Cape Coast and Kakum

This weekend all the interns went to Cape Coast and the Kakum National Park in the Central Region of Ghana. Cape Coast was the original administrative and trade capital of the British colony from which most slaves from the region were brought to be loaded onto ships for transport to the New World. Half of the interns left on Friday night while the rest of us got up at 6am on Saturday and got to the bus station in time for the first bus to Cape Coast. As is typical, the bus was sold out. We sat and played cards at the bus station until 11 and managed to catch the next bus. So much for an early start. The three hour bus ride was actually quite pleasant, and we arrived around 2:30. We booked a room at the “Oasis Beach-side Resort,” which is indeed “beach-side,” but not exactly a “resort.” In any event, it only cost us $8 a head for our rooms, so we were satisfied.

After “checking in,” we visited Cape Coast Castle, which is actually a fort rather than a castle, under which are the slave dungeons where slaves were held before being sold onto waiting ships. The walls of the dungeons are marked about 2-feet above the ground to show where the floors had been before they were dug out. The floors had risen as a result of compacted human waste that the slaves were forced to live in. The dungeons were almost completely black, with only a couple tiny windows high above the ground to allow fresh air or light. Slaves who, after what must have been an unbearable stay in the dungeons, were injured or too sick to walk from the dungeons through the underground tunnel to the waiting ships were locked in a tiny room, sixty at a time, and left to die with no food, water, or light. There are scratch marks visible on the floors and walls from the chains of those who, locked inside, had tried to scratch their way through the solid block walls. When a person died in that room, the British would not remove the body, instead waiting until all sixty had died and then emptying the room all at once. Needless to say, the Cape Coast Castle is a necessary but not exactly what I would call “enjoyable” tour.

At the Castle we ran into the other group of interns who, coincidentally were staying at our same “resort.” We spent the night drinking Club Beer (for the cool people) or Star Beer (for the losers) at the outdoor beach bar. Later we were fortune to see a fire and acrobatics performance. The acrobatics were particularly impressive considering they were performed barefoot on stone ground. After the show, my group went to bed early so we could hit up the Kakum National Park early. Sunday morning we were up at 6am again and caught a tro-tro to Kakum. We were ripped off and ended up paying the extortionary price of $2 each for our ride. I suppose I can’t really complain. Kakum National Park is a tropical rainforest reserve and a tentative UNESCO World Heritage Site. We bravely traversed the Canopy walk, which is a series of rope bridges slung between tall trees that crosses over top of the forest canopy and over a valley. The bridges sway a lot, and can be a little unnerving, but the view is spectacular. After the canopy walk, we went on a guided nature hike through the forest, where a local told us about different trees and their traditional uses. Someone spotted a snake coiling up a tree that looked just like one of the vines. It so resembled the tree that it took several minutes for everyone to spot it, though it was only a few feet in front of us. We were pointing it out to each other and gathered around it while our tour guide told us all about the tree the snake was climbing. Only then did he decide to inform us that, by the way, this snake is “very bad, very poisonous. In our language, its name means ‘it kills hunters.’” Thanks for the heads up buddy.

Anyway, we all escaped without a snake bite, but a lot more cautious of where we stepped. After catching a tro-tro back to Cape Coast, three of us spent a couple hours just walking around the city and the other three, exhausted from long days in the hot sun, headed back to the bus station to wait. Walking around the city we heard regular calls of “obroni,” meaning “white person” and the girls were regularly stormed by children asking for change or, rarely, just wanting to know their names. That afternoon we boarded our bus back to Accra, where I was able to take a much needed shower and, defeated by the sun, was in bed by 8:30. I took some pictures with the other interns' cameras and just copied all their pictures too, so if the internet is working, they should be up!