ACCRA, Ghana - ''SSSSSSS,'' hissed my son, by way of getting the waiter's attention. I didn't bring him up to make rude sounds at people. But after I corrected him, he corrected me. What ''Excuse me, sir'' is in America, hissing is in Ghana.
My son, Jon, is what brought my family to Ghana: He was sent there as a Fulbright Fellow, to observe and write about the nation's first-ever democratic elections, which turned out to be a lot tidier than the US presidential race. He had a lot of explaining to do to Ghanaians about the mess back home.
I might not have gone to Ghana had it not been for Jon. It's not an obvious tourist destination. Ghana doesn't have the equivalent of the Taj Mahal or the Great Pyramid, a universally recognized draw. Its attractions are more low-key: a ''canopy'' walk through the treetops; swimming under a vast waterfall; visiting huge fortresses that once served as holding pens for tens of thousands of slaves before they were shipped West; or a white-washed mud-brick mosque that looks as if it's made of mounds of snow, even though the temperature outside is creeping toward 100 degrees.
I'd been able to find only one English-language guidebook to the country - Philip Briggs's straightforward ''Guide to Ghana,'' first published in 1998 and since updated. So the country was more of a mystery than other developing nations I'd visited. As I looked around, Ghana's attractions multiplied and magnified, revealing themselves gradually. In my two weeks there, I found myself wishing I had one more day to spend in each place I landed. Except for the Mole Motel. But I'll get to that later.
It's a cliche to say that it's the generosity and hospitality of the people that make a visit to a foreign country so successful that you want to go back. In the case of Ghana, it's true. The Ghanaians I met were friendly and fun-loving. And they were relaxed. Read: not all-that-devoted to the kind of minute-by-minute schedule that prevails in the West. There are so many unpredictables in their lives that they'd go crazy if they weren't able to take in stride things like sporadic electricity and running water and mile-long queues at gas stations. As I grew accustomed to the lifestyle, I began to relax, too.
Part of being able to take it easy was The Fred Factor. Fred Dzaka was our Ghanaian driver, hired after the excellent travel agent we used - the Accra-based Land Tours Ghana Ltd. - said that, no, even though my son had lived there for months, he shouldn't attempt to drive us around the country. Sage advice, that. Fred knows every pothole in every road in the country, and the potholes are plentiful. He navigated our Mercedes van with balletic grace. Next to hiring Fred, the best decision we made was to opt for air conditioning in the van. We were there in February, a.k.a. Sauna Season. Our clothes were routinely drenched with sweat after 10 minutes outside. The van became an oasis of comfort.
We used a scale of 1 to 10 to rate our hotels in relation to the van. Ten meant lodging that actually made us eager to leave the spacious vehicle. The Labadi Beach Hotel in Accra, our first and last stop in Ghana, rates an 11. It offers world-class luxury and service. Its design evokes colonial days: vaulted wooden ceilings, overstuffed sofas, lots of West African crafts including tasteful arrangements of masks and fans on the walls; a spacious terrace with rattan furniture overlooking grounds with tiered fountain and pools.
Money can buy exquisite decor, but not necessarily exquisite service. Labadi general manager Andrew Wilson, who has been with the 10-year-old hotel since the start and welcomed Queen Elizabeth II there in 1999, says the service is the result of deliberately hiring people who had never worked in hotels before, and thus had no preconceptions about what service should be. Before the Labadi opened, a mock-up of the hotel was built to train staff. The strategy worked. By our second stay at the hotel we'd acquired a large and heavy Ashanti stool and an equally large drum, and had no idea how we were going to get them back to the United States. As soon as Fred opened the van door, though, a Labadi bellman ran up and said, ''We usually crate those for our guests.'' The fee was nominal; the packing perfect.
Accra's attractions include the National Museum, where the entry fee is 1,000 cedis for Ghanaians, 5,000 cedis for foreigners. Since the exchange rate is 7,000 cedis to the dollar, we're not talking big money. The largest denomination in print is the 5,000-cedi note, which means if you intend to pay for an upscale hotel room with the local currency, you'll need a wheelbarrow to hold it.
Back to the National Museum. It's dowdy, and the climate control is nonexistent, but its collections of West African art and artifacts are fascinating. The labels are in English, a legacy of British colonial days, and one explains the history of the cedi, whose name was derived from ''cowrie,'' the shell once used as money.
The specialties of Ghanaian food include banfu, which is fermented maize meal that looks like a lump of white Play-Doh. Since you're supposed to eat with your fingers anyway, and since banfu tastes like absolutely nothing unless heavily sauced, it became a means of artistic expression for me. I sculpted while waiting for the rest of the food to arrive.
I'd revisit Ghana just for the great shopping: baskets, wood carvings, textiles, clothes, little brass tchotchkes, masks, and more. Everything's affordable even if you pay the full asking price, but bargaining is expected. It's a game played with civility. Nobody yells. Everybody knows the rules. It's time-consuming. My son took me to a dressmaker in Accra, Mercy Asi Ocansey, who had made shirts for him, and spent an hour getting the prices of two outfits to be made-to-measure for me down to $15 to $20 each.
You can buy virtually identical crafts in the sprawling Accra market or the National Cultural Centre, which is really just a collection of stalls. Or you can visit Aid To Artisans Ghana, which is connected to the Aid To Artisans organization based in Hartford. ATAG, headquartered in Accra's Trade Fair, has branch stores in several tourist destinations in the country. Here you don't bargain. The selection is top quality. ATAG works with artisans to produce designs that will appeal to Western customers. They help on the business end, too. I met one artist who makes jewelry out of recycled glass and has become so successful he's paid his way to the United States eight times, to sell his wares at the wholesale New York Gift Fair.
At ATAG I admired a beautiful brass hook in the shape of a crawfish, attached to a carved wooden back. There were lovely napkin rings in animal shapes, too. ''We work with people who don't use coat hooks and napkin rings,'' says Bridget Kyerematen, ATAG's head.
What they do use is wooden coffins carved in the form of whatever the deceased requested in advance. Want to be buried in a pink Cadillac? No problem. Ghanaians view death differently than Westerners do. Funerals look like parties, and are held outdoors, in the streets. The only sign that someone has died is that everyone is dressed in the mourning colors of black and red.
On our essentially circular route around the country we found good-to-great accommodations everywhere except in Mole. But I'll get to that later. In the Cape Coast area three hours southwest from Accra we stayed at the Coconut Grove, a sprawling complex of brick, stucco, tile, thatch, and lizards darting to avoid the humans. Coconut Grove is on a glorious stretch of beach. Area attractions include the slave fortresses: We visited the Elmina Castle, where the guide was a thespian manque who, in stentorian tones, gave an exceedingly dramatic account of the bad old days. His description of the ''room of no return,'' where slaves in shackles were marched onto ships where half of them would die, was chilling. Ditto his account of the governor's private balcony, where the ruler stood to choose a woman-of-the-night from among the female slaves. The idea, the guide said, was to produce mulatto children who were supposedly more resistant to malaria than the white workers were.
The star attraction of the Kakum National Park, a convenient day trip from Cape Coast, is the canopy walkway constructed in the 1990s by a couple of adventurous Canadians. Built of planks and wire, just wide enough for one person, the series of bridges sway and swing as you walk along them, literally in the treetops. The shoulder-height sides make you feel cocooned rather than in danger.
The Kakum stroll wasn't all that strenuous, but we felt the need for a hefty lunch nonetheless, so we stopped at the Hans Cottage Botel, a thatch-roofed restaurant built out over a lake and connected to land by wooden walkways. The lake's lure is the resident crocodiles: We saw only one, sound asleep and blending nicely with the rocks around him.
From Cape Coast we drove north to Kumasi, Ghana's second-largest city, where we got lucky in our accommodations: We stayed at a luxury bed-and-breakfast, the Four Villages Inn, owned by Chris Scott, a Canadian, and his Ghanaian wife, Charity, a superb cook who trained in Montreal. Not only does Charity Scott do all her own baking; she also makes her own sausages. Breakfasts are divine, including real brewed coffee: In the majority of Ghanaian hotels you get packets of powdered Nescafe. With advance notice, Charity will also make you a sumptuous lunch or dinner. Four Villages' spacious bedrooms boast private baths, air conditioning, TV, telephones, and decor based on local crafts. The only drawback is that there are only four rooms for rent - so contact the Scotts ahead of time.
Kumasi's main draw is the surrounding craft villages, each with its own specialty; one features the famous Kente cloth, in bright colors and bold patterns. Bargaining here was fierce. We reached a stalemate in one case, giving up after an hour or so, climbing back into the van and driving away. A mile down the road, we noticed a taxi in hot pursuit. Inside was the cloth merchant and the goods. Each side gave in a little, and the 12 yards woven in black, cream, and blue were ours. The taxi routine, Fred told us, is a regular ploy.
The six-hour drive north from Kumasi to Mole was torture, the roads so poor we were bouncing or at least vibrating all the time. At the end of the journey, the Mole Motel offered little relief. It features 31/2 hours of electricity a day, the only time you can use the ceiling fan. Air conditioning doesn't exist. Running water is scarce, and bathrooms are equipped with plastic buckets so you can stock up when it's available. The slimy bathroom floor is not a place you'd want to go unshod. Among the posted rules and regs: ''Guests are not expected to go into the dining room in their underwear. This is inconvenient to other users of the dining room.''
The reason to venture to Mole is supposed to be the national park and its walking safaris. In East and South Africa, safari-goers are usually confined to vehicles. Here, you walk, accompanied by an armed guide. The problem is that the Mole safari experience pales when compared with others on the continent. Animals are few - an elephant here, a warthog there, and that's about it. Down the road from the park is a rather sad attraction, the mosque at Larabanga, a bizarre mud and thatch structure. You're forced to pay a local ''guide,'' who then demands more money for the Imam. The tour consists of a stroll around the building and a fuzzy recital of its history: You're not allowed inside. The villagers were reduced to this squeezing money out of visitors after the national park was created in 1971. They were no longer allowed to hunt there, as they had for centuries; their means of supporting themselves was cut off.
From Mole we endured a 10-hour drive southeast to the Volta Hotel, a fine hostelry with an equally fine restaurant. It's near the Akosombo Dam, built to create Lake Volta, the largest artificial lake in the world. The dam is an impressive structure indeed. But a two-hour drive away is another watery attraction that's even better: the Wli Falls, supposedly the highest waterfall in West Africa. Here, we actually negotiated the ''official'' entrance fee, ending up paying about half the original price. The falls are a half-hour walk from the entrance, and you have to wade through several streams to get there. Just before you do, you hear two conflicting sounds: the whoosh of the water, and the shrieking of thousands of bats hanging from the nearby cliffs. The falls themselves form a room defined by walls of water. You wade into its coolness, trying not to notice that you're walking on a carpet of guano.
Driving was definitely the way to see Ghana, although there are pitfalls - literally. Building new roads and resurfacing old ones continue only until the money runs out: We took a photo of an abandoned bulldozer engulfed by green vines that must have taken months to grow. Driving also lets you experience a country that conducts life roadside, where you encounter the likes of suites of furniture upholstered in red velvet, waiting for a buyer.
The most fun we had while driving, though, was reading the shop signs that combine Christianity and commerce, with odd results: ''God's Word Fast Food,'' ''God Never Fails Beauty Salon,'' and, one that poses a thorny theological dilemma, ''God and Sons Electrical Communications.''
This story ran on page L5 of the Boston Globe on 5/20/2001. ? Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.
