Elmina Visit

Hi there. I thought I would ease up on the heavy stuff, and tell you about my weekend! A group of 8 people from the ship, did an over nights excursion to Elmina and Cape Coast. It was four hours drive from the Port of Tema, and well worth it! We stayed in a little hotel in Elmina, with the most amazing view out of the window of the river and the famed Elmina castle. It was a wonderful place full of colour, smells and noise. It is a major fishing village, and the locals glide in and out of the river in their brightly coloured fishing boats (which are pretty similar to Waka's) with their catch!

The castle is situated at the head of the river, and its construction was started in the 1400's. Originally it was owbed by the Portuguese, who used it as a trading post for gold, spices and unfortunatlely slaves. The castle was then taken over by the Dutch, who held it for a couple of hundred years until the British took it over, and how it is most definately Ghanain!




It was a very humbling and moving experience visiting the castle, as its major role was that of trading slaves. It was most comparable to my visit to the Nazi Concentration Camp at Dachau, and it was hard to imagine all the atrocities that went on there within those walls. The most awful part was a cell where misbehaving slaves were thrown to die - they would put up to 30 people in these cells, and not dispose of the dead bodies until all the men had passed away. There are horrible stories of rape and torture, which all of us found difficult to stomach.

At the end of the tour, we all read aloud from a plaque on the wall of the castle that read 'NEVER AGAIN'. That's for sure.

We spent some time at the beach swimming in the ocean and were even lucky enough to witness a beach side Ghanain wedding celebration! But were back being tourists the next day at the Kakum National Park, where I saw a real wild monkey! We did the canopy walk there, cantilevered above a beautiful forest. We saw lots of beautiful buterflies, which made coping with the height of the swing bridges a bit easier.




It was nice to get away from the ship, and see some of what Ghana has to offer. I was back at work today, getting ready for our plastic surgery run to begin, now that our Plastic Surgeon has arrived. I am very excited as this is my kind of work. Will keep you posted, until next time, Soph.

I was not able to upload photos today - my server is being difficult - so as soon as I can I will post them!