The Axim Beach Resort

The Axim Beach Resort had been recommended to us by a couple of the other volunteers, and they didn’t oversell it. Occupying a beautiful hill overlooking the ocean the place, built and managed by a German, offers a range of different accommodations.

We treated ourselves to a “chalet.” For US$60/night you get your own very comfortably appointed place, complete with solar-heated shower, TV, refrigerator and, incredibly, air conditioning. And a great deal of time and attention has been paid in décor and design.

We had dinner at the beach restaurant, not to be confused with the hilltop restaurant, and then relaxed with a Castle Milk Stout on the beach until the sun went down. There is nothing else here but beach and ocean, and the place seemed to have few other guests.

We whiled away the rest of the evening in air-conditioned splendor, watching a battery of horrible movies before calling it a night.

The next morning, after breakfast, we explore the rest of the grounds to see the other (read: cheaper) room options on the off chance we might return. Upon checking out, the clerk returns our change, minus 8.50 cedis.

“We don’t have change,” she says, smiling, as if this were the most natural thing.

“OK,” I say, assuming, of course, that the rest of the change will be secured through some other means. But when they casually go about their business it becomes clear that she believes her explanation is sufficient to short us the remaining money.

“Excuse me, so are you going to give us the rest of the change?” I ask.

This seems to confound them and after we remain firm on this little piece of business they rather reluctantly agree to go and try to scare up the extra cash. After nearly 20 minutes, the woman returns with 3 cedis, still 50 pesewas short. And she seems quite happy with the result. We are not as much, especially when she informs us it will cost 1 cedi to call us a tax (the hotel is a good distance from the main road). This is when Shawn loses it. This does not seem to trouble terribly either.

We then wait another 30 minutes for the taxi and begin the trip in reverse. We conclude that the transportation from place to place is equally if not more interesting than the destinations themselves. On the return, we ride with people coming from church, dressed up in their Sunday finery.

We also learn that if you catch a tro-tro on the road rather than the station you agree to as many stops as the driver can make. On our final ride from Takoradi to the Pedo station finds us sharing seats with 27 other people and a few large and unfortunately situated bags of who knows what under my feet.