Sleep Is a Good Thing

[Written 12:00pm, Sunday, January 18th]

Okay, so here's what I wrote after arriving at the Bora Bora exhausted and confused.

"Not going to work. Taxi isn't the issue. Electricity is. Can't find a plug-in that works in the room. One light --on headboard-- that works. Since I don't have my luggage I don't have the food I brought--which doesn't work well with no restaurant here at the hotel. A/C works good. Supposed to have hot water--haven't checked. Very nice people. Huge Room. Lots of pillows. Lots of good things--just doesn't mesh with my needing to use computer and cell phone and needing a restaurant. Don't look forward to telling them I'm leaving--don't want to offend."

The difference between then and now is about 12 hours of sleep.

I got up at 11:15am and realized that the hot water tank was left on all night. Yaw (the attendant here) thought I wanted to take a shower last night so he turned it on. I was too tired to tell that he had done that. So the thing was on all night and I think it wore itself out. This morning I didn't have hot water, but it was luke-warm (which passes for acceptable here in Ghana). The pressure was EXCELLENT--best pressure I've had in Ghana. This morning I found out that the room I should have gotten (smaller than this one) had a faulty water heater so they took it to the shop. They gave me this (more expensive) room so I would still have hot water. I am the whole deal at this hotel. Everybody knew I was coming and they did their best to prepare a nice room for me.

After the good water pressure, and taking a look at this huge room in daylight, I decided to at least tell them the problem with the plug-ins before I gave up on the Bora Bora. I was met outside by Mr. Simons (See-mons), the manager, who was up to my room in a flash to help me with the problem. First off--I was too tired and confused last night to be able to tell that this hotel has the two prong (circular) outlets rather than the three prong outlets I've had everywhere else in Ghana. Duh. There's an outlet in the bathroom that I can use to charge my cell phone. One problem down. Now just the computer. I have to use an adopter for my computer that allows me to plug in a 3 prong American outlet (readily available here for less than 2 cedis, if you can't find one in the US). The staff here dashed away to bring back a power strip with plug-ins I can use for my computer. They plugged it in to the outlet where the fan was plugged in, and now I'm good to go!

Food. They serve breakfast here every morning, but I don't know what it's like yet. I told them last night I just wanted to sleep today. Mr. Simons seemed concerned that I hadn't eaten so took the time to tell me about restaurants that are open. He said he would have a staff member walk me there if I wanted. Very sweet and "over and beyond" the call of duty. Sunday is just a hard day here if you're not at Eban House. It's like the US 30 years ago. Places don't open on Sunday! Choices are few and far between. That would have been fine if I had my luggage, but well...it didn't arrive with me.

That leaves me with the issue of lighting. It's dark here in the hotel at night. Not a "I feel creeped out like someone is going to jump out and get me" dark. The place feels safe. Just dark. But when everything else is solved, having a pretty dark room at night isn't such a big deal. Not when I have everything else I want for 40 cedis a night (A/C, fan, hopefully-hot water, fridge, TV). My room even has a living room area, an extra twin bed (in addition to the HUGE king), hangers and a closet (comes in handy when you're washing clothes and laying them out to dry), and a beautiful balcony.

I have to admit, it was kind of nice to be able to sleep in this morning without the sun beaming into the room. The curtains are thick and keep the sun out. Well, the harmattan is doing a pretty good job of that too. It's very hazy and overcast here this time of year.

So...there you go. Sleep makes the Bora Bora much better than it may seem when you first get here. It's not the Hilton, but it's pros outweigh its cons so far. It seems like a good option for US$35 a night.

Quick funny before I finish. Yaw (the attendant) was very adamant that he should spray the room for mosquitoes before I stayed. So he sent me out to the open air bar area to wait 30 minutes while the poison did its job in my room. The problem with that is that the mosquitoes were doing their job on me in the open air as I waited! Not even here 18 hours and I've got about 10 bites!

Anita