Coasting the Cape.

Ok so this past weekend I took a trip to Cape Coast

I started out leaving wayy too late and being squished into a trotro next to a fat lady. Great way to begin a journey. Two hours in I was covered in sweat and we stopped for what was called a Urination Break. A woman stepped out of the car, and literally squatted and pissed on the street. No one blinked. The last two and a half hours of the journey were bumpy, because the roads were dirt, but whatever, I managed.

I arrived in Cape Coast and instantly noticed more white people, because it is a major tourist area. People were also even more aggressive to get the attention of four white girls (actually one was mixed, but she may as well be white here). The four of us dined at Oasis hotel, which was overpriced but clean and right on the beach. I enjoyed my new favorite Ghanian drink, Gordon's Spark and tried to ignore the adorable stray puppies I couldn't touch, and the Ghanian children on the beach asking me to buy them things. After a short break we all had to journey to Kakum National Park. Kakum is a rainforest and we had heard that camping there is a fantastic experience. We hopped into a cab, and learned the drivers name was Cornelius. I tried for the first 20 minutes of the ride to get Cornelius to play "give Me Blow" but apparently I don't speak Ghanian enough and nothing was getting through. It was dark when we arrived at Kakum and there was one man awake in the park at the time. He came to the taxi and we tried to get him to tell us where the tree platforms where, but he was not getting it.
"We have a nice place for you, we have just mowed the grass and there is a mosquito net"
" No, we want to camp in the platforms"
" There is a net it is nice"
Then Leslie and Erika get out to look for a key and me and Tracey are left with Cornelius, whom we refused to let leave because the other one there understood nothing. All I could do was offer him cookies, or biscuits as the call them here
Outside I heard Leslie screaming, "where is reception?"
"It is here"
"No, this is a rock!"

Finally the man said, "we must go to the man with the key"
So Cornelius drove us into this village and we were led into this sketchy backstreet and into someones house. The man rang the door bell and out came the Key Man, without pants. "are you the man with the key?" We said
"yes" he said, in perfect english. Salvation!

He led us back to Kakum and told us the platforms were closed, but took us to these really cool beds in the rain forest with a wonderful, impenetrable, mosquito net. After quick rinse-and-spit, we fell asleep to the noise of hundreds of bugs, monkeys, and God knows what else.

The next morning we awoke at 5:30, absolutely filthy, and met the tour guide for the canopy walk. I have to admit it was really beautiful, but not nearly as scary as I though it would be. Tracey was bugging out, and then she told me she had skydived, and I was like "how can you be scared of this then?" and she said, "well, there is no parachute."

Our next stop was the Dagoma rock shrine, so we trotroed to a nearby village to hop a taxi to the shrine. The only taxi was this truck that was falling in half and the seats were not properly screwed on to the bottom. We took a 20 minute ride through a village full of mud huts, or what I like to call "a tour of extreme poverty." The rock shrine was closed or not functioning or something so we rode back.

After a few more buses and trains and planes and whatnot, we ended up at the Elmina slave castle and took a formal tour. This was really very cool. They showed us the slave dungeons and where they took slaves to die. It is so creepy that a person could ever be sold like livestock, but it was done, and not really all that long ago. We all took lunch, and then shopped a bit in town. At night we went back to Oasis and watched traditional African drumming, which is one of the coolest things I have ever seen. Wow.

Sunday was only funny because a friend of mine discovered, suprisingly, that it was her time of the month. The two of us wandered the village looking for Tampax, which they do not sell in Cape Coast. Finally, I said "why don't you ask a white woman?"
Good move. She asked and that woman saved here life, and taught us all to always, always be prepared. I arrived home, showered and discovered that what I thought was a tan, was only dirt.
Oh well.

I decided to take the day to visit Ntonso, the Adinkra village. Adinkra is the Ashanti funeral clothing which is just gorgeous. It is this black and red dyed cloth with symbols stamped on that mean different things. I am hoping I can buy some and find a dressmaker that will make something other than a toga out of it, but I guess we will see.

Much love.
Cydney