Once again I slept fairly well, and after breakfast we were both ready to go. Edward Sake, my driver, has family very near by, so he spent the night with them and was at the hotel in his usual fashion – ahead of time. So after the bill was settled we got on the road to travel down to Elmina.

There seemed to be an unusual amount of heavy truck traffic on the road, and some of them are so incredibly overloaded they can’t make very good time. With limited passing opportunities, it slowed us down, but we were in no hurry, so nothing to worry about.

I want to comment on the “passing opportunities” part of my previous sentence. In the US and most western nations, drivers are careful to pass only in designated passing zones to prevent head-on collisions at worst, or a ticket and hefty fine at best. In this part of the world none of those issues are even considered. If a driver is in a hurry, and he thinks it is important enough, he passes uphill, going around corners, even in the face of oncoming traffic if he feels he can squeeze through. Depending on the brashness of your driver, if you travel here and have heart problems, it is probably best not to watch out the windshield when you are on the road…

Because of having to settle the bill in Accra with Ghanaian cedis, I knew I was going to run a bit short, so I asked Mr. Sake for a good place to change money. I don’t think there is a Forex Bureau in Elmina, so stopping in Cape Coast, the town just before, was probably best, and he agreed.

Cape Coast is the town where he once took me to the black market trader I described  a couple of days ago. Nothing bad happened, but it was so uncomfortable that I decided it just isn’t worth it to gain just a few cedis more in the trade. He knew of an official Forex Bureau in town, so we stopped on the way. Mr. Horchak wanted to stop at a market to pick up a couple of items, so we stopped there also. After taking care of what we needed, we were on to the Elmina Beach hotel, my usual haunt on the trip down here.

We arrived in Elmina safely, and because Mr. Sake’s cars have working a/c we weren’t even sweating and covered in dirt and diesel fumes! They had our rooms ready, and we both checked in.

We have nothing else scheduled for the rest of the day, so we were both able to get a couple of hours’ work done in our rooms before we met up for dinner. Sadly, the internet here is still an issue. I have almost no connectivity in my room, and must use my phone as a hotspot to connect. But I always remember “blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape.” That’s a good thought to keep in mind in life, even more so when traveling, and even more-more so when traveling in Africa!

At Mr. Horchak’s suggestion we asked dinner to be brought to his room where we could eat and enjoy some good conversation. We both decided on “Escalope of Beef Napolitan.” But as is often the case, just because its on the menu doesn’t mean they have it, and they didn’t have it. In fact, they don’t have anything with beef available, so that eliminated several options.

He asked if we could order the same dish with chicken instead, and they agreed to do so. And after only about 45 minutes our meals were ready, and actually pretty good!

Tomorrow is not only the weekly Sabbath but also the last holy day of Unleavened Bread. They normally do two services on these holy days, but they do them back-to-back with a 5 or 10 minute break between. But after discussing it between us, and with our local pastor, Reuel Dima, we’ve made a change for tomorrow. Both of us will give sermons, but we’ll shorten then a bit, and combine them into one service rather than two. It will be a bit longer than normal, but then everyone will have the opportunity to go on home, and in this heat and humidity I’ve no doubt we will both be soaked with sweat and ready to return to the more temperate temperatures of our air-conditioned rooms!

Reuel said services would begin at 10 am sharp (we’ll see about that), and he would arrive to pick us up rom he hotel at 9:45. With brethren coming in from Takoradi also, we should have a full house, and it will be good to see so many one more time tomorrow.