DAY 2 Elmina, Kakum National Park, and Cape Coast 1/29/2009

Ghana is noisy at all times. About 2 AM the roosters begin crowing, people sweep sidewalks before 4 AM and 5 AM is a normal time to be out starting the daily tasks.

This morning we woke up at about 7:00 AM. We went downstairs at the hotel and had our free breakfast, which included tea or coffee, eggs (which could be made "spanish style," fried,

or scrambled,) and Orange Juice. Also included were four pieces of assorted breads. We all thought this was a lot of food, especially for a "free" breakfast. We ate as much as we could, showered, dressed, and waited for brother (our taxi driver from the day before) to come get us.

Brother arrived at 8:30 as planned and we started our 50 minute drive to Kakum National Park. Kakum is the home to the first canopy bridge and we wanted to visit, this was also one of the cleanest areas of Ghana as they are trying to protect the forest for the elephant's well-being.

I don't remember exactly how much it cost to take the tour of the forest and walk the canopy bridges, but it was very nominal. We paid our money, received passes that we had to wear around our neck and waited around for the tour to start.

Here, Ellen displays her pass. She had a regular priced pass, Alison and I both received a discount. Me for being a university student, and her for being an educator. Our group consisted of our guide, a guide in training, Fred, and a teacher from a nearby town who was taking the tour so he could see if he should take his class. We got there early (just as it opened) so had a small group, when were were done with the tour, you could see that it was getting very busy.

The walk up the trail to the canopy bridges took about 20 minutes. Along the way, our guide, with the help of Fred, explained some facts about the forest as well as what we could expect on the canopy bridges. Words such as "dangling" and "wobbling" were peppered into the speech about how the bridges were about 300 meters long, and 150 feet (40 meters) high. We were only allowed to have one person on the bridge at

a time due to safety concerns. They also advised us that if it was really busy, like during the weekends, they would allow two people at a time (what about those safety concerns?)

They also explained that a five man team maintained the bridges every morning, making sure the boards were secure and the knots were tight.

On February 24th 2005 their past president came to visit the canopy bridges and Kakum National Park. He was 66 years old and our guide explained that he was really out of shape and this caused him to have a sweaty butt. Very interesting story.

Pictured here is Alison, making her way across one of the bridges. You can see that the foot path is only about 12 inches wide, and the bridge really does wobble as you walk across it. I had a hard time looking down because we were so high, but overall, it was a really fun experience. It took about 30 minutes for our group to make it across the series of bridges. Upon our completion we met our guide at the end (Fred went with us, as our guide didn't want to go). From there we started back down to the visitors center.

Brother waited for us at the visitor center area and took us back to Cape Coast. On the way, we realized that the Ghanian version of Soul Vegetarian was headquartered in Cape Coast. We picked Brother's brain to see if he could help us figure out what it was called and where it was. Brother came through! He dropped us off at Asasapaw Resort, home to the "Soul Vegetarian of Ghana." More on that experience to come. The picture above and left was of some men standing in the back of a pickup truck as we cruised at about 40 MPH down a bumpy road, and to the right is a picture of Me, Ellen, Alison, and Brother after he dropped us off at Asasapaw.

Day 1, Accra and El Mina. 1/28/2009

From the airport, we took a taxi to the hotel that Alison had stayed in the night before. The Joska Lodge in Osu, was very nice. The room had air conditioning (although Alison didn't use it) and a private shower, toilet and sink.

We brushed our teeth and washed our faces, changed into hot weather clothes and checked out of the room so we co

uld spend a little time exploring before we made our way to Elmina.

(Above is a picture of the outside of the Joska Lodge)

We left our baggage at the front desk where they kept it safe and sound until our return.

The first thing we did after we departed the hotel was find a bank to change money. We brought about $300 USD a piece and needed some GhanianCedi's. This is where we learned some valuable lessons about Ghana, for example:

Lines/cues mean nothing. There may be a line, but people completely ignore it. We waited about 20 minutes in a "line" only to be told that they don't change money there. This made the sign reading: "exchange money here," very deceptive.

We went to a couple more places and finally found a nice spot. Alison spotted this place that was up wooden stairs, around a corner, and through an unmarked door. It became necessary to change our money in Ghana after repeated attempts to change money in the US failed. Each place we went to advised us that they don't carry Ghanian Cedi's.

One quick thing about getting Ghanian money. Try to get small bills (one Cedi bills and Peswas). It is nearly impossible to find anyone with change for more than one C

edi, and when buying food off the streets, they often don't have change at all.

We then headed over to Frankie's for some lunch. Frankies is a very overpriced place for white people to hang out, although there were some Ghanians there watching the Black Stars whoop up on South Africa. I got a side salad and a bottled water for an astonishing 7.50 GCD. That's about $7 USD. Yikes!

From Frankie's we headed back to the Joska Lodge to pick up our bags, then we took a taxi for 6 GCD to the STC station.

The STC is their bus system. These busses are similar to a Greyhound bus, minus the restroom.

Our bus was running one hour early (time means relatively nothing in Ghana) and we boarded for our trip to Cape Coast. The three hour bus ride cost us 3.50 GCD each.

There was this entire crazy routine for checking our bags under the bus, you are charged by weight, all of our bags were completely different weights, but we were all charged 20 Peswas (about .20 USD). I also had to use the restroom at the STC station and that cost me another 20 Peswas, this price did not include toilet paper, but I was prepared. The toilet was western style, but without a seat.

Upon our arrival to Cape Coast, we found a taxi driver, named Brother, who drove us to Elmina for 6 GCD (way too much money!).

Even though our ride was completely overpriced, Alison retrieved our driver's cell number so that we could contact him for a ride the next day.

Brother dropped us off at our hotel, the Bridge House. There was a little confusion upon check-in. We thought the rate was 30 GCD/night. This was not the case, it was actually

84 GCD/night. It turned out to be totally worth the money. This place was three stories. We were on the third floor in a "triple," a room for three people. Our room had working A/C, tons of hot water, and a television (that didn't work). We overlooked the Elmina castle (used for slave trading, but now a museum of sorts) and a canal that the fisherpeople used to park their boats for the evening. We tool lots of pictures from the hotel, grabbed some bread for dinner and went to bed around 9PM. We had a busy first day!

Flight to Accra and our first hour in Ghana

Our flight to Accra, Ghana took us from Atlanta to JFK in New York where we had a five hour layover before we headed to Accra. We left Atlanta at about 9:00 AM and departed JFK at 5:00 PM. We arrived in Accra at 8:00 AM on Wednesday, 1/28/2009.

The flight from JFK to Accra was very bumpy for the first hour or so. I so badly wanted the flight attendants to serve us our dinner so we could get some sleep, but the service was delayed while we were going through turbulent air. Dinner was served around 8:30 PM. We ate our food, then I moved to an empty row of three seats and snoozed until we were served breakfast. The landing was uneventful, the airport was very uncrowded and it was really dusty. We deplaned via a rolling staircase and felt, for the first time, the heat that we would endure for the next week. We walked to the building where it was air-conditioned and we proceeded, without incident, through customs.

After customs, we made our way to baggage claim where we picked up a piece of luggage which was full of gifts for Alison. The baggage claim area was very close to the waiting area. As we made our way outside, Ellen spotted Alison. We said our greetings and exchanged hugs and Alison led us to the taxi's where she fought with a man about the amount of tip she gave him.

Then we made our way to Osu where Alison had stayed the night before.