Category Archives: Ghana

Ghana Part VI: Tamale, Mole and the whole Enchilada

06 Tuesday Feb 2018

Posted by in Africa, Ghana

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, ,

Finding an empty Tro Tro at side of the road near our hotel…YEAH!!!

We grumpily decided we’d need to get an early start that Friday (19th of January) in order to make it back to Accra with plenty of time to collect my passport from Isaac and get to the airport in time for our 3pm flight with Africa World Airlines- an airline name that defies our US president – to Tamale, a northern city that serves as the gateway to Mole National Park – Ghana’s biggest and most famous national park (which, incidentally, was not included in any of the Dragoman itineraries)

We managed to flag an empty tro tro on the side of the road that was heading to Ho. I know, this joke never gets old. Incidentally, I had forgotten to mention that when I had arrived in Amedzofe a few days prior, on foot, a taxi had pulled up alongside me, rolled down the window and asked “Ho?”.

Hilarious.

Once we were in Ho, it was an easy transfer to another tro tro heading to Accra – and we were offered the front seat, so it was decidedly comfier. After grabbing some ice creams (which are basically plastic tubes of ice cream that you suck through the corner of the bag after you’ve ripped the corner off with your teeth) it was a relatively easy journey that even dropped us off at a bus stop for the airport.

Thankfully, Issac met us at the stop and walked with us to the airport. I haven’t walked to many airports before, so this was interesting.

After checking in, Mike and I caved in to eating some comfort food in the form of pizza and beer and before we knew it, it was time to board.

Boarding our Africa World Airlines Flight

The flight only lasted 50 minutes but was incredibly comfortable and well serviced. We were given a drink of juice and a meat pie (which we thankfully ate later in the taxi heading to the park) and we were able to see the outlines of dusty villages from the dry and barren savannah lands that define the north of the country.

On arrival, we met a Cameroonian who played basketball in Austin, which is incidentally where Mike last lived before venturing out on his travels. His name was Alex, and he has started a non-proft called Leading through Reading and was there doing some work. Apparently, his parents adopted him from Cameroon when he was already 14 years old and didn’t speak a word of English. At 6ft 8”, he was a gentle giant and I’ll always remember his warm smile and demeanor.

Mike chatting with Alex about Basketball, presumably showing him how to shoot hoops

We were bundled off into a taxi with a very miserable driver (not many of them in Ghana) who complained about my trying to negotiate a rate with him to drive us all the way to Mole saying the usual “Petrol is expensive. That is too cheap, Madam, and you understand this is the standard price…blah blah blah” bullshit that every driver spits out the moment you question his quoted fare.   In any case, he was only taking us to the station where we were going to catch public transport to as close to the park as we could get.

As we headed to a tro tro, I stopped to ask another taxi driver what he would charge to drive us all the way privately (it was at least a two hour drive and would be longer/dark by public transport). I managed to negotiate a rate that was less than half what Mr Misery wanted and given the fact that he would also take us straight to the Mole Motel where we had a reservation, and the fact that we’d been traveling all day, we jumped at the chance.

Ecstasy over finding a top sheet

This driver was the total opposite of the first. His name was Abdullah and he had the most infectious, raucous laugh that came from nowhere – he laughed at almost every thing we said, even when it was just to comment on the speed bumps.

Oh, speed bumps. In Ghana. Are the worst.

Though the fact that we timed cute noises as our driver ran his ramshackle beat up car that hadn’t seen a new cabin filter in over two decades over the bumps at breakneck speed made him crack up even more heartily.

He made the two hour journey in about 90 minutes. I had a headache from the fumes that seemed to be coming directly into the car and keeping the windows open wasn’t stopping us from inhaling it. But we were super grateful to arrive at our hotel with enough time to grab a quick bite to eat (which ended up being a rather stale and dry piece of chicken that the waiter claimed was Guinea Fowl and looked at me with a death stare for daring to question the validity of his claim) before retiring to our massive three-bedded room with corresponding three blue buckets of water in the bathroom.

Our beds had topsheets and we enjoyed a good laugh taking some pictures of me ecstatic from having a topsheet.

The next morning we woke early to catch a 7am game drive.   Safaris here are some of the cheapest in Africa, costs being about $11 per person for a two hour excursion (with five persons sharing the vehicle.) . We were lucky in that we were able to share our vehicle with a group of three young ladies from the Netherlands who were volunteering in Tamale as this kept our overall cost down.

Our Safari vehicles in Mole

Immediately upon trying to leave Mole park headquarters, we spotted an elephant roaming around the ranger residences and getting extremely close to the tourists who had opted for a walking safari. Although it was lovely to see an elephant so soon, we didn’t want to photograph an elephant that had a crowd of people in the foreground and houses in the background. It just didn’t feel right. That, and the fact that we had paid for a vehicle, which was thus far only following the walking tour.

After heading out of the area, we passed Mole village where many of the park workers live. We saw a lot of baboons and warthogs hanging around and they seemed totally habituated to humans.

The rest of the drive did not disappoint, thought it was bitterly cold in the morning air and I cursed at myself for not grabbing my windbreaker. The safari vehicles were kitted out with rows of benches for sitting on the roof, allowing for a great viewing platform from which to spot animals. We managed to see more elephants, a beautifully vibrant-colored bird called an Abyssinian Roller, lots of antelope, waterbuck, a mongoose and we ended the drive at a watering hole complete with crocodiles. We were allowed to descend from the vehicle and take photos and as we did, another herd of elephants arrived to drink at the water and afforded us some lovely photographic opportunities.

Mike and I by the watering hole with Elephants

By the time we returned, we were ravenous for breakfast and happily joined our new Dutch friends who were young enough to be our children and still shone brightly with the naivety and innocence of barely having reached adulthood.

The day grew quite hot and I was excited that the hotel had a pool. We were planning on getting changed into our bathers and taking a dip when someone called over that a group of elephants were now getting in to the watering hole and were bathing themselves.

In all, there were nine elephants that we were able to watch and observe for a good few hours as they frolicked about and swam in the lake below. I was even able to do this with a cold Smirnoff in my hands by the pool in my bikini.

I was liking Mole thus far.

After a much needed afternoon nap, I awoke to Mike returning from a very hot meander around the village where he had spotted warthogs trying to eat a carcass. I decided to shower and found myself sharing it with a little gecko who afterwards very much needed Mike’s help in getting out of the tub for fear he might get sucked down the drain.

Watching elephants while relaxing by the pool

We had a little happy smoke before heading over to the restaurant for dinner. I was very giggly. All was good.

We took a night safari that evening and though it was a little more pricey at $20 each – it had a great atmosphere to it with the night sky overhead, being all wrapped up in multiple layers, and using flashlights altogether to try and spot the animals.

Gecko who shared my shower

As well as the same animals we’d seen during the day, we were lucky enough to also spot some Janet cats, bush babies, and a giant owl from the drive.

Getting back we were beat and as we had to face another long travel day in the morning heading back to Tamale and onward to the border with Burkina Fasso, we went straight to bed.

Ghana Part V: Going it Solo from Ho to Hohoe in a Tro Tro

04 Sunday Feb 2018

Posted by in Africa, Ghana

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, , ,

These places do exist

The first section of our independent journey took us to the mountainous region of Lake Volta, close to the border with Togo. Since the area has a bit of altitude, we were promised some cooler breezes, which would be oh so welcome after Accra.

First, we had to use the services of the Dragoman “fixer” (essentially a local guy who can arrange things that are difficult/get shit done) to go straight to the Burkina Fasso embassy to arrange for my visa, and have them understand that it would be ok for Isaac to pick the passport back up for us that Friday and bring it to the airport in time for us to fly to Mole.

I was amazed at just how quickly the process went. I paid my $100, filled in a form, and we were out of there in under 15 minutes. Mike was perturbed and assured me that other things would definitely prove to be more difficult, moving forward. Haha!

For this section of the journey we would be utilizing many different forms of public transport. To date we have used Tro-Tros (basically a minivan that leaves a starting point once it is full, and that means full in the African sense of the word; literally not a cubic square inch of air that doesn’t contain a person, animal or cargo; and is quite inexpensive and probably the most popular form of public transportation) Buses, Motorcycles (that put our large pieces of luggage on the handlebars between their arms as they drive) Motorcycle drawn “motorcart”, car taxis, bicycles, and our two feet.  It has actually been a lot easier in certain sections than I was expecting and it was more difficult in others.

Taking Moto to Biakpa

On this journey to the tiny village of Biapka, near Amedzofe, we took a Tro Tro, or minibus and it was quite cramped and stiflingly hot inside the vehicle. I was also cursing myself for bringing a small day pack and my travel purse which sat heavy on my lap. We were heading to Akosombo in the hopes of making it there by 3pm to take a tour of the dam there that creates Lake Volta. Unfortunately, it became clear that we weren’t gonna make it by then, and so we got off the Tro Tro at the next intersection and boarded a different one headed to Hohoe and the accommodation we were planning on staying at for 3 nights – Mountain Paradise lodge.

One of the main difficulties with public transport in this region of the world is needing to plan around bladder issues/maintenance. There are very few public toilets and most guys just get off the tro tro at a transfer stop and just pee against a wall. With hundreds of people around, such a location does not make it easy to pee as a woman. As such, we would typically limit our liquid intake during the day and try to rehydrate at night. It is all part of the experience that locals suffer through every day, so I’m not gonna complain about it.

By the times we reached the crossroads where we would try to get a taxi to Biakpa, it was getting close to sunset. Luckily there were two moto drivers there waiting (possibly notified of our arrival by our hotel manager, Tony) to pick us up.

It will be one of the highlights of my trip in West Africa, remembering that cool breeze flowing over my sweat-drenched body as I held on to the back of my motorcycle driver, as we winded up the mountain road through beautiful lush green scenery as the sun was setting.

Cool breeze as we wind through the mountain roads

The view on arrival was jaw-droppingly beautiful. Our hotel was situated on a cliff overlooking the valley below with a curtain vista of mountains surrounding the location. The hotel bar/restaurant was perched on the edge, and our room enjoyed a pretty verandah with potted plants and a few fearful kitties roaming around. It was peaceful, and more importantly, the temperature was refreshingly cool.

The staff at this accommodation were some of the most client-service focused we’d come across. The coffee was local and NOT Nescafe (win!) the food freshly prepared and delicious and there was plenty of information about the surrounding attractions and transportation options.

Our first day started off lazily with breakfast and obligatory post-breakfast nap. We then headed out on a long hike through the village of Biapka where we were told we could find a local to show us the “route” through the forest to the village of Amedzofe from where we could climb the second highest peak in Ghana, Mt. Gemi. Unfortunately, we came across a young lad who said he knew exactly where said path was, but after taking us to it for about 15 minutes and pointing in a direction saying we only needed to go straight, we found ourselves in need of a machete as the trail became impassable for vegetation.

Heading out on a hike to Mt. Gemi and Amedzofe

The young lad had clearly led us astray and we weren’t exactly sure of his motivation. Was it to earn the few Cd’s we gave him? Was he embarrassed that he didn’t really know the way? Or was it the classic African “I don’t know the answer to this white person’s question so I’ll just tell them something because I want to be helpful and that is clearly better than telling them that I don’t know, even if it means they will get completely lost.”

This happens all the time.

It ended up being quite funny and definitely adds to the story overall, I think. We came across what looked like a deadly Green Mamba snake that had a beautiful blue head and green body sitting bolt upright on the trail. We gave it a wide berth and escaped what would inevitably be a much bigger diversion to our day had one of us been bitten.

Getting back into town we thought it safer to stick to the road, and soon we were picked up by a motorbike who had been told to look for “two white people walking to Amedzofe”. TIA.

The driver was very sweet, but his bike was less than powerful and struggled to carry the three of us up the steep road to Amedzofe without stalling every few hundred meters. Eventually, we made it to the village which was very charming.

After registering for the hike to Mt. Gemi, and purchasing some popcorn on the side of the road, we made the climb to the summit where sat a large metal cross, clearly signifying something that wasn’t explained.

While beautiful, the surrounding scenery was obscured by thick harmattan air quality, but we were enjoying finally getting some cardio after weeks and weeks of mostly sitting on a truck.

At the summit of Mt. Gemi

Heading back to town, we stopped at a family’s home to purchase some home produced honey and then to the local village bar where we bought two large ice-cold beers to celebrate the afternoon’s exertions.

We became a point of focus and people greeted us as they walked by, and we sat happily watching the village afternoon pass by complete with wandering chickens, goats, shoeless children and curious local folk.

Cold beer after a hot hike = happiness

A man called Frank, wearing a Givenchy Paris t-shirt with the American flag on it, stopped to make conversation and we were soon engaged in an interesting discussion about homosexuality. Apparently, he was curious about how gay people integrate into society in America, and how we felt about them in general.

Being a strong Christian, he shared the belief system of many Ghanaians in that he felt homosexuality a “sin” and a “choice” that men made that shouldn’t be permitted by society. He seemed somewhat open, however, after I pointed out to him that being gay was as much a choice as his being black or our being white.

That seemed to get him thinking, which made me happy.

Frank

Since we were connecting, Frank offered to take us to a waterfall once we had finished our beer. We were delighted and accepted his generous offer.

The hike was steep going down to the falls, and one had to hold onto a bunch of ropes that had been constructed alongside the trail. We were having a lot of fun, playing Michael Jackson songs upon learning that he was Frank’s favorite US artist.

The waterfall was pretty, but it was mostly the magic of connecting with a local, combined with the chance to explore the outdoors again that was putting a big smile on my face, making me know for sure that I had made the right decision to travel with Mike.

Upon our return to Mountain Paradise, we learned that one of the staff members had successfully been able to procure some much-yearned for weed for Mike and I to enjoy. Neither Mike nor I had much in the way of experience of rolling a joint, and unfortunately, the pot had arrived packaged in lovely little brown paper parcels, but no rolling paper.

Ofe Falls in Amedzofe with Frank

What ensued was hilarious as King, the member of staff wickedly helping us commit this crime, took pages from his math homework book and rolled us a home-created joint. We took photos as the written fractions burnt away as we happily smoked and laughed at the scenario. Who knew you could roll a joint with exercise notebook paper?

It felt so good to be stoned again. And dinner was extra delicious;-)

Smoking King’s Math Homework

The next day we left on motorcycle early to visit the Monkey sanctuary in Tafi Atome, a 20 minute ride away. Though totally wild, these Mona monkeys are habituated to the villagers and will come and eat bananas directly from your hands, climbing all over you in the process.

I was glad I had chosen to wear long sleeves!

It was a unique, up and close wildlife experience, even if a little disconcerting when multiple individuals jumped up on you at the same time to grab banana.

Our driver took us to the local market afterwards where we happily drank some fresh coconut water and bought a pineapple for “dessert” later. After taking lots of pictures, we were ready to head back to the lodge for a siesta.

Mike and I with the Mona monkeys in Tafi Atome

Later on we took another hike to a local waterfall. Since we had to walk on the road to the trailhead, we laughed as Felix, our motorcycle driver with the weaker bike from the day before, spotted us and pulled over to drive us to said trailhead for free. We were becoming known by the locals.

The waterfall was well worth the steep hike and as was becoming normal in this region, we were the only people there as we jumped in for a refreshing swim. With some wise planning, I had brought a large beer with me which we sank into the runoff to cool while we swam.

Cold beer. Waterfall. Beautiful hike. Solitude. Amazing.

I absolutely loved my time in this region. I would highly recommend it to anyone else coming to Ghana. It has such a slower pace of life than Accra or other cities. That evening, we enjoyed another well-deserved joint and giggled through dinner. As exhaustion and a pot-induced haze sank in, we settled in the lodge garden for some of the pineapple that we’d set out to enjoy as dessert.

Inexplicably, we lost the pineapple and couldn’t stop laughing as we shone our headlamps on the ground by our feet wondering where it could possibly have rolled off to?

Lost pineapple. Newly-found joy.

Ghana Part IV: The Asanti Nation, Accra, and a Big Decision

02 Friday Feb 2018

Posted by in Africa, Ghana

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, ,

The incredible expanse of the Kumasi Market. Photo by Mike Hoeffner

We had an incredible Indian meal on arrival in Kumasi – albeit an adventure in travel just trying to get the taxi to get us to the restaurant, which as far as he was concerned – didn’t exist. Having looked up the address, we kept repeating where the restaurant was located, per the guidebook, and he kept pulling over to ask random people if they knew more than he did about what we were muttering.

None of the cab drivers in Kumasi seemed to know anything about anywhere in their city. It’s always amusing, if not stressful – but this is so Africa. Funnily enough, I had my own brain fart when it finally dawned on me that since I’d gone to the trouble of buying an SIM card and had Ghanaian credit for 3G – I could have just pulled the restaurant up on Google Maps and given the taxi driver play by play directions. I laughed hard when this dawned on me.

Me Jack and Mike at the Asanti Museum

The next day we had free time and it occurred to me that my brain was starting to get “travel soft” in the sense that I was starting to too heavily rely upon Sinead and the truck to tell me where to go and what to do. This happens when you’ve been on an organized tour for too long. I was so not in the mood to visit the enormous market in Kumasi, nor go to the many museums this center of the might Asanti nation had to offer. Primarily, I was in a bad mood because my time of the month had still not arrived. But there was another issue that was bugging me.

The following day, this “section” of the trip would come to an end; and the few members of the truck that I had formed an emotional attachment with would be leaving the journey as we started the next leg of the itinerary – the 21 day tour through Togo and Benin. Mike, Peter, and Danny were all leaving the truck, and I was gonna miss them the most.

Need some Pray toothpaste?

On top of that – I had learned that another member of the group, Jodi, was desperate to stay and do the Togo/Benin loop but had been told that there were no available spaces for her, barring someone who had booked on from Accra not showing up due to some unforeseen circumstance.

Mike was going to be traveling through roughly the same region solo, and we had casually discussed the possibility of my joining him. But this possibility hinged on whether or not Dragoman would allow a “name-change” this late in the game – meaning Jodi would be able to stay on the truck, and I’d be able to get off and be reimbursed for the cost of the trip by Jodi herself.

Hilarious front page of local paper in Kumasi

When I was under the impression that this was quite possible three days prior to Kumasi, I was actually quite excited by the idea, but we had since discussed this with Sinead and learned that Dragoman didn’t typically allow for such a last minute change without incurring cancellation charges.

So…for the most part, we had left the idea alone – believing that Dragoman wasn’t going to permit such a change in any case – and so giving it anymore serious consideration was a waste of time.

It was in the late morning on our visit to Kumasi, that Sinead messaged Mike saying that Dragoman had finally responded to her email declaring that they would be ok with Jodi staying on the truck and me getting off…but the caveat was that I’d have to decide that day.

And so began what was ultimately two days of internal monologue and agonizing back and forth decision-making. Poor Mike is as bad as I am at making decisions and we agonized over the pros and cons finally resting on leaving things as they were on that particular evening.

Penultimate meal with the Truck crew in Kumasi

Though we did visit several museums including the former royal palace, which was very interesting indeed, I was super distracted and couldn’t figure out exactly what I wanted. I have always valued independent travel and figuring out the logistics of getting from A to B, in addition to being free to decide where I wanted to stay and for how long. Mike is one of the most proficient and capable travelers I’d ever met and I trusted him implicitly – but spending one on one time with someone you’ve only known in a group setting can be difficult to predict.

I felt haunted and just didn’t know what the best choice was (this is funny to me now in retrospect…hindsight is so 20-20)

The following day Mike and I sat together on the truck for the drive to Accra as this was technically his “last day on the truck”. Something still wasn’t sitting right within me and by the time we arrived in Accra, I knew I’d made the wrong choice. Right before our goodbye evening meal – I went to Mike and told him I’d decided to give my spot to Jodi. He gave me his blessing and now I just had to tell Jodi and Sinead. Sinead told me she would immediately tell Dragoman and would have to shuffle some paperwork to get Jodi’s visas sorted out in time. Jodi was utterly ecstatic and this made me extremely happy. Though nervous I almost instantly knew I’d made the right choice and felt such a wave of relief – especially after announcing the change at dinner – much to the disbelief of everyone staying on the truck. Miller immediately asked “Mike! Are you sure, man? You really want to travel with Anita?!!!” – which I took to be a joke, but he was really drunk and might have been totally sincere. I didn’t care either way.

The following day Mike was really sick with a cold – so we moved him into what would now be our room at the hotel and I set about spending a day in internet cafes doing research for our itinerary and coming up with a plan for how we were going to go about this journey on our own. It was exhausting and frustrating at times due to wifi speeds but I had almost forgotten just how much I enjoy and am gifted at trip planning. Despite being groggy and under the weather, I think Mike appreciated my efforts and by that evening, we had re-packed – leaving everything non-essential in a spare duffel bag to leave on the truck (we planned to meet up with it in Ganvie, Benin) and we had our plan in hand.

First we would head to the Burkina Fasso Embassy in the morning as soon as Sinead handed me back my passport with my Togo visa in it. Then we would head to the Lake Volta region first for 3 nights, returning to Accra that Friday to pick up my passport and fly (saving two days of buses) north to Tamale where we could get transport to Mole National Park. We would then head north to Burkina Fasso and the Tiabele villages in the south before taking in the capital and heading east to Benin. After Penjari National Park we would head south and catch up with the truck for some beach, voodoo, and stilt village time.

I was excited!! Goodbye Dragoman truck – hello independence and god knows what may happen!!!

Ghana Part III: Cape Coast and Sleeping in Tree Houses

31 Wednesday Jan 2018

Posted by in Africa, Ghana

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

,

At the Cape Coast Slave Castle

The next morning I said goodbye to my lovely hut and outdoor toilet to get back on the truck and head east to Cape Coast. I did love my room, however, I had to employ a technique there that I hadn’t used since 2009 when I was in Nicaragua during a particularly hot and muggy spell of weather. Without a fan, which is really essential in the heat of the night, the only way one could fall asleep would be to get in the shower and get completely soaked with cold water, and then lie back down on the bed still wet and try to fall asleep before you dry off.

That technique helped me to fall asleep the prior two nights in Elmina.

Morning in Elmina at the market

Baby asleep with head all the way back while carried by mama

Woman carrying massive ice blocks on her head…Because, Africa.

Our journey out of town had us passing the exact same busy thoroughfare that me and the boys had walked the night prior – though being morning, it was even busier than what it had been. From our unique vantage point aboard the truck, it was super easy to get great photos of people passing by carrying massive baskets of fish, produce and other wares to sell in the market. The boats were heavily laden and still bearing their colorful paints and biblical names – headed out to sea as we drove by.

One of the amusing things about Ghana, given its dominant Christian makeup in the south, is that so many small businesses name their storefronts with a religious title. Here are a few examples of the names we saw along our journey:

“Thy Will Be Done Licensed Chemical Shop”

“Life in Christ Radiator Specialist”

“Merciful God Vulcanizing”

“God is My Provider Aluminium Works”

“If Jesus says yes, no one can say no market”

“God is Alive Curtains Internal”

“Charity begins at home drinking spot”

This defies belief. Hence, photo.

Special thanks go out to Mike for keeping a log of these gems.

Soon we got to Cape Coast Castle and unloaded for our tour of this castle – different to Elmina in that it was built specifically for the slave trade in 1610 and opened in 1653. On entering, we immediately saw the plaque commemorating the visit that Barack and Michelle Obama made here back in 2009.

Cape Coast Castle courtyard

Female Dungeon

View from other side of Door of No Return…where the ship would pick up the slaves passing through it.

The visit was just as haunting as my visit to Elmina, so I won’t recount my reactions here except to say that we were given a lot more free time to explore once the tour was over and I chose to go back into the dungeons alone and stand quietly in the darkness.

Even just in comparison to being down there with the group, the forboding and eeriness was far more palatable when I was alone and it was difficult to imagine the untold stories of suffering that were contained in those walls.

One item I failed to describe in my last post was the treatment of women in the female dungeons as sex slaves.  This was true in both Elmina and Cape Coast.  The governor, or any soldier residing in the castle could choose a woman to rape whenever he wanted.  The women would be marched out of the dungeon and selected from a balcony overlooking the courtyard.  She would then be washed thoroughly and brought to her captor to be violated.

On the one hand, if chosen, you’d be raped.  On the other, you finally got to bathe.

I know, not funny, and I don’t mean it to sound trite.

Many of these women became pregnant and would be taken from the dungeon to a separate building to give birth and then wean the infant, only to have it taken away from her once it could eat solid food.  She would then be returned to the dungeons or put on a slaver ship.  Later on, these “Mulatto” (their word, not mine) would be given an education in specially built schools and many went on to be leaders in the slave industry – seen as more elite and superior than their darker countrymen.

With Wayne and our guide

In comparison with Elmina, Cape Coast did house a well-curated museum regarding the slave trade and it’s impact on the New World and African American culture today. There was even displays of the branding irons that owners would use to be able to identify their “property” and visual representations of the inside of the slave ships with gut wrenching diagrams of how people were stacked.

I especially liked the room that chose to honor those African Americans who’s roots can be traced to those once in bondage and give credence to their accomplishments and continuing fight for equality. I will include a few of the pics I took here below.

Branding iron used on Slaves to mark as property…this one of the ATI company

After the visit we had only a short journey north to Kakum National park where we would be dividing into groups and hiking into the jungle for a night up in the tree canopy in the treehouses that offered a pretty unique place to sleep.

While waiting for dinner, Mike had the misfortune to step onto a wooden platform that completely gave way causing him to puncture his foot with something metallic, perhaps a nail. Watching him go down was initially quite funny until we realized that he was hurt – but after getting some alcohol to clean the wound and a bandaid…he still managed to power through and do the hike with us.

Sinead hiking to our Treehouse in Kakum National park

Treehouse in Kakum National Park

Kakum is home to a number of species including the pygmy forest elephant – but we were advised to keep our expectations very low for what wildlife we might be able to spot in the short time we were visiting.

The hike in was very easy and took just over an hour. It’s funny to me how much hikes are always made to seem so difficult and that they require such physical stamina by the hosts in countries where I am visiting – I guess it must mean that their average tourist is simply very out of shape because I find them to be generally quite tame despite their arduous descriptions.

There were around 14 of us staying at the treehouse that was a little bit of a further trek away – and in looking up at the structure, I did wonder just how safe it was for that many people to make it home for the night. Several people just brought their tent with them, but the rest of us made it up the eighty or so steps, trying not to think about how difficult it was going to be to have to come back down in the night to pee.

View from the forest canopy walk in the early morning

We formed sleeping mats in a circular fashion on the floor around the hut and tried to get set up for what was going to be an early night. After a well deserved Smirnoff Ice (Mike and I packed a few in that managed to stay cold) we headed out for a Night Walk with our guide, Sammy.

The night walk was mostly about hearing the sounds of the jungle and animals around you. It’s funny how without a headlamp, you can easily just be convinced that every creature is out to “get you”, when in reality, it is very difficult to spot wildlife with headlamps. We did get to hear the Hyrax – a rodent that is actually a genetic relative of the elephant make extremely high pitched sounds as they came down from the forest canopy to forage for food. We also managed to spot several bush babies, millipedes and an errant moth who wanted to fly into my bra for some reason – to which I emitted a rather loud shriek which in turn was received with various forms of mocking.

Overall, the experience in Kakum was fun and unique – if not exactly for its wildlife encounters then for its atmosphere.

Walking the canopy just after sunrise

In the morning, we did a walk through the upper tree canopy by walking along hanging bridges that were built from platforms to platforms. It was an early start at 0530, but how often do you get to see the sun rise from a tree canopy in a National Park in Ghana?

Ghana Part II: Slave Castles and Photogenic Elmina Harbor

28 Sunday Jan 2018

Posted by in Africa, Ghana

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

, ,

Elmina had not really been touted as a destination in and of itself by the Dragoman Itinerary or trip description. In fact, almost nothing was mentioned of its stunning harbor that dramatically juxtaposed alongside its famed Slave Castle that I had read about when I was a teenager in high school.

It turned out to be the highlight of the trip so far.

That morning, all that had been organized for the group was a visit to 3 schools that had been built by a charity that Dragoman supports. The visit left me with very mixed feelings – in the first school, the conditions were ideal and the school’s facilities were superior to what I was lucky enough to experience in primary school in the UK. The kids were all clean, healthy, well-dressed with new shoes and new backpacks. When asked what the criteria was for kids to be able to come to this school, we were told that it was purely based on geography and whether parents could bring their kids to school. To me, just looking at the children told me that this wasn’t the case and that this was a group of kids from the elite upper-class persons of Elmina – who obviously deserved a good education – but why was a western supported charity helping kids who came from families that could already afford to support themselves?

The next school was far more moderate and struggled with class sizes of over 70 or 80 kids. It felt like we were diverting the children’s attention from their classwork, and so the visit didn’t sit well with me at all. In addition, these kids were some of the most aggressively “friendly” of any crowds of kids I’ve come across on this continent. When trying to leave, they practically clawed, scratched and grabbed at me to get physical hold of me, along with pulling off my hat and grabbing my hair. I didn’t appreciate that at all.

One highlight of the visit, however, was that this school itself sat on Elmina beach where a local team of fishermen just happened to be pulling in the day’s catch when we were there. It was a spectacle to witness as the men sang songs and clapped in time to create the unity and coordination necessary to pull in the thousands of tiny fish in their nets ashore. I managed to get a good video of the event which I will include here.

https://youtu.be/gFqBfDRylis

Once the visits were over (and they’d gone way overtime) we were hungry for some food and were dropped off downtown to get lunch and take a walk around Elmina.

Once we’d eaten, it became quickly obvious that there was so much here to see and do and the photographic opportunities in Elmina’s gloriously colorful harbor full of life, locals, and fishing boats coming in and out of the harbor demanded that the rest of the day be spent here.

I was also very keen to visit Elmina castle despite the fact that we were visiting the Slave Castle at Cape Coast the next day. Elmina castle is additionally historic because it wasn’t built specifically for the slave trade, but rather as a trading post for other goods’/commodities by the Portuguese in 1482 – 10 years before Columbus supposedly “found” Hispaniola.

I managed to convince Mike and “Precise” Peter (aka Pipi Lou Lou) to come along with me for the $9 tour of the castle and we further planned to make our own way walking all the way back to the beach that housed Stumble Inn and our accommodation for the night.

I could write a book about what visiting Elmina castle was like, but I will attempt to summarize my feelings/thoughts for you here in a more concise manner.   Much like visiting Aushwitz/Birkenau, the Killing Fields of Cambodia, or the Genocide Museum in Kigali – you cannot quite prepare yourself for the horror you feel when you can actually see a place that housed such a shocking testament to the cruelty, sadism and torture of living humans that other humans are capable of inflicting upon another group of people. And doing so without a sense of remorse or conscience. For me, it stirred up a lot of very heavy emotions and made me look at the history of my own nation with a new set of eyes.

Our guide was incredible, thorough and managed to infuse just the right amount of humor when it was needed so as to not detract from the serious nature of our visit. He did a wonderful job of giving us the preliminary world history that set the stage for the slave trade to begin in the first place – namely the decimation of Native Populations in the Americas due to European-introduced diseases, the noteworthy observation of the physical strength and working characteristics of the African people and a backdrop of inter-tribal warfare that set the stage for the creation of the slave trade, which was, in large part started by Africans enslaving other Africans in exchange for weapons to fight.

The Americas needed to build infrastructure and gather resources from their newly acquired lands. The Africans were warring with one another over land and resources in West Africa. The Europeans saw the opportunity for obtaining vast quantities of cheap, and subsequently “free” labor, by rewarding tribal leaders with weapons, and goods in exchange for their “enslaving” their enemy tribal members and bringing them, in chains, to Elmina and other slave castles along the West African coast to be shipped by the thousands to Brazil, South America, the Caribbean and only about 1/3 going to the continental United States.

For almost 400 years – men, women, and children were brought here against their will, separated, thrown in dungeons where a process of elimination would begin and only those “surviving” these harshest of environments would then be subjected to the grueling and inconceivably inhumane Atlantic crossing to their eternal servitude.

We visited both the male and the female dungeons at Elmina where up to a 1000 persons would be crammed, chained to another person at the wrist, feet, or neck for up to 3 months with little to no food, water, or chance to toilet/menstruate or wash. The ventilation was next to nothing with only tiny windows built into the rock, and these people were forced to live like this in almost total darkness.

What really hit me the most is when our guide showed us a section of the “floor” in the male dungeon that had actually been “cleaned/excavated” to show the original brick flooring. It was a good ½ foot lower than the rest of the floor, and he explained that we were literally standing on compressed faeces, urine, and human flesh.

A drainage system had been built into the floor but it was obviously not adequate to eliminate all waste. The stench must have been beyond imagining. In addition, the guide explained that if you wanted to sit or lie down, you would have to get the agreement of whomever you were chained to – and often this person didn’t speak the same language as you and moreover – he might have been from an enemy tribe. Sometimes, your chained partner would die and they would have to wait for a guard to find that person dead before removing him and throwing him into the ocean.

Once a ship was in the harbor ready to set sail for the “New World” – the slaves would be marched through dark tunnels to the “Door of No Return” where they would be stockpiled and chained like sardines end to end until the ship was full, totally unaware of the horrors that awaited them, and still separated from their families.

Our guide explained that it was sometimes during the rush and panic of getting the men and women onto the ships from these passages that families might be reunited for mere moments before being separated again on female or male only decks.

Even more chilling, if you didn’t see or meet up with your loved ones in the tunnels leading to the beach, then you would know that he/she didn’t make it out alive.

The Portuguese were replaced by the Dutch who were then replaced by the British who did the heavy lifting during the slave trade at Elmina. It made me sick to my stomach when after visiting the dungeons we visited the floor directly above the dungeons where the British soldiers had built a church directly over the heads of the persons they were enslaving and torturing. How a person could sing a hymn in praise of Christ with that misery below is beyond my comprehension and it filled me with rage.

If not more upsetting, above the church was the stunning floor that was the Governor’s quarters – palatial and airy with an incredible 365 degree view over Elmina harbor, the beach and the blue ocean – the color of which most of the slaves marched here never even set eyes upon.

The visit left me somber, but as I always feel when visiting important historical sites such as this – it is our duty as human beings on this planet to be informed of our bloody and barbaric history if only in order that it not be repeated. Unfortunately, given what is going on in Libya and in the global sex trade at this moment in time, it appears that slavery has not had its end, making such a site an even bigger duty to visit and ponder.

Once we left the castle – we were literally blown away by further exploration of the bustling life that was to be observed and photographed in the harbor and along the busy main street that marked our path back to the Inn.

Re-caffeinated albeit with slightly warm soft drinks, we three happily walked along smiling and chatting with the locals, high-fiving with the countless little children, and photographing the busy markets overflowing with fish and produce.

As the sun started to glow a little lower on the horizon, we took a daring early turn to the beach hoping against hope that we might be able to take advantage of the beach “wall” that had been created that year to help prevent shore erosion, but that also happened to provide a rather unique way to walk along the beach back to our accommodation.

The bet paid off and I had what turned out to be an incredibly memorable walk back along the beach as the sun turned a golden red and we got back to camp just as it set below the horizon.

I felt especially full and joyous from the day’s learning, and experiences. I would highly recommend Elmina to anyone visiting Ghana – just make sure you have longer than the one day we had!

Ghana Part I: Physical and Personal Journeys

26 Friday Jan 2018

Posted by in Africa, Ghana

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , ,

Tuesday the 9th turned into a super long, hot, and frustrating day of driving with a long sweaty border crossing thrown in for good measure. The guards at the Ghana border were quite funny though and kept telling us that all was good because we could finally stop having to talk in French and speak English again. “This is Ghana! We speak English here!” they kept saying.

We stopped at a market to do cook team shopping and I caught sight of an exact replica of the very first car I drove – a 4-door Silver Renault 5 from the early 80’s. I had a photo standing next to it and for some reason, it made me feel rather nostalgic.

We stopped on the side of the road to make lunch in the middle of the day and quickly were told to move by a local because an armed robbery had taken place in that exact location the day before. It was a little unnerving but I was super impressed with how efficiently the group quickly packed everything away in just a few minutes so that we could find a safer spot to eat.

We arrived at our destination for the next two nights – Elmina’s Stumble Inn – when it was already dark. Most people set up tents on the beach but I was feeling quite tired and stressed out and so I opted to upgrade to my own beach bungalow which came with its own private outdoor bathroom. I include photos of that here because it was truly a unique room to enjoy.

The reason for my stress was quite a personal one but I will share it here as I will surely look back upon it with relief rather than embarrassment. The truth was – my monthly flow was severely overdue and I had finally broken down and bought a pregnancy test. Due to the stress I’d experienced prior to my departure, my last menses was extremely light – and that fact combined with the calculation that I was now 18 days overdue had caused me to become completely paranoid that I might be pregnant. That is not something I would wish upon anyone traveling on an overland truck in West Africa. Denial was proving to be much more than a river in Africa, and I had been putting this off for days now – convincing myself that there was no WAY I could be pregnant with my ex’s baby given the fact that I have an IUD – and ignoring the fact that I had been throwing up in the morning the past few days and feeling more bloated and emotional than possibly any other time in my life.

Thoughts of what it would MEAN if I were pregnant had been haunting my every waking moment for days and it was my friend Jack who convinced me after I’d broken down crying to her in Grand Bassam that it was time to buy a test and just find out for sure.

The test was negative.

On the one hand – it was a huge relief. And on the other – an emotional kick in the gut. If a baby had found a way to form in my body, at 41 years of age, despite the measures I’d taken to prevent it, I’m almost certain I would have had the child. That possibility wiped from my mind, I immediately could stop ruminating on the “what ifs” such a scenario would impose upon my life and all of its repurcussions.

Additionally, it led me to be even more worried about my physical health. I had never before been more than a few days late. I was as regular as a clock. Clearly, I had mentally underestimated the extreme stress and heartache I’d been going through – but my body was not so easily fooled.

In the end, it wasn’t until Accra 4 days later that my period finally arrived. I don’t think I have ever felt so relieved and happy, mentally, hormonally, physically and emotionally.