A little vacation

It's been an exhausting three days! Liz, Emily, Jonathan and I just got back from our trip to Elmina and Cape Coast.

Day 1 - Wednesday:

Up at 7 to be ready for William to pick me up to head to the bus station at 8am. 8:45am William shows up with Liz, Emily and Jonathan. It's then I'm reminded of "Ghana time." Yes, in Ghana there is a whole new clock by which the country runs and that's: no clock. Haha. It's not too bad except when it causes you to miss your bus. Oh well! We ended up getting a later bus to Takoradi, which cost a bit more but would drop us off where we wanted to be: Cape Coast. The bus was actually pretty nice with air conditioning and everything! After a quick two hour ride we arrived! After bartering with a taxi driver, we hopped in and we were off to our second destination of the day: Elmina. Once in Elmina we went to St. George's Castle (I think is what it's officially called). The castle was built by the Portuguese (if I remember correctly) in the 1400's. They initially settled in Elmina to trade with the Ghanaian's. Back then, the coast was known as the Gold Coast because of all the gold...obviously. Then they started enslaving the Ghanaian and other African people and the castle became a holding place for them until ships arrived to take them away. In the 1600 or 1700's (I forget) the Dutch took over the castle and continued the slave trade until the British took over in the 1700 or 1800's. (My memory for details is astounding!) Anyway, it's a pretty grim history but the city of Elmina now is amazing. After the castle, we had lunch at a little place nearby. I had Red-Red, which is fried plantain and beans - so yummy! We were then off to find another taxi to take us back to Cape Coast to Hans Cottage to stay for the night. We were fortunate enough to get a room with 4 beds, even if it was communal bathroom. Oh and it was only GC5.40 each (i.e. $5.40)!!! The big draw of this botel is their lake with crocodiles. We only saw one but there were a ton of birds! Before dinner, we were playing ping pong when a Ghanaian girl with her friends walked up and asked if they could join. We of course said yes and I ended up playing her first. Well, what she didn't say is that she was on a champion ping pong team and was a fierce player! I beat her though :-) Her and her friends even taught us some Twi, the local language. In addition to already knowing how to ask, "how are you" and how to respond, I can now say please and thank you! So fun!!!

Day 2 - Thursday:

We got up early and hopped into a taxi that we had arranged the previous day to meet us at our botel. Off to Kakum National Park we went! Once there, we bought our tickets for the canopy walk. This is a walkway with seven different suspension bridge walkways throughout the canopy of the rainforest - 30-40 meters above the ground! Emily is afraid of heights so it was hard for her...but she made it! It was aaaaaamazing. We didn't see any wildlife but we had a great time on the wobbly bridges, haha. After Kakum, it was back to Cape Coast to see the Cape Coast Castle. This one has a similar story to the Elmina castle but is much younger - built in the 1600's by the British. After the castle was a loooooong lunch at the Cape Coast Castle restaurant. Remember "Ghana Time?" We waited probably almost an hour for our food. At least it was good food! Then for dessert was my first experience with Fan Choco! It's basically frozen chocolate milk and it's sooooo good. After our long lunch we went in search of a place to stay for the night. Finally we reach the Somma (I think?) Guest House after following far too many wrong directions from the local people, haha. It's about the same price as Hans Cottage but not quite as nice. When we had secured our rooms for the night we went back out to the Oasis Resort to see the beach! At the beach we played with some of the local kids for a little while who were so funny. After taking some pictures on the rocks by the water, we headed back to the resort for some dinner and card games.

Day 3 - Friday:

Not too much happened. We ate lunch at our hotel at their rooftop restaurant. It's not as glamorous as it sounds but the food was yummy. It rained a bit but we didn't melt as we hailed a taxi to take us back to the bus station to head home to Accra.

Whew, I'm tired.