I left from Sevare and met my friends in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. It was Andreea and her boyfriend Adam who is visiting from the States, Greg and Mary Virginia, aka Merv. We only spent one night there and then headed off to Ghana. I didn't get to see much of Burkina - except from the bus window - so I'll obviously have to go back. From Ouaga we went straight to Kumasi where we spent a few days. One of Kumasi's main attractions - for us anyway - is that it has the largest market, acrage wise, in West Africa. I'm not going to lie, it was pretty overwhelming.
Kumasi Market
Kumasi Market - the market is completely covered with tin roofs and goes on forever amidst the rest of the city. Very awesome market.
We spent only a couple of days in Kumasi before heading down to Cape Coast. I was really excited to go to Cape Coast because there is a lot of slave trade history with a castle built by the British. Also, Cape Coast is on the coast which meant the beach and ocean and after a hot and dry Mali that will always be exciting. Despite my excitement for Cape Coast, I got really sick when we got there - probably malaria - and was pretty out of commission the whole time. It would be alright immediately after taking my medicine, but 2 hours later it was hellish fevers, muscle aches and headaches. That, coupled with the awesome sunburn that I got made for a really great time.
The beach at Cape Coast with palm trees.
Merv and I at Cape Coast. We were getting severely sunburned at this point but didn't know it.
The Cape Coast Castle was really awesome. We took a tour and got a lot of information about the history of the slave trade and how many slaves were kept there and how many were shipped out. I've always been really fascinated by that historical period and events so coming here and seeing firsthand was really great, if not depressing. Some of the numbers we received about how many slaves had gone through this post before being sent off were really scary. We were also told that about 80% of all slaves brought to the castle died before making it to the Americas, either due to the terrible conditions they were forced to live in, being beaten, or finding their own way out of that situation by taking their own lives. Here are some photos of the area:
Memorial plaque.
You can't see all of the castle unless you're out to sea, so, this is as good of a picture as I could get from inside the fort.
The is the hallway and "Door of No Return" where the slaves walked down to board the ships leaving for the Americas.
Cape Coast Castle - In the distance, 12 km off, you can see Elmina Castle which served the same purpose as Cape Coast Castle.
Greg, Me, Adam, Andreea and Merv.
The day after Cape Coast, we headed up to the Kakum National Park. The main attraction here is the rainforest canopy walk. Basically it was a series of suspended bridges on the canopy of the rainforest. Sounds cool, and it was cool, but it was only 14 meters at it's highest point, so it wasn't that scary. And, even though we went first thing in the morning, we didn't get to see any wildlife, save for a couple of monkeys.
The canopy walkway. I know it doesn't look stable, but we're still alive!
Me on the canopy walkway.
Merv and Greg.
After the National Park I still wasn't feeling too well so I decided to leave everyone and head to Accra, the capital to get medical attention at the Peace Corps office. In the end, everything turned out fine and I'm feeling better than I was. The 2nd week of my vacation turned into me working at the West African Trade Hub (WATH) and getting work done on the bogolan project that I've mentioned. So, it didn't turn into this fantastic vacation that I had hoped for, but Merv and I are already planning a trip to Benin and Togo next year. This way, I'll be sure to get some good beach time and a nice tan.
Greg, Adam, Andreea and me on the beach having a drink.
