Green Zion Gardens, Hard work over 10 years has created Paradise.

I first met Sadik Talukdar on a research trip in for my Eco-travel company. I was traveling with my dad and we had reached a little beach resort in the Western Region of Ghana called The Hideout. After dinner we were drinking some beers by the beach side and we met sadik and a alim guy who recently got some land in the area and was building a house. Sadik seemed quite funny, wild and profane at first but it made for an interesting evening. He said he had a little coffee shop near by and served space cakes.

My dad was settling into bed and everyone else had left I eventually went trooping around trying to find his place because I was looking for a little hit of the devils lettuce to wind down the day and have a good nights sleep. I got very poor directions earlier so I started creeping around a few houses down the beach without knocking on any doors I did not get the vibe I was on the right track. So I went up the road that went inland and eventually ran into a sign that let me know I was on the right track.

I wondered into the dark garden and down the path to a single dark round house that I could hear him and the Alim guy inside chatting. I called out and knocked the door and I was warmly welcomed. I also got a good high that I was looking for. I had a good chat about the origins of his place and what was going on in the area. I stumbled back to the beach resort and had a good nights rest.

Inside the front room of the roundhouse.

The next morning before walking over to the next town I stopped by again to document the place and take some pictures. My dad also was happy to get a fresh brewed cup of coffee. This was my first introduction to Green Zion Gardens and through the years I have continued to come back and I have formed a brotherhood with sadik I never would have imagined.

The path into the garden.

Sadik grew up in the next community over Busua. Busua has always been a highlight for travelers in Ghana and I think that sadik got his taste for catering to international travelers during that time. His brother got involved with a Swedish lady and they built The Hideout together and Sadik was part of all of this also. His brother eventually left to atik and Sadik found his own little piece of land up the road.

Zion Garden's first bar and scare crow.

When I visited in 2011 and took the above photos I think that Sadik was about a year or two into building the place by hand. There was no power, no flowing water and every thing was built by his own two hands.

Inside the guest room round house.

Simple but comfortable was the name of the game here and I think he
did it well.

I hit the road again after that first visit and I did not link with Sadik again until. This was my first year permanantly living in Ghana and I did not have a lot of friend to roam with yet. I had a good ammount of time off for Christmas so I took off on my own to the Western Region with the goal of staying at Green Zion Gardens. I think I had about 5 days to spend.

It had been about 3 years then since I had seen Sadik or Green Zion Gardens so I was not ready for the amount of change and work he had put in.

The first major change was this 2 story tree house structure at the front of the property. It had a little bar and craft shop under it and a room to stay at the top. The garden had grown up immensely also.

In the back was the foundation of another small round house that I think Sadik may have started at one point but it turned into a fire pit. During my time there there was another American guy staying there with his Ghanaian girlfriend his name was Spenser and after this trip we continued to run into each other in Accra and our networks merged before he moved out of Ghana. We had some good times around the fire at night with Sadik playing some drums and singing some songs. Guess it would be similar to local country music with the theme being it is not easy for a single rasta man living in paradise.

This is the main house again about the only thing that did not change.

In addition to the tree house room and the main house Sadik had built another two rooms. The room I stayed in was part of this and called the Selasie Room, at this time the toilet and bath were at the back there and were bucket operated.

The room was comfortable and all that I needed. But at one point during my stay I heard some wrestling around in the bath house and found this huge mama spider carrying around its sack of eggs. It was big enough that you could hear it move. I did not care to mess with it so I let it do its thing.

Just above the mouth of the river is an old colonial fort. It was used for repairing ships for the Alim West Indies company because of the safe harbor and the abundance of large timber around. I am sure it was deeply involved in the slave trade that was going on during that time also.

Me and Sadik had a great time on that visit he had a motor bike then and we went cruising around the jungle having a great time going to and from Busua. A couple of incidences stand out in my mind. One riding on the paved part after joining the main road to Busua, the pot holes were relentless and sometimes we would hit one hard and it would really jar my balls sitting on the back. Another one we were riding through the jungle at night I think we had had some beer because we both needed to pee. We jumped off the bike and started peeing by the side of the road but my legs started burning and itching. I put the light on on my phone and look down I am standing in the middle of an ants nest peeing. You can imagine that made for an interesting stomp dance with water world on the road that night. The motor bike was a street bike looking thing with a small 150cc engine in it, it had street tires and was probably not the best match for the jungle but it is what we had so we move. One time we were coming back to the Gardens and the road turns into a two track at some point and gets quite sandy it is important to keep momentum up. Or you fall over a couple of times like we did, laughing all the way.

My next visit when I went for Asa Baako festival for the first time. Green Zion Gardens is about a 45 minute walk along the beach from the festival area and I decided to stay with Ellis and walk each day over to the festival.

I took a picture of this beautiful grass hopper in the garden.

Every morning when you wake up there the whole garden is an orchestra of birds and it is such a nice sound in the morning.

Weavers had taken over one of the palm trees making their iconic penthouses.

The pathways through the gardens.

Another view out towards the road.

And Thanks for taking another journey to somewhere special to me.