. However, I was disappointed so few other western vistors tipped our guides at all even after they seemed to go out of their way for us. For example, at both Kukum and Cape Coast castle we had excellent guides who I gave 5 cedis each, but none of the other 8 or 10 western tourists who toured each of those sites with us gave them a thing. I’d like to reward people like these guides and encourage more local residents (as these clearly were) to get involved with local tourism.

BEYIN: The beach here was probably the nicest I saw in Ghana. We visited the Nzulezo Stilt village. The current rate is 10 cedis per non-Ghanaian adult. They stressed no one at the village was to ask us for money and that proved to be true. In fact, no one at the village said anything to us. Compared to other villages we visited, the people at the silt village seemed a bit more “unoccupied” and less friendly – which I imagine is because life on the silt village is pretty slow and they have a steady string of tourists parading by. We did visit the chief, who asked for a bottle of gin or 7 cedis in exchange for telling you the village history. We paid the money as a courtesy (not having any gin), upon which the chief told us a short sentence or two about the village history which our guide had already shared with us, then just sat and stared at us for a while, then finally made a plea for us to give money for the village school. I would recommend skipping this po rtion of the “tour”. That being said, our guide Charles was excellent and gave a lively and informative tour, so the overall 3-hour experience was very pleasant.

AXIM: We stayed at the Lou Moon Lodge and it was fabulous – like some remote luxury hideaway I’d pay three times as much to stay in Hawaii or the Caribbean and still not has a good as food or service. I can’t emphasize how fabulous the food was, and while it was expensive by Ghana standards, it would not have been compared to a similar priced dish in a developed country.

ELMINA: We stayed at the Coconut Grove resort which I really enjoyed, particularly the pool and restaurant. The only part of the resort I would not recommend is the golf course, which looked virtually unplayable. The Elmina castle tour is also very good although I would say if you only had time for one castle tour, the Cape Coast castle museum and tour are a bit better. The admission was 9 cedis for non-Ghanaian adults. Your guidebook mentions the great view from Fort St Jago but does not reference a tour there. I asked at St. Georges castle if there was a tour offered at Fort St. Jago and the folks at the front desk did not really seem to know, but after we hiked up the hill we found there was in fact an attendant there who gave us an excellent 30 minute tour. The rate was 3 cedis per person. I am told that fort along with the three main castles are the only ones in Ghana listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

KAKUM: The current rate if 9 cedis for the canopy walk and an additional 5 cedis for the 1 hour forest walk. You are right, you can’t purchase the forest walk alone – because it starts from the end of the canopy walk. The guide stressed we’d be unlikely so see animals on the forest walk and he was right – but it was worth it to see and learn about all the trees of forests and their traditional uses. Some of the trees are amazingly massive.

CAPE COAST: The castle tour was excellent as advertised. The castle museum is also excellent and probably the only one I saw in Ghana which was of modern western museum exhibit quality. Admission for both was 9 cedis for non-Ghanaian adults.

ANOMABU: You noted the Anomabu Beach Resort has “few if any peers” on the Ghanaian coast. Its an OK place, but really nothing compared to some of the nicer resorts like Coconut Grove. The beach is suffering from severe erosion which threatens to topple the coconut trees which now have half their roots fully exposed. There is very little sand to stand on except the surf zone. The restaurant is very nice (and very popular) and did serve excellent meals as advertised, although I would not list the portions as “enormous” as the guidebook suggests.

SHAI HILLS: The current cost of the tour is 10 cedis per person entry plus 3 cedis per hour for the guide (non-Ghanaian adult), plus 4 cedis for a Ghana registered private vehicle. It takes about 3 hours to drive the park loop and hike to the two main caves if you have your own 4 x 4. I’m not quite sure what visitors on foot do – you can see the baboons near the entrance but not much else unless you have a full day to hike around. The hike to the Hionweyu cave at the park’s highest point is particularly rewarding, provided your thin and athletic enough to make it through the narrow openings. Plans to bring in more animals don’t seen to have materialized yet and you can’t help but think this park could be even better than it is if they could. We also toured the Cedi bead factory nearby which is very informative and worthwhile if you have a interest in beads – however, you might want to emphasize the bead factory is over a mile off the main road on a bumpy dirt road so be prepared.

EAST OF LAKE VOLTA: I could not agree more with the comment in the guidebook that cat-calls of “Obruni” would turn to friendly “Your Welcome” once we crossed the bridge – how very true!

AMEDZOFE: The map in the guidebook implies there is a road from Gbadzeme – don’t believe it. There was a road, but even in a 4 x 4 with a professional driver we barely made it up through 8 ft. tall vegetation and washed out portions – the locals at the top were shocked to see us driving into town from that direction. We went back down via Vane which is better, but not much, the roads up to Amezofe are steep and bumpy and long no matter which way you get there. The town is very nice and the people very friendly. The tourist office was open and provided us an excellent guide. The cost was 5 cedis to see the falls and 3 cedis to see Mount GEMI (which I’m told is properly capitalized and stands from German Evangelical Missionary Institute or something like that). They also call the falls by a different name, something short starting with an “O” that I did not write down. Anyway, the hike to the falls was probably my favorite short hike in Ghana (45 minutes each way) but is not for the unathletic. The view from Mt. GEMI (25 minute easy walk) is also very nice. We stopped at the Paradise Lodge for a drink but did not stay there. The view is excellent and the setting nice, but its not really close to Amezofe (or anywhere) and the road is not easily traveled. Contrary to what the guidebook says the lodge has electricity.

TAFI ATOME: The current rate is 7.5 cedis per person (non-Ghanian adult). We went at 12:30 on a hot day, which I figured would be a poor time to see the monkeys but we wound up seeing a lot right behind the tourist center as soon as we started walking. Apparently there are 4 family groups, only two of which are habituated and we saw both. The guide brought a bunch of bananas and we fed the monkeys from our hands.

WLI FALLS: The hike to the falls is well worth it and a great walk on its own. Its an easy walk, although the hike to the upper falls is just the opposite and very steep and difficult. The lower falls takes 45 minutes, the upper falls 2 hours to reach. The current rate is 8 cedis for the lower falls and just 2 more for the upper falls, so it is quite a bargain. They get a steady stream of visitors on weekdays but its not crowded, but apparently they get tour busses on the weekends which can make the lower falls rather crowded. This is the only eco-tourist site in Ghana where I saw souvenir stands so I assume that is related to the relative popularity of this attraction. I saw pictures of the caves in nearby Lukpe Todome which looked very cool but we did not have time to visit. We stayed at the Waterfall Lodge which was nice and very reasonably priced. It’s a short walk to the tourist office.

LOGBA TOTA: This town is actually fairly easy to get to (relatively) if you have a car – the first 4 km is flat and dirt, the last 3 km is steep but nicely paved with no traffic. The town architecture is interesting for the use of rock and mud in building construction. The tourist office is impossible to locate, but we asked in the square and someone found the only guide who opened a small room in a building near the square. The walk to the falls is 4.5 cedis. The walk is about 45 minutes and moderately challenging. Its sort of interesting in that you pass through the entire villages farm fields which are built on steep mountain slopes. The falls is seasonal and was barely flowing when we went but still nice. I didn’t realize it before we went, but you have to wade/swim through the water at the bottom of the falls to access the cave. Bring your own flashlight. I don’t think they get many visitors – it had been 4 days since the last person signed the guest re gister when I visited.

I visited several other interesting places but have nothing notable to add to the guide on any of them. You’re right – Ghana is a great place to visit and well set up for independent travelers.