Our recent trip to Accompong

[mwenvlay]

it's not a "white mon" "theme", it's a visitor/tourist "theme".

And, as Accompong has pointed out...you're definitely not wandering around Accompong Town without permission & a guide.

Rob's first visit...they had to go in search of the Colonel for permission & found him deep in a field tending to his land. But, he still got permission & acceptance as that's what you do!! You do not take matters into your own hands and just choose to wander around!

based on our experience in moore town this year, i'm co-signing what lisa's said.

this is how it went for us:

at the base of moore town there was a really nice lady selling jelly coconuts (100j each- cannot beat that!) and a few men sitting on a low wall. warren asked the men what the protocol was and we learned that nanny falls is gated now and that we should first check in with the colonel to ask for the key/ask for permission to visit the falls. we told the men that i was looking to get a history lesson for my kid and the guy who took the lead on filling us in said the colonel would be happy to do that. he then pitched his guide services to the falls and quoted a pretty high fee. warren told him, "they're not tourist-tourists, they're haitian and came here to pay respect and learn our history. you can't give them a tourist price!" the fee came down to 6000j for the 3 of us, plus warren.

we stopped off at a store to get a bunch of beer and soda and wound up acquiring another guide. husband, who is good at getting to the bottom of this type of thing, asked why the first guy thought we needed two guides ("for safety," by which he meant if someone gets hurt one person could stay with us and the other could run and get someone) and if the price was gonna go up from what we agreed on ("no, same price!"). so, we were now a party of 6.

let me backtrack to speak about the colonel for a moment... we really wanted to meet him, so we could pay our respects and so we could ask him to give ti boss a brief history lesson, but by the time we got up to his house he'd already left. we were told he was headed up to some land they owned, where they're setting up a new tourist stop- a parrot sanctuary and fruit orchard. sounds pretty rad to me!

so, we missed the colonel but got a key from someone else...

you can read alllllll about my family's visit in my long-azzzzz thread posted in the port antonio message board. the photos will confirm that they charge all tourist visitors, not just white and asian people.

but to be honest, if i had the experience rjonsun had at accompong, if i couldn't neogtiate a fair price or find a more reasonable guide i'm sure i would've turned around and headed back out without a second thought.