The road to Axim

Axim seems relatively close on the map. What the map doesn’t reveal is the series of exchanges one must undertake to get there. We started about 11 o’clock on Saturday morning, believing the trip would put us at the beach at about 1 p.m. The least prepared travelers in Africa are surely those who remain slavishly committed to their pesky timetables.

To get anywhere, given the location of the Kwaws’ home, we must first walk the quarter mile of red-dirt road to the main road. It’s barely a road under good conditions and I wonder at its passability in the rainy season. One might be better served by an innertube.

At the main road we catch a shared taxi to the Pedo station. This costs about 50 pesewa (50¢) per person and takes maybe 15 or 20 minutes. This is not a station in the way, say, Grand Central or Gar du Nord is a station. This is a station, as far as I can discern, only because it has a handful of stationary vehicles and isn’t a car junkyard. We buy two tro-tro tickets for Takoradi, the largest city in the Eastern District of Ghana. This runs us about 2.20 cedis (about US$2) a piece.

There is no timetable; the tro-tro departs when it is full. Until then, you occupy your seat and study the head of the person in front of you. You discuss the overlooked joys of motion. You debate if the bites on your arm are from mosquitoes or some other brand of vermin and what that might mean for your prospects of continued good health.

The ride to Takoradi is comfortable and, not surprisingly, very interesting. The woman sitting next to me is transporting two chickens in a cardboard box. Every once in awhile the animals share their dissatisfaction with their travel accommodations.

Meanwhile, we pass villages of a kind we’ve not seen yet. These are bare, simple encampments of mud or thatch huts, with the occasional squat brick structure thrown in. The small network of homes is connected by uneven red dirt paths rutted and scoured over time by rain. Women bend to smoking cooking pots. Chickens peck about in the brush. Barefoot children chase a soccer ball around.

Everywhere the jungle looms, prepared, it seems, to consume any inch not diligently managed by the residents. It waits behind and bends overhead and is full of malevolent spirits.

It takes about an hour or so to get to Takoradi. In typical Ghanaian fashion two men kindly point us to the Axim station for our next connection. Tickets here are 1.80 for a large tro-tro and 2.10 for what is referred to as a small tro-tro. We splurge on the “small” and take up our seats, and wait. A string of vendors selling everything from muffins to razors to some items I can’t confidently identify stop by the open door.

This ride takes us another 1.5 hours farther east. The road begins to deteriorate some, and there seem to be more police check stations, though the purpose of these stops eludes me. At one, the policemen actually relax in stuffed armchairs sitting incongruously beneath a ramshackle thatch covering.

By now our two-hour excursion is approaching closer to four hours. As we pull into the somewhat derelict-looking Axim station, it’s about 3:30 p.m. Now we get a taxi to the hotel.