Accra is the capital and largest city of Ghana. It's located on the southern coast of the Gulf of Guinea which is part of the Atlantic Ocean.

While Accra itself has a population of about 300,000, the greater Accra region has a population of five and a half million people.

Outposts and forts were built here by the Dutch, Swedes, Portuguese, French, and Denmark before largely being ruled by the British.

English is still the Official language of Ghana and all signs were in English.

Ghana was formerly known as the Gold Coast as they had, and still have, an abundance of gold resources.

I didn't find Accra to be impressive. It was run-down and dirty and in need of a tremendous amount of maintenance.

I felt somewhat bad in that if I saw an impressive old building, it was always left over from the Colonial period of Ghana, such as the building below.

Most streets and areas were very simple and rather humble looking, such as the street below.

Unfinished buildings, rundown buildings, and broken vehicles and equipment were common to see.

I was never certain if we were actually in Accra itself or just in the greater Accra area. It all blended together.

Below is a neighborhood that was not atypical of the Accra area.

This market was right across the street from our hotel. The entire market was unimpressive. You might also notice that the woman in the middle was yelling at me for taking this photo. Our local guides all said that the locals understood that every time a tourist took their photo, the tourist sold the photo for millions of dollars and of course, they didn't receive any money. Personally, I've never received any money for my photos of people but anyone is welcome to send me millions of dollars.

I included the photo below to try and show that Accra does have some new and upscale buildings, though we didn't see very many of them.

I want to include the photo below of the beach. We were told that Ghana and most of West Africa had many really nice beaches and they are on the ocean.

The surprise to me was that we seldom saw any people on the beaches and it was even more rare to see someone in the water.

This was our hotel, from the back. We stayed at the Movenpick Ambassador Hotel, reported to be a five-star hotel.

Below is the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park and Museum. It was a large area with this memorial, a bronze statue, and a museum plus large water features. It was built on the former British colonial polo fields so they had plenty of space for it. Dr. Kwame Nkrumah led Ghana to their independence from Britian and headed the first government that followed. According to our local guide, the US CIA helped overthrow this first government due to Dr. Nkrumah encouraging other West African countries to gain independence plus they were trying to develop nuclear power which worried the US during the Cold War.

Ghana is just a few degrees north of the Equator so it's very tropical, think high heat and high humidity. They have plenty of water though they have a short rainy season.

The photo below is the Volta River which is a short drive from Accra. It's Ghana's main river system and very large. You can see a small group of fisherman in the boat.

School children were easy to spot in Ghana as well as the rest of West Africa. We could always tell by the uniforms that they wore, which were different for each school.

The use of public space was interesting in Ghana. We saw laundry drying on the ground along roads and in other places that got good sunlight.

Below is a roundabout on a public roadway near the ocean and some of the locals were using this roundabout to dry their fish.