For my second weekend in Ghana, Janis, Sylvain, Janie and I decided to head to Cape Coast. Seeing that the three of them all live in Kumasi that meant that I would have to take the journey to Cape Coast by myself. Although Cape Coast isn’t too far away, transportation is never as easy as you would hope in Ghana. Emma had traveled to Takoradi the previous weekend and spent a night in Cape Coast, so she gave me a list of places that I should take tros to in order to avoid going through Accra (which is always preferred). So with my list of places I had never heard before, and my blue backpack I headed off on my solo journey to Cape Coast. My first tro was to Koforidua, a place I had been twice before, in order to catch my next tro to Asamankese (or that was the plan). One of the nice things about traveling in Ghana is that if you just look lost, someone will come up to you and show you where to go. I mean there’s definitely no sense in trying to hide (a white person in a sea full of Africans tends to stick out a bit) so it’s just best to make the best out of it. In Koforidua I had to walk to a different tro station and showed some people at the tro station a list of places I need to go to get to Cape Coast, which they of course laughed at (basically, being an Obruni here, regardless of what, I still get laughed at, so it’s something that you get used to after a while). They told me that instead of going to Asamankese I could take tro directly to Swedru (the next place down the list). I thought myself, “one less tro… that’s a great idea!”, until of course the tro to Asamankese left over half an hour before the tro to Swedru. The road to Swedru took quite some time, as the road was very poor, consisting almost entirely of potholes in the once paved road. Before leaving Emma told me how her whole journey to Cape Coast took all of 4 hours, which I now don’t even think is possible, seeing that it took me 4 hours just to get to Swedru. I had left Mampong at 14:00, hoping that I would get to Cape Coast before sunset at 18:30. However, once arriving in Swedru at 18:00, and watching the sunset from the tro as I waited for it to fill up, I realized that wasn’t going to happen. The road to Cape Coast was much better, except for all the turns in the road, which made passing slow vehicles a little treacherous. But I arrived in Cape Coast in one piece, which is really all that matters. The tro made several stops in Cape Coast and the man sitting next to me asked me where I was getting off. I told him that I didn’t know and all I knew was that I needed to get to Efutu which is a town somewhere north of Cape Coast. The man was very kind as he stayed with me on the tro until the last stop and when I got out, he fought off all the taxi drivers trying to pull me into their taxis. He then pulled one taxi driver aside and told him to take me to Efutu. The ride to Efutu wasn’t too long, although I know I ended up paying more than I should have for the taxi ride there. Along the way I was stopped at a sketchy police check point. They made the taxi driver get out of the car and talked with him for about five minutes. When they were done with him, the policeman started talking to me. For some reason he wanted me to bribe him to let me go through, without saying those exact words, but I just kept saying that I didn’t understand what he was trying to say. Eventually he got frustrated with the whole thing and let us go. The taxi driver then spent the next 5 minutes apologizing for the behaviour of the cop. By 8:30, I finally reached Hans Cottage Botel, the place Sylvain had booked for us for the night.
Hans Botel is quite an interesting place. It’s about 20 minutes away from Kakum National Park and situated on a lagoon full of crocodiles. It also had a swimming pool and an internet café. It has a wide option range of rooms, from suites with A/C and DSTV for a typical North American Price, to dormitory style accommodations, for 6 cedi (about 5 dollars) a night. We stayed in the dorms. Because the facilities were so nice, it would have been nice to stay in there for more than just one night so that we could actually use them, but because the place is a little out of the way from Cape Coast, it just wasn’t practical. After arriving at the Botel, I called Janis to see where they were. At this point, they were still in Accra. You see the journey from Kumasi should have been an easy one, just a 4 hour STC ride from Kumasi to Cape Coast. However, a bridge along that route was out due to construction, so they decided that the best way to get there would be to go through Accra. They thought wrong. They left Kumasi at noon, and arrived at the Botel close to midnight (catching on to the joys of Ghanaian travel yet?).
We headed out the next morning by drop taxi to Kakum, the first actually touristy tourist attraction we’ve been to (a far cry from Krobo Mountain). By shear coincidence, where ran into the two Israeli medical students who were also doing an exchange in Kumasi with Janie and Janis and ended up joining their tour group. The remainder of our tour group consisted of a German man working for Heineken out of Lagos in Nigeria, an elderly couple from Europe and their son, a Japanese guy that the Israelis had met at the hotel they were staying at who has spent the last 2 years traveling and two other people who’s stories I forget. The canopy walk consisted of 7 tree-top platforms linked by wood and rope walkways. Before starting the canopy walk, the guide explained how it was very safe and was designed by two Canadians from the Peace Corps. Although it was a little nerve racking, it was a really cool experience. What would have made it a little better though, was if there hadn’t been a hundred Ghanaian students screaming behind us (like I said, the first real tourist attraction we went to).
After Kakum we took a taxi back into Cape Coast, to the Savoy hotel, where we would stay the night. From there we headed out walking in the rain in search of the Cape Café, a place that serves western style food and also has workshops for Ghanaian women where they teach them how to perfect their craft skills so they can earn more money. After an extensive search on foot (then in a taxi when the rain became too much) we found out that the place is now closed (lie #20742 from the Bradt Guide). We then headed to the Castle Café for something to eat. I don’t think I had seen so many Obrunis since Amsterdam, it was quite a shock to the system. It was funny though, as some of the people I had seen at the Botel, and also at Kakum were now at the Castle Café (which I guess is not entirely unexpected, as every table seemed to have a copy of the Bradt guide on it). Once the rain had stopped and we finished downing our food, we headed out to Cape Coast Castle (which was right next door). Cape Coast Castle was a British built castle and was the majoring hub for the trans-Atlantic Slave trade. It was very interesting going there, and then to Elmina Castle the next day (which is a town close to Cape Coast that was control by the Dutch) as the Cape Coast Castle was specifically built for the slave trade, whereas Elmina Castle was originally built as a regular trading post, which was then converted to hold slaves. It rather sad, but the slaves who were housed in the Castle intended to hold goods had better living conditions than in the Castle built to house people (I would have taken pictures to compare the two, but my camera died while at Cape Coast Castle).
After we finished touring the Castle and the museum in the Castle we decided to walked down the road following the shore line to pass some time. Along the way we met a group of Ghanaian Rastafarian shop owners, who we spent about an hour talking to. They were quite funny to talk to (probably because they were all baked) and were trying to convince us to come to their ganja party that evening. Preferring not to get arrested in an African country, we declined. They did however show us their coconut bong, which was absolutely hilarious to see! Because it was so funny Sylain wanted to buy it, but that was a personal use coconut only, so instead he bought a ridiculous Rasta hat instead. As it was getting dark by that time, we headed back to the Savoy to grab another bite to eat.
The next morning, we all went our separate ways, Sylvain and Janis to Takoradi (as they were spending the next week on the west coast), Janie back to Kumasi, and myself to Elmina before heading back to Mampong. I managed to get lost a few times, but there was always a Ghanaian to show me the right way to go. My tro ride from Koforidua to Mamfe was very interesting, as I spent that hour talking with an older Ghanaian man, who used to be in charge of all the refugees in Ghana. We started talking about the Ghanaian medical system and improvements that need to be made in order for their country to move forward as well as the immigration system in Canada and Ghana. The conversation was quite interesting, so it made the hour long tro ride fly by and before I knew it, I was in a taxi for the short ride back to Mampong.
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