Cape Coast Lovin!

So it's been a few days since my last post, but I've been slowly adding pictures to this post as the days have gone on so that I can hopefully do the last weekend justice.

Like I said in my last post, we had a pretty crazy day ahead of us last Friday. After Spencer and Joey taught their business class Friday night they didn't get home until about 9:30. We were then frantically trying to get ready for the weekend because we knew that we wouldn't have time before the bus left.

At about 10:30 we finally got to go to bed - we were exhausted! And get this, only 2 hours later, at 12:30am, our alarm went off letting us know we needed to be up and outta there! Pretty sure we had not desire to get up. But we did it, and at 1am we were out the door and headed to the bus. Even though the bus doesn't leave until 2am, we needed to plan on being there as early as possible to be sure that we would get a seat and not have to stand for the 3 hour journey to Accra.

So we got to the market and continued on to the very first bus stop so that we could make for sure that we would get good seats. The village was quite deserted. Except for a few random people wandering around, and the sounds of some crazy church holding meetings in the middle of the night, this is all that was all you could see in these early hours of the morning.


The Goats


And the Dogs!
Pretty sure they were about to attack me! I supposed dogs just don't like the flash of the camera too much :)

So when the bus finally came we were able to find some good seats where we were hoping to sleep for the next 3 hours. YEAH RIGHT!!! No way on earth could we have actually slept. Every effort we made in closing our eyes and trying to get comfortable was thwarted with a massively large pothole the slammed our heads against windows or the backs of the seats, each one threating to break our tail bones. It was awesome! So Spencer and I gave up and just talked the whole way down.

When we made it to Accra, we met up with our friends, Josh and Lindsie (other USU SEED interns), a couple guys that they work with (Patty and Junior), and our driver, King Solomon, as we called him :) And we were off to Cape Coast!!!

We arrived in Cape Coast around 9am, and our first stop was the Kakum National Forest. It was absolutely gorgeous there!


Me, Spencer, Lindsie, Emily and Joey. Right in the tree behind we got to watch a cute little monkey swing from one branch to another and then drop in a bush. I was pretty sure it was gonna die, but it apparently caught one of the branches and lived. Crazy animal!

Here's Spencer and I - we're pretty darn tired after our journey, but very excited for this new experience!

After waiting around for a little bit for our tour guide, off we went into the forest!


At Kakum, back in the 1980's, there were some Canadians who teamed up with the Ghanaians to build a canopy walkway through the tree tops. It is probably one of the coolest things I've ever seen or been to in my whole life. There are a only a few of them in the entire world, and I may be mistaken, but I remember hearing that this one is the longest of the canopy walkways. It was awesome!


There are 7 walkways and all are somewhere around 20 or 30 meters off the ground.


I was okay with it all at the beginning...

Then they got more narrow and rickety and I thought I was going to die!
In the end though it was definitely worth it! It was so much fun to walk through the treetops and be able to say that we had been there. Pretty sure everyone should come to Ghana and experience this! I promise you won't regret it!


When we were done there we headed off to Elmina Castle, formally know as St. George's Castle.
The castle is situated right on the coast in this rather enchanting little town.

The locals fish for most of their livelyhood, and these boats were just full of people fishing with nets and everything. It reminded us of the disciples back in Christ's time. This is how I imagine them out on the Sea with their boats and fishing nets.



The castle was awesome too! It was majorly used as a slave trading post. They had slave dungeons, quarters for the women slaves, quarters for the men slaves and quarters for the generals who would prey on the poor women before sending them off to their doom. It's said that more than 1/2 of the slaves that came through that castle died before they even left. Being from America, you learn so much about the "Triangle Trade" and everything between Africa and the Americas, but it was a totally new experience being on the African side of the soil and having a native of that village tell us the stories of what happened there. It was THEIR ancestors who died there. It was very touching. You could very much tell that our guide was moved by it all too.

Here's some pictures of the inside of the castle.


This opening leads to the point of no return! They would send all the women slaves through this and down the chute to take them to the boats which went across to the Americas where all who survived the awful journey across the ocean would be sold as slaves.

Spencer thinks he should take up shot-put, what do you think? I guess if he could chuck this 30 lbs cannon ball he would do quite well :)

We couldn't believe the doors/openings in the castle that people had to maneuver through. Either they had no clue how to build something for a normal sized person or they were all abnormally small people :)



Spencer got locked in the dungeon! This was used for soldiers who misbehaved - the slave dungeon was a hundred times worse with only one tiny whole up by the ceiling for air. Definitely no open bars like this one.

Spencer and Emily climbing the wall (initially used to reinforce the castle walls) that the British soldiers used to train on.


Spencer, Lindsie and me on the roof of the castle. We thought this was a pretty sweet cannon!

Other views of Cape Coast from the roof of the castle. It's a beautiful place!


By the time we were done it was about 1:30pm. We were definitely hungry!!! And the Ghana game in the World Cup was going to be on at 2. We had to find somewhere to eat quick, and it had to be somewhere that would show us the game while we ate.

We found this little joint that had a small tv and a half-broken projector to watch the game and enjoyed our food and time there.

Spencer and his chicken. They had some great fried rice!

Here's Lindsie with the TV set-up in the background.

It was so much fun to watch the game with all the Ghanaians! We usually just watch the game with the Abus in their home and while we do some celebrating, it's nothing like at the public joint. When Ghana scored their goal, the whole place was up dancing and chanting "Ghana! Ghana! Ghana!" The whole restaurant would stop in their tracks anytime something big happened. I loved it! It would have only been better if Ghana had won instead of tied. They took over 22 shots at the goal and not one of them went in! It was quite sad to watch. Everyone was so disappointed. So far, Ghana is the only African team that's really in the running to go onto the next round. They have to represent in their next game so that they can make their continent and country proud!!!
Tomorrow, when Ghana plays again, we've decided we need to watch it with the crowds again. Spencer and Joey even bought themselves Black Stars jerseys to cheer them on.