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Ghana-Net.com · Western Region · Ahanta West · checked October 2026
A priest pours libation, speaks to the water, and a wild crocodile comes out. He gives it Coca-Cola and a live chicken, and it slides back under. It sounds invented for tourists. It is not. It is a shrine, and the town of Egyambra has lived beside these crocodiles for as long as anyone there remembers.
Egyambra at a glance
Egyambra is a small coastal town on the stretch of the Western Region between Princes Town and the mouth of the Ankobra River. It has a beach, a fishing fleet, farmland running back inland, and at its centre a pond and shrine that belong to the crocodiles.
The crocodiles are not kept. They are wild animals living in and around the water, and they are sacred to the community. Nobody hunts them. People wash, fetch water and cross the stream in the same water the crocodiles live in. In January 2026 a Ghanaian television report went to Egyambra specifically to show how the town lives peacefully alongside them.
That coexistence is the real attraction, more than the few minutes of feeding. You are visiting a place where a relationship between people and a dangerous animal has been worked out over generations, and still holds.
The priest in charge of the shrine begins with libation and ritual, then calls the crocodiles with incantations. It is not a whistle or a trainer's signal. It is speech, directed at the water, and it can take a while. Sometimes nothing happens for many minutes. Then a head breaks the surface.
When a crocodile comes out, the priest talks to it. Then he gives it Coca-Cola, poured as an offering, and a live fowl. The crocodile takes the bird and goes back into the pond.
Why Coca-Cola? The detail everyone remembers is real. Understand it the way schnapps is understood at shrines all over southern Ghana: a drink offered to a spiritual presence, chosen because it is valued, not because anyone believes crocodiles like the taste. Visitors to sacred sites often bring a bottle of schnapps for the libation. Ask on arrival whether that is expected here.
This should be said before you go, not after. The live fowl is usually paid for by the visitor. You are paying for a chicken to be fed alive to a crocodile in front of you. For the community it is an offering within a religious practice. For some visitors it is hard to watch. Neither reaction is wrong, but decide which is yours before you are standing at the edge of the pond with a bird in a basket.
The crocodiles are wild. Stand where the priest tells you to stand, keep children close, and do not step towards the water unless you are asked. In the far north, at Paga, crocodile contact has become a photo routine, and visitors touch and sit beside the animals. Do not assume that anything allowed at Paga is allowed here.
Most visitors come for the feeding and leave. The ones who stay get far more out of Egyambra. This is a fishing town: you can go out with the fishermen, paddle a canoe, or sit with the men mending and weaving nets on the beach. Families will let you join in household work, pounding fufu or preparing yakayaka, the fermented cassava dish of the western coast.
If a naming ceremony, a wedding or a funeral is taking place, you may well be invited. Dress modestly, sit where you are shown, and ask before taking pictures. The people of Egyambra are known for their hospitality; in practice you will not have to look for a guide, because someone will find you.
Before you swim, ask. The surf and currents on the Western Region coast are strong, and in recent years runoff from illegal gold mining upriver, on the Ankobra and other rivers, has made parts of this coastline unsafe for swimming. Local fishermen know which days and which stretches are fine.
In Takoradi, go to the lorry station for the Tarkwa road (ask for Tarkwa station) and take a minibus or tro-tro to Agona Nkwanta, usually just called Agona. At Agona lorry station, take a taxi to Egyambra. Agree the price first, and if you want to be taken back, agree that too, with a waiting time.
Agona lies a few kilometres inland on the Takoradi–Tarkwa road and is the gateway to the whole Ahanta coast: Busua, Dixcove, Akwidaa and Princes Town all branch off from here. Beyond it the roads are rougher and slower, especially in the rains. Allow more time than the distance suggests.
Drive west from Takoradi to Agona and on towards Princes Town. Egyambra lies about ten kilometres beyond Princes Town to the west; ask in Princes Town for the last stretch.
Takoradi is about 225 km west of Accra, most of a morning by road. The faster option is a flight from Accra International Airport to Takoradi; current routes on ghanaflights.info.
Egyambra itself has little. The better bases are the beach towns of Busua, Dixcove and Akwidaa, or Princes Town if you want to wake up beside the fort. Standards vary a great deal along this coast: look at the room first, and ask whether the generator actually runs.
The roads beyond Agona are easier and the sea calmer. The best time for combining Egyambra with the forts and beaches of the coast.
Greener and quieter, but slower travel on the unpaved stretches. Build in a spare day.
Between August and November, look out for Kundum, the harvest festival of the Ahanta and Nzema, which moves from town to town along the coast with drumming and dancing. Dates shift, so check before you plan: Ghana festival calendar.
A guided tour is the easiest way to reach the Ahanta coast, its forts and beaches without worrying about tro-tros and taxis. Entrance fees are included in the tour price; tips are not included, but always welcome.
Egyambra sits in the middle of Ghana's most beautiful stretch of coast. From Shama in the east to Beyin near the Ivorian border, here are fifteen places to combine it with.
Yes. They are wild crocodiles living in and around the pond, sacred to the community and never hunted. They are not tame and not kept in an enclosure.
Usually, yes. The live fowl offered to the crocodile is normally paid for by the visitor, on top of the shrine fee. Decide before you go whether you want to watch it.
Do not assume so. The priest decides where you stand and what you may do. Keep your distance unless you are explicitly invited closer.
Take a tro-tro from the Tarkwa station in Takoradi to Agona Nkwanta, then a taxi to Egyambra, about ten kilometres west of Princes Town. Agree the fare, and the return, before you set off.
Not necessarily. Many shrines close on one sacred day of the week. Check locally before you travel.
Worth it, if you go for the town and not just the feeding. The minutes at the water's edge are strange and memorable. The real story is a community that shares its water with crocodiles and has built a religious practice around doing so safely.
Know in advance that you will likely pay for a live chicken to be eaten in front of you, that the animals are wild, and that the priest's rules apply. Combine it with Princes Town and Akwidaa, stay a night on the coast, and it becomes one of the most unusual days you can spend in the Western Region.
Updated and fact-checked: 19 October 2026. Shrine fees, sacred days and road conditions change; confirm locally before travelling.