Today we drove about three hours from Kumasi to Cape Coast. The first half of the day we went to Kakum National Park, a beautiful, lush section of rain forest near Ghana’s southern coast. The park is famous for its "Canopy Walk," a series of rickety rope bridges strung over 100 ft above the rain forest floor! Humorously, we bumped into a group of U of M students from a GIEU trip at the start of our tour. Small world. The rope bridges were extremely wobbly, making the experience pretty intense. But the view was absolutely amazing from above the tree tops. In every direction there is dense, green vegetation for as far as you could see. It was breathtakingly beautiful.
After the national park, we drove for a bit to go see the Elmina Castle, one of Ghana’s many slave castles still standing from the West African slave trade times. This particular one is the oldest European building in Sub-Saharan Africa, having been built in 1482. We went on a guided tour through the castle, which was extremely interesting. Nearly all of the original structure is still standing, so we were walking through the real cells and dungeons that slaves were kept in. This structure, like many others of its kind, was initially used for trading spices, gold, and other valuables long before the slave trade took off. Even while standing in a dungeon of the castle, it’s hard to imagine that humans were actually traded just like any other commodity at that time. It’s an incredibly sad but very real part of Ghanaian history, and I’m very happy we went.
Now we’re back in Kumasi for another few nights before we head to Tamale.
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