The 6th of March is the Independence day for Ghana. The 7th is also a holiday, so this weekend I had a three day weekend. I spent Saturday washing clothes and relaxing at home, it even rained again! That’s twice in one week. Then Sunday morning I headed to Cape Coast for a few days with Partey and Doreen. Once arriving in Cape we met up with Seth who would show us around for the next two days. Auntie Agnes has connections everywhere!
The trip to and from Cape Coast was an adventure in itself. I don’t drive a stick shift, but I am pretty sure I could have done a better job than the driver we had going to Cape Coast. On the way there we took at 15 passenger van. That part of the trip was about 2 1/2 hours. Before the van though we had to take the trotro to where the vans run from which is at least another 30 minutes, and then we had to wait for the van to fill up before leaving…which seemed like forever. On the way back we took a small coach type bus that probably held about 25-30 people. We were lucky in getting to the bus stop right as the bus was full and getting ready to leave. The drive back was much nicer, but it seemed to take forever. It took about 3 hours and then again the ride on the trotro to get home.
Once arriving in Cape Coast early afternoon on Sunday we visited some schools. Cape Coast is where all of the best secondary (high) schools are, including Auntie’s school. We visited her school which is the best girls school and the best boys school. Then we went to the University of Cape Coast. We also went to the little restaurant/tourist attraction that is known for having crocodiles. We walked around the pond and saw a few crocodiles, they were all sleeping because it was hot which was ok with me. The lady asked me if I wanted to touch one and I said no in the nicest way possible. Touching a live crocodile doesn’t seem like a good idea to me.
The last stop on our first day in Cape Coast was at he Elmina Castle. That is one of the places where slaves were housed before being traded off and sent to the Caribbean and the Americas. It’s one thing to learn about it in history class, but it is another to be in the places that they were actually kept. The places that they slaves were held they actually call dungeons, and that’s a pretty accurate term. Stone walls with no light and very little ventilation in the places, not to mention that the areas were packed full of women or men and had no place to go to the bathroom or to clean yourselves. The door of no return, where they send the slaves out to the boats, is a very small passage that is hard for healthy people to pass through. The slaves would stay in the castle for 2-3 months until they were small/weak enough to pass through the door of no return. The tour is something that I will never forget.
On Monday we got up and headed to Kakum National Park. The main attraction there is the Kakum walkway. This consists of seven, yes, SEVEN rope bridges suspended up over the trees in the forest. If you are afraid or heights or claustrophobic this is not the place for you. Let me describe the bridges for you. The part that you walk on is about the width of a 2x4 (piece of wood). It is actually a small steel ladder type thing with wood on top of it. There is netting that goes up on both sides of you and the bridge is held up by ropes and cables. I’m glad that I forgot that it was 7 bridges, because I probably would not have done it. After the first bridge if you are too afraid, you can take a short bridge to the end of the string of bridges, but you cannot turn around. I was ready to be done at about the 3rd bridge, but like I said, no turning back. The 6th bridge was the scariest. You could tell that it was the next bridge to have fixed or repaired. The netting on the bridge was loose, and it was kinda scary. It was also scary because you were close the end of the bridge and you walked to the same place that all of the people that were scared are also walking. Those people were screaming or crying which made walking on bridge number 6 all the more scary. Walking up to the bridge is a lot of stairs made from stones and wood built into the mountain. After the bridge I was shaking kind of how I feel after getting off a boat. Then we walked deeper into the rainforest to look at a treehouse. You can stay in the tree house overnight! That is now on my checklist of things to do: stay in a treehouse in the rain forest!
The weekend was full of fun and left me tired, but also very happy. I have been looking forward to this weekend of traveling since I came to Ghana. It is crazy to think that now I have just 2 short weeks left here in Ghana, but I am enjoying every moment of it.
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