5. Weekend 2 - West Coast Ghanarhea

cape coast castle

after just over a week in the bustling capital (accra) it was time to get out of the city and head west. we decided to check-out the cape coast which is about 3 hours west of accra. sadly, the cape coast and elmina are the origins of the slave trade. the castle there was the final point of 'no-return' where millions of enslaved africans were sent to europe, the caribbean, and the americas.

given the mixed past of the area, and the fact that the dutch, danish and british all took turns controlling the coast, there are some facts but the complete story is not detailed. one part i found particularly interesting, was the distribution of slaves from africa. about 12 months ago, we were on a plantation in charleston at the 'slave houses' and objected as our guide threw out the comment 'some slaves lived here, but nowhere near as many slaves made it to america as the caribbean and europe' - turns out he was not entirely wrong, although i am still not sure i agree with his sentiment. whilst the europeans were first to end the slave trade, it doesn't quite erase the fact that they created it and sold ten times more people in their final years than in the first one hundred.

to get there we hopped on a mini-bus which provides you the benefit of air-con, a window that works (so that you can open it to buy stuff from hawkers) and a your very own bus-preacher. as a religious society, no journey in ghana would be complete without a customary prayer at the beginning of your trip. what we didn't realise in this instance, is that the prayer would last about an hour and be followed by a request for funds.... regardless i do think there is something very nice about starting a drive on the somewhat dangerous roads with everyone taking a minute to think about safety and the fact that our lives are in the hands of the driver. the odd part is that the immediate response from the driver was to go 150km on the wrong side of the road... perhaps he has heard the prayer a few too many times?

carrying the burden

balls of steel

the slightly less depressing part of this weekend, was heading kakum national park. the park is only about 30 mins from the coast and provides the opportunity to take a canopy walk about 40m above the ground. it was somewhat scary / wobbly, but pretty safe and a pretty fun day out. it also gave us a chance to put our river runners to the test as we 'briskly walked' through a lot of mud to get up there.

canopy of death that was actually pretty safe