Cape Coast and Elmina Castle

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We left the humidity of the Jungle behind us and made for the coast. I personally could not wait...and I was not disappointed...the Gold Coast of Ghana is like a tropical paradise. We headed for Cape Coast and stopped at a few beach resorts to enquire about camping, but were unceremoniously turned away...until we arrived at The Coconut Grove Hotel where they agreed to let us camp round the back of the complex for $8 US - a complete bargain as the room rate was nearer $100 US per night. We truly felt we had arrived in paradise...palm trees as far as the eye could see, acres of golden sand and the sea was warm! The only negative was the Harmattan - the dust from the Sahara that blows over to Ghana once every year during either December or January, and completely obscures the sun. It's most bizarre...like a permanent heat haze. Things were about to change though and just after sunset we witnessed our second tropical thunderstorm, which completely flooded the driveway we were camping on, but cleared the air and the sun was out in full force the next day.

After a lazy morning on the beach we sadly waved goodbye to 5 star luxury and headed east to the town and harbour of Elmina and St George's Castle. St George's Castle is the oldest European structure still standing in sub-saharan Africa, and was built in 1482 by the Portuguese when the Gold Coast got it's name. The Dutch captured the castle in 1637 and from then until 1872, when they ceded it to the British, it served as the African headquarters of the Dutch West Indies Company. It's now a Unesco World Heritage Site and we had the most wonderful guided tour - the guide was so knowledgeable and so passionate about it's history. When Slaves replaced Gold as the major object of commerce the storerooms were converted into Dungeons and we viewed the incredibly grim slave dungeons and punishment cells which were dark, dank and dingy and shent shivers down my spine. The guide then proudly introduced us to the current residents - hundreds of bats had made their home in one of the basements and we saw them all hanging upside, their eyes glowing in the dark!

Despite the ghoulish history the views over Elmina town and harbour were absolutely stunning. Sitting on a narrow peninsula between the Atlantic Ocean and Benya Lagoon, Elmina reportedly has one of the best natural harbours on the coast - which was what orginally attracted the Portuguese whose original name was Mina d'Ouro (Gold Mine), and from the ramparts of the castle we could see for miles in all directions.

We thanked the guide profusely for his really insightful tour and drove further east up the coast to Anomabu Beach Resort - where we camped under the palm trees and were lulled to sleep by the sound of the ocean crashing only a few feet away from us. Another lazy day on the beach followed as we swam, surfed, sunbathed and watched the local fishermen hawling in their nets full of fish. I really didn't want to leave but we'd decided to make for Accra to get the diff lock on the landrover fixed, and to find some fast cyber cafes where we could do some long overdue research on the rest of the trip.

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