Eastern

Under an hour above the capital the road climbs the Akuapem escarpment and the temperature falls away. At the top sits Aburi, and its botanical gardens — laid out in the late nineteenth century on the site of a colonial-era sanatorium and now a wide expanse of lawn under enormous mature trees, palms and strangler figs, with paths, benches and almost no noise. It is a genuine botanical collection rather than a park with a sign, it is where the capital comes to breathe at weekends, and it is the single easiest good day out from Accra. Along the road outside the gates, the woodcarvers' stalls run for several hundred metres: stools, masks, bowls and figures carved on the spot, with prices that reward unhurried bargaining and a walk to the third stall rather than the first. The ridge continues north through Mampong and Amanokrom, cool and green, with viewpoints back over the coastal plain to the sea on a clear morning. Near Mampong is the small farm where cocoa was first successfully planted in Ghana in the 1870s — a modest, well-kept site with a handful of original trees still standing, and a surprisingly moving stop for anyone who has understood how much of this country's economy grew from it.

At Akosombo the Volta runs into a narrow gorge, and in the 1960s that gorge was closed with a dam — the project that created Lake Volta, still the largest reservoir on earth by surface area, and that generates a large share of the country's electricity to this day. Standing above it is the point: the wall, the spillway, the turbine hall below, and behind it a body of water that simply continues past the horizon. Tours of the dam itself are arranged in advance rather than turned up for, and the viewpoints from the ridge above are open to anyone. Below the wall the river runs fast, green and cold, and the town is strung along it. Day cruises leave from the lakeside out to an island a couple of hours upstream, busiest and liveliest on Sundays, and they are as much a Ghanaian day out as a sightseeing trip — music, food, dancing on the way back. Downstream at Atimpoku the road crosses the river on a single-span arch bridge worth stopping to look at, and the stalls at its foot sell the region's own speciality: smoked river shrimp and abolo, a soft steamed corn bread, sold together from trays by women who have been doing it for decades. The Volta Region over the water owns the lake's far shore and the slow ferry that works its length.

North-east of Koforidua, Boti Falls drops into a wooded gorge reached by a long staircase — twin falls side by side that merge into one in the wet season, with a pool at the bottom and a great deal of spray. It is a short, steep, thoroughly worthwhile walk, and the surrounding country holds two other oddities usually visited in the same outing: a vast mushroom-shaped rock standing on a stem thin enough that the whole thing looks temporary, and a palm that grew with three trunks from a single root. Guides are arranged at the entrance and are worth taking for the paths between the three. The other reason to come to this part of the region is beads. Ghana's recycled-glass beads are made in the Krobo towns east of Koforidua, where powdered glass is packed into clay moulds and fired — workshops take visitors, and watching the process explains the prices better than any bargaining does. The beads are worn at ceremonies and given at rites of passage, and they are not souvenirs to the people making them. Koforidua's bead market, on Wednesdays, is the largest in the country and the reason to plan the week around a particular day.

North of the river country the land rises again to the Kwahu plateau, a long escarpment with towns along its edge — Mpraeso, Obo, Abetifi, the last of them among the highest settled ground in Ghana and cool enough at night to want a blanket. The views off the scarp across the plain are the best in southern Ghana and the walking along the ridge is good and almost entirely unvisited for fifty weeks of the year. The other two weeks are the point. Kwahu at Easter is the largest domestic travel event in the country: people whose families come from the ridge return, everyone else comes for the party, the towns fill completely, street parties run for days, and a paragliding meet launches off the scarp at Odweanoma, with tandem flights available to anyone willing to queue. It is a genuine spectacle and an unusually good way to see how Ghana enjoys itself. The practical consequence is unavoidable: book months ahead if you want to be there, and if you do not, know that the entire region — roads, rooms and restaurants — is committed for that week.