Ghana

Ghana was a bit overwhelming. I’m still not entirely sure what I thought of it. I don’t think I would go back if I had the chance but I’m glad I went. There was a group of 4 of us that were traveling together. It was me, Nancy, Alyssa, and my roommate Rachel. Rachel and Nancy had Semester at Sea trips planned the first day in Cape Coast so Alyssa and I planned to meet them at the hotel. Alyssa and I ate lunch on the ship and then headed out to go to Cape Coast. Cape Coast is about an hour and a half away from Takoradi. The moment we stepped off the ship we were approached by two Ghanaian men. They were very friendly and they walked with us to the front of the port. They asked us what we were doing here and about Semester at Sea. Apparently the guy talking to Alyssa asked her if she would marry him. This happened a lot to many of the girls on the ship. Anyway, as we were leaving, they asked for my phone number and I told him I didn’t have a phone. I actually didn’t have a phone with me at the time. He was very persistent and I ended up giving him my email address. So many people asked us for our phone numbers while we were in Ghana. I never gave it out. I think they were just excited to meet Americans but it got kind of annoying. Once we got to the gate we were bombarded with people. There were taxi drivers everywhere and people kept coming up to us and trying to talk to us and I was just overwhelmed. We ended up getting in a taxi and he took us to an ATM and then we asked to go to the bus station. Instead he took us to the tro tro station. A tro tro is basically a van that they squish a lot of people in. We made it to Cape Coast an hour and a half later and took a taxi to our hotel. The taxi driver saw us in the tro tro and literally ran after the tro tro cause he thought we were stopping soon. He saw that we were white and in Ghana they associate white people with money. We made it to the hotel and Nancy had already checked in and she was waiting by the pool. The hotel was pretty nice. There was a small lake that had crocodiles in it and a restaurant built on top of the water. Our rooms were better than I was expecting. We had a toilet, toilet paper, soap, a sink and a mirror in the bathroom so I was very happy! My standards have changed a little. In Morocco, our bathroom at the hostel didn’t have a sink, mirror or toilet paper. At our pre port meeting we had a little briefing on how to use a hole in the ground toilet. I was dreading using one so I drank as little as possible and fortunately I haven’t had to use one yet. I’m hoping I never have to. Anyway, Rachel met up with us a little while later and we ended up staying at the hotel that night and ate at the restaurant there.
The next morning we got up, ate breakfast, and went to Kakum National Park. The park has 1 of 5 canopy walkways in the world and this one is the biggest and highest. It was absolutely beautiful! We couldn’t see to the ground because the trees were covering it so it was hard to actually tell how high we were. When we finished the canopy walkway we went to the markets in Cape Coast and we searched for an ATM. The markets were not what I was expecting. They were not touristy at all. The markets were where locals bought their food and did their shopping. There was really nothing even remotely interesting to buy so we kind of just walked around. It started raining and even though it kind of felt nice, the whole group didn’t agree. Unfortunately, we ended up going back to the hotel at 1pm and staying there for the rest of the day. I felt like we wasted a day in Ghana but it wasn’t worth fighting about. We ate lunch at the hotel and that took a good 2-3 hours. I have never had worse service in my life at a restaurant but I guess that’s Africa. The food was fine but it was just super slow.
We woke up early the next morning to attempt to explore Cape Coast a little bit before going back to Takoradi. I wanted to get some pictures of the slave dungeons. I didn’t really care if we went in but I just wanted some pictures. We got there and again there was tension in the group so I suggested we walk down to the beach for some pictures. I got a couple of the Cape Coast castle and then we briefly walked through the markets before leaving. We left to go back to Takoradi at 10:15 am. I would have liked to stay in Cape Coast a little longer and explore but since others didn’t feel that way we went back.