Ghana Guide And Blog: Beaches

Showing posts with label Beaches. Show all posts

April 30, 2010

Ghana beaches from Cape Coast west to Axim

I've received a few emails from Ghana guide buyers about beaches lately, and noticed comments in various forums, so I decided to simply do a post showing some of my favourite beaches in Ghana. Here they are, my old haunts. (We now live in Bolgatanga, about 700 hellish kilometres to the nearest beach!)

This is Axim Beach Hotel's beach which is located very close to the border with the Ivory Coast, about 3 hours west by trotro from Cape Coast. It's worth the trip! The beach is secluded, clean and one of my favourite places to idle days reading books in Ghana. The beach is fierce, though, so take care swimming and make sure there is always someone around when you take a dip.

This is the beach at Brenu Beach which is about 30 minutes west of Cape Coast or 15 minutes west of Elmina. This beach is my favourite as far as beaches, not accounting for facilities attached to the beaches, go. Just take the Ayensudo junction off the Takoradi Highway and catch a share taxi to the beach for about 70 pesewas. Entry to the beach complex for the day is 2 Cedis. You enjoy clean showers and toilets and an excellent restaurant selling fresh fish and fried potatoes for around 10 Cedis. We'd often wake at 8 am in Elmina and be here at Brenu by 9.00 am. The first visitors don't usually arrive until 11 or so. That first cup of quiet tea on the secluded beach is heaven. Beer might be more your thing and, hey, at that time it's 5 pm somewhere!

This is Busua Beach which is off the Agona Junction, about a half hour past Takoradi. It takes about 2-2.5 hours by trotro to get here from Cape Coast. This is a fairly safe swimming beach and has a range of accommodation from 5 star (Busua Beach Resort) to Alaska (where we stayed often) which is about 10 GHC now. There are all sorts of lodges along the beach and the lovely African Rainbow Hotel opposite Alaska. You must have drinks on their roof-top overlooking the ocean and sunset if you don't actually stay there.

This is the beach at Green Turtle Lodge which is also close to Busua Beach. In fact, you have to go to Agona Junction to get to either beach, but you simply take a different vehicle depending on whether heading to Busua or Green Turtle. Green Turtle has excellent food and a great community atmosphere free from hassle. They also have delicious fresh coffee.

This is Cape Coast out the front of Oasis Beach Resort which is, obviously, a wee run to Cape Coast Castle. On any given day you'll find a football game in progress on the beach and plenty of kids playing in the surf. It's not the cleanest beach in the world, but it is convenient and lazing about on deck chairs drinking cold Star beer at Oasis is about the nicest thing to do in Cape Coast on a hot afternoon. Don't mind the rasta hassle. A guy called Kofi sells fantastic beaded jewelry that he purchases from across West Africa, particularly Mali and Niger. He's a good guy and he'll do you a decent deal and is open to haggling.

This is my friend Tina (the photographer Christina Froemder who took the Oasis beach photo above and the cute one) and I at Christmas 2007 at Green Turtle Lodge. Yes, you can sleep on the beach just a few metres from the waves. It's fantastic.

All these beaches are listed in our Ghana travel guide, incidentally, and we only include the top beaches, not all the beaches (some are quite polluted and dirty).