02/04/2024 Bikepacking Ghana Day 180 : Sacred Waters

Doing the “tourist thing” is kind of perplexing. The other day, my guide took me to the river and said “The river is sacred. It is believed that the souls of the dead come here to say goodbye.”

While such stories are always entertaining, the reality is that the only wayward soles I see are from the made-in-China sandals, disintegrated from aqueous abuse as the women stand in the river washing clothes. Undoubtedly, I must be missing something.

I came to West Africa thinking I’d be kept up late listening to drum circles, wild animals would damage my tent, and I’d see forlorn starving children. Fortunately, the likelihood of encountering any of these scenarios is vanishingly small; almost as small as glimpsing the elusive souls in the river.

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I hadn’t planned to ride the long way around Lake Bosumtwi. It was formed by an ancient impact crater. There is a 700’ vertical between the rim and the surface of the water, which reduced my interest in a blind climbing trudge. I had been talking to some kids near the rim for a while. Thomas said, “Hey, can I have your bottle?”

He pointed at my empty 1.5 liter water bottle. I had been carrying two of these for refilling and shower water at camp. Now that the camping is over, I only needed one for drinking.

“Why would you want that? I thought these were just trash.”

“No, we fill it with palm oil.”

He then pointed at the table down the road. It was a little roadside stand with filled plastic bottles arranged for sale. You see this quite a bit in West Africa: refilled water bottles with some food item… peanuts, camel milk, palm oil. I had naïvely thought that they had been using new, clean bottles. Think again.

Collins piped up, “Did you have any problems at borders? I think it is dangerous.”

“No problems. What kind of problems are you talking about?”

“With the police. Do they try to stop you?”

“No, almost everyone has been very nice,” I told the truth.

“I want to ride my bicycle to Spain, but I think they do not like me. They will stop me because I am from Ghana.”

Alexander suddenly blurted out, “They think we are monkeys!”

A couple of the other kids laughed nervously.

“Our friend went to Spain and he said the people there don’t like black peoples. They think we are monkeys,” continued Collins.

I tried to reassure them that this wasn’t true… but it was clear that their Akan speaking immigrant friend was more convincing than their new white friend from the USA. The worst part is that even if just one person said this, the idea is so painful that it becomes the primary narrative. I couldn’t help but think back to episode 175 - where people form opinions on other groups with so little real information.

We continued to talk and eventually an adult came on the scene. He is the one who convinced me that I should ride around the lake. He was proud of the scenic lake his locale had to offer.

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The constantly undulating lake terrain was difficult, but it eventually brought me to an informal looking roadside mine. I stopped and asked if I could take a photo, and David Coffee came running over. I always wonder what people are thinking when they christen their child with these food and product names.

“What are you mining?” I asked

“Gold!” David called out to his friend to bring the gold.

They carefully unwrapped a little silverish material from a black plastic garbage bag.

“But that is not gold; it is silver!”

“Original gold! It’s original gold!”

“You found this today?”

“Yes.”

“How much is it worth?”

“1000 Cedi” (that is about $81 USD).

“So today is a good day?”

David smiled broadly, “yes, YES. Today is a good day.”