Exhausting, that was today. Frazzled, that's me.

We drove from Accra to Kumasi this morning, a four-hour drive through plantations and wooded areas and small towns. We drove past a mountain range that was just gorgeous. One thing I noticed that looks really cool is the way that dust from the roads clings to leaves - one side will be almost solid red, while the other is spotless.

Once we were in Kumasi, we had lunch and visited the Palace Museum, which is an Asante palace from the early 1900s.

We also went to the Central Market - a sea of aisles of booths selling food and clothing and beads and home supplies. The market was probably a half-mile by a quarter-mile. So massive. It was really interesting to walk through, but scary - it was busy, we kept losing people to booths, and we were perpetually in the way. After twenty minutes or so I decided to shoot video of our route, so I have a good 40 minutes of wobbly inconspicuous video to remember it by.

All the concrete walking and stairs, though, aggravated my left knee, which swelled up and manifested a lot more bruising. By the time we got to the hotel (the Royal Basin doublebooked us, so we had to stay at another place), it was really sore and tough to move. Kate and I got a first-floor room, and Dee gave me an ace bandage and some ice. It's better now - glad I brought a skirt.

We had dinner in the hotel - I got cranky after a while and came back to our room and slept for a while.

Also stocked up on foreign chocolate when we stopped at a gas station for water. English, German, Ghanaian - and a small bar of Harry Potter chocolate produced by the Elvan company. (Haha.)

Stopping in several craft villages en route to Elmina tomorrow. Need to start my shopping - so far the only things I've bought have been food and phone time (which was ¢492,000 or about $60 for the two nights in Accra). Phone is ¢50,000/min here, so I haven't called Jon today.

And tomorrow night - OCEAN!

Hotel ghetto. No water pressure. Unable to wash hair; barely eked out enough to shave. But had to, as ocean tonight!

Knee much better. Spirit much better. So happy that packed skirt as can wear ace bandage.

And how can we be in Africa but be unable to get good coffee??? I swear I'm gonna drink about a liter of Kona when we get back - followed by a half-gallon of organic milk. *craves*

Bargaining. I suck at it. But I justify it like this: I'm buying stuff for people I love, right? I can handle spending a little more for something if I love the pattern or the grain.

So that's why I spent ¢150,000 on a piece of pink, black, and silver Kente for Bunny. It also explains the ¢70,000 world unity carving and the ¢35,000 elephant. And the ¢15,000 Kente strip from the next town over? What can I say - it's purple and sparkly and just the right size to be a scarf.

Consequently, I'm now low on cash. ¢150,000 or so in my wallet. Of course, I have another $200 I can change tomorrow. Still, time to tuck away my wallet for a while.

Three craft villages this morning - wood carving (Ahwiaa), Adinkra mourning cloth (Ntonso), and Kente cloth (Bonwire). The wood carving village was fun - so much gorgeous stuff. Mourning cloth... it got stressful. In the beginning, we watched the process by which the cloth is woven and dyed; then, a handful of people stamped cloth, and then, we got accosted. I traded addresses with a secondary school-age boy and gave away my spare pen. And the last village was just insane. We were mobbed from the start, and it barely got better. Natalia picked up a crowd of kids, and I was followed around by a shopowner on a side street for the entire hour we were there.

And now, we're trying to eat. And trying. And trying.