Cape Coast, Kakum National Park

For our first CIEE-sponsored trip within Ghana, we went to Cape Coast on Feb 19. It is a small fishing city about 3 hours west of Accra. Right when we got there we checked into the hotel and had lunch, then head off to the slave castles. Half of us went to Elmina Castle, and the other half went to Cape Coast castle. I went to Elmina, which is the oldest European building in existence in all of Sub-Saharan Africa. The architecture was very beautiful and it is located right on the water with amazing views of the ocean and the lagoon where the fishermen keep their boats. We went on a tour through the castle, and felt the intense realness of the Atlantic Slave Trade as we walked dungeon to dungeon and learned about how the slaves were treated. After touring the castles, we went back to the hotel and had a reflection discussion and "difficult dialogue" about our reaction to the castles and what we learned. We talked about how sad it is that this happened in our history, but that we have to accept that it happened and all that we can do now is make sure nothing like this happens again. Yet some one brought up that there are still terrible human rights violations going on all over the world that people don't even know about. Visiting these castles and our discussions afterward was definitely a sobering experience.

After dinner I hung out in the hotel with my friends Kelsey and Virginia and had some good girl talk and began planning when we're going to take our own independent trips around Ghana!

On Sunday we put on our hiking gear and boarded the buses again to go to Kakum National Park. There we did the canopy walk, which is a series of wooden bridges held up with rope over 40 meters (130 ft) off the ground in some parts. We were walking above the rain forest! I couldn't look down or else vertigo would get me and I would freeze, I'm not really afraid of heights and this was very very stable, but it was definitely a little scary! The views were amazing and I took tons of pictures. I also felt very accomplished making it over these bridges without freaking out too much. After hiking a bit to get out of the rain forest, we went for a delicious lunch at the Hans Cottage Botel which is a restaurant built on stilts over water of a crocodile sanctuary. Some people got to touch the crocs, I wasn't too interested.

A group of 8 of us decided we wanted to stay at Kakum to take in more of its beauty and stray away from the group. We paid 30 cedis each to stay in a tree house in the middle of the rainforest. We were told we wouldn't be given food or water so we scraped together some snacks of cookies and crackers, peanuts and rice to sustain us. Our park guide was supposed to meet us at 4 oclock, but he didn't show up until 6:30. We were getting pretty fed up and were going to ask for our money back if he didn't show up before dark. Finally Sampson and Robert, our guides, arrived. We got out our flashlights and hiked abut 45 minutes into the forest in the dark, through vines and steep hills until we got to the tree fort. It was about 100 feet up this giant tree and it already had bedding with mattresses, sheets, and mosquito nets. It was completely open and we really were sleeping outside in the rain forest. We loaded on the deet and chatted, drinking a bit of palm wine and playing an African drum. We went down and Robert showed us some of the awesome species that were around. We saw a millipede which was disgusting, a giant moth, a giant snail, and a few other weird bugs. Luckily there was an out house with a toilet, and we had remembered to bring toilet paper.
When it was time to go to bed, we were amazed at all of the sounds. Even though we didnt SEE that many cool animals while we were there, we heard some amazing things. The crickets and other millions of insects chirped and were a constant while we could hear monkeys and tree hyraxes (giant rodents that live in the trees and scream like theyre being tortured) in the distance. I felt like I was hearing a symphony, I laid awake listening to it for hours just smiling and was completely blown away by what I was hearing and experiencing. Finally I fell asleep and we woke up at 5am to do a morning nature hike. We didn't see much, but it was cool to walk through the forest while the sun came up.
It was Monday morning and we wanted to make it back for our afternoon classes so we head on our way, with Robert's help we caught a bus going to Cape Coast from a nearby village. Figuring out transportation back to Accra went much smoother than we were anticipating, and we made it back at 1:30 in time for classes. In the final leg of our trip, we caught a tro-tro from the main station in Accra back to campus. We were stuck in traffic and one man at the front of the car must have seen this as a good opportunity to spread the word of God to the 8 "oburuni's" sitting in the back. (I don't think I've explained the term Oburuni yet. It is just a labeling term for any foreigner. It isn't derogatory or anything, and it's mostly just the little children that yell OBURUNI OBURUNI and smile and wait for us to wave. I've actually come to enjoy being called it). Anyways, so this man preached to us for at least 25 minutes while we were exhausted, hungry, and dirty after sleeping outside and stuck in traffic sweating in this trotro. It made for an interesting final leg of the trek back home.

Taking this trip really made me want to travel so much more. This coming weekend I think a few of us are going to go to the Volta region to do some hiking and see the waterfalls. I'm really excited because I've started to get a little antsy being on campus all the time.
I wish you all could have experienced this weekend with me, it was absolutely breathtaking and indescribably wonderful. Be sure to check out the photo links above to see pictures in the "central region" album.

This past Saturday we did community service as a group with all 60 of us. It was fun, we were at a rehab center/village for special needs people, and kids from an orphanage were there too. It made me sure that I want to adopt a child, along with having my own. We helped repaint their facilities and cleaned up a lot, then played games and danced! My roommate went home for the weekend so last night I'm actually cooked for myself! I made ramen noodles, and i bought cabbage, onion, a pepper, and carrot to stir fry and mix in with the noodles. It wasn't much, but it feels pretty exciting for me to be able to cook for myself since that's something I really miss about home. It was also nice because it was something I knew was 100% Vegetarian and I was in control of how my ingredients were prepared. Hopefully I'll be motivated enough to cook for myself some more, at least once or twice a week or more.