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Published: June 24th 2009
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Cape Coast
Boys playing football on the beach. On Saturday (20th) I made a last minute decision to go to Cape Coast with 2 other girls, and so had a mad rush to the STC bus station (almost comparable to National Express!) to get a bus ticket before they all ran out, then rushed back home to pack a bag and meet the other 2 girls to rush back to the station to catch the bus (which, surprise surprise, didn't leave on time anyway)! The taxi ride there was interesting though, as we got stuck in bad traffic around the main Circle, but I got chance to see the wide variety of things the street sellers sell, walking up and down and inbetween traffic. Its mad really, you could buy almost anything you need from the confine of a car - water, hot food, cold food, ice lollies, towels, superglue, toilet paper, phone credit, t-shirts, shoes, hair spray, you name it, thats just a selection of what I can remember lol.
We had about a 3 hour bus ride to Cape Coast, and arrived in the dark and got a taxi from the bus station to a guest house/hostel place called Sammos (recommmended - spacious & cheap @10
Cape Coast Castle
The door of no return. pounds a night per room which sleeps 4) and ate toasted sandwiches in the rooftop bar (sounds a lot swankier than it actually was - it was just styled in concrete with plastic tables and chairs and one light, so it was quite dark). I ordered cheese & bacon salad sandwich, but what actually arrived tasted like, and looked like more of an omlette sandwich?!! But I think a proper meal cured my bad stomach, I had only eaten a bit of fruit and a tiny amount of rice since thursday!
We got up early and aimed to get to Kakum National Park by about 8am as the guide book recommended, which was good because we missed the tourist hoards, which is always a good thing. We got a taxi driver to take us there for 8 cedis (less than 4 pounds at the exchange rate now) but I think he undersold himself a bit because he wasn't quite sure how far it was (33km!), and when we got there he offered/insisted on waiting for us to finish and take us back, and although this was a nice offer, I think it was more because of the fact that
Cape Coast
Kakum National Park canopy walkway. he didn't want to waste petrol by driving all the way back on his own. He was there at the end anyway so we went back with him, although he was driving twice as fast as he did on the way, 110km/ph at some points, and dodging a million potholes a second! We had to stop at a police checkpoint on the way back (we did on the way too); they were checking for illegal drug smuggling and also that we were wearing seatbelts (well, the driver and me as I was in the front, most cars have none in the back) and the taxi driver had to pay a small bribe to the policemen to get through without being searched (sometimes checkpoint bribes are included in the fare, but he hadn't so he paid it himself). Apparently there is a road traffic accident crackdown in Ghana at the moment. There a signs on the side of the roads stating "Overspeeding Kills": they need a new word for speeding because everyone speeds anyway. I'd laugh if people in Britain got done for overspeeding instead of just speeding haha.
Anyway, back to the National Park! Kakum is a rainforest with
Cape Coast
Me and Sarah at Kakum National Park. lots of species of monkeys, birds ect, and even rainforest-dwelling elephants which I never even knew existed! We didn't get to see any elephants because we didn't go trekking on the ground, we only went on the canopy walkway, and apparently the monkeys are mainly nocturnal, but when we were on the canopy walkway we did hear howling monkeys making lots of noise. I was really nervous at being on the canopy walkwat at first, everytime we reached a platform on one of the big trees my heart was racing, and I just focused on getting to the platforms (it didn't help that I had a bad dream about cliffs, heights and rope walkways the night before lol). But about two-thirds of the way through I started to relax and take it all in more, which I kicked myself for not doing from the start! Ah well, it was still good! After the end of the walkway we walked back down through the rainforest to the tourist centre. We saw a very long line of big ants marching through the forest, very orderly. And a tree called an "incest tree". The guide did tell us a story about a boy
Cape Coast Castle
The male slave dungeon. who slept with his sister, but I can't remember the rest of the story or why the tree was named after it, but I did remember that the tree has natural mosquit-repelling properties. Useful information, maybe!
After the taxi ride back, we we to Cape Coast Castle after lunch, one of the oldest slave forts, built in the 1400s, and was also one of the biggest, or possibly the biggest in West Africa. It had been owned by various European countries (Portuguese, Dutch, can't remember the rest) before being sold from the Dutch to the British, who I think (but don't quote me) were the first country to use it to hold large numbers of slaves. It was very sad being in the dungeons. When the guide turned the lights off it was pitch black, there were 3 tiny slits in the walls but even in bright daylight they let a useless amount of light in, and were propably there more for air than light. You can't imagine how horrible it must have been to have been taken from your home and family, sold to other people, put in shackles and then squashed into a dark dungeon with 1000s
Cape Coast Castle
Old canons pointing out to see. of other people, not knowing what was going to happen to you. You can still see scratches on the walls of the dungeons made by the slaves in desperation. The slaves were lead out through an underground tunnel to be loaded onto the ships. At the end is a door which was named the "door of no return" because no-one ever came back. But a few years ago, some direct descendants of Ghanaian slaves were invited back as a kind of commemoration, and a plaque was put on the other side of the door saying "door of return".
It was an interesting day, we saw a lot, leant a lot and packed a lot into a sunday! Some of us are planning on going to some waterfalls this weekend. I had the most amazing cheese baguette yesterday in Koala supermarket cafe, it was so good to eat cheese! I know i've only been here a week and a half, but it already feels like ages. In the cafe they were playing a depressing war film so Aishu asked the wiatress if we could have the news on instead (which probably wouldn't have been much less depressing lol), but after
about 5 minutes she came back and said the guy who changes the channels had gone on leave for 2 weeks, so we were left with the film. Just a snippet of the Ghanaian way of life! lol.
Bye to you all for now!! x x x x x x
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Wendy Johnson
non-member comment
men and tv channels
sounds like my house the channels only switch over when ray changes the channels lol I think the remote is stuck to his hand with super glue although on saying that I do get the remote when he goes to bed so i get to watch a least 30 minutes tv that i want to watch before i fall asleep lol