With its back mostly turned to the Gulf of Guinea, taking little advantage of its waterfront location, Accra crawls up and over a modern landscape, gobbling up real estate and producing a chaotic low-rise skyline. Originally a scattering of villages controlled by Ga chiefs, today it’s a sprawling city that extends eastwards almost 25km to the neighbouring city of Tema. Its congested and pockmarked pavements; baking streets that in the midday heat can make a block feel like a kilometre; shanty towns and genteel leafy suburbia; chop bars and gourmet restaurants; hiplife and highlife; all combine to make Accra at once exhausting and exhilarating.