An Adventure or Two in Cape Coast, Ghana

                                                                          

An Adventure or Two in Cape Coast, Ghana

We took a two-day side trip to the Cape Coast area, about 150 km west along the coast from Kokrobite. We traveled by tro-tro, a mini-van of sorts that seats 11-14 people. Cost for each passenger was about 7 cedi, or $3.50.

Tro-Tro Station

Yes, it get's this crowded before the tro-tro will leave.

Once we found a tro-tro that was headed to Cape Coast, we had to wait about 30 minutes for it to fill up. Donn ended up being the "scary white man" on the tro-tro; a 3 year-old girl and her mother sat next to Donn and the little girl wouldn't stop crying until Mom diverted her attention by buying a lollipop from one of the many vendors surrounding the tro-tros in the station.

We set off only to disembark from the van about 30 minutes later because the tro-tro broke down; smoke was coming out of the engine compartment and into the van. So after another 30 minute wait, another tro-tro picked us up (but not until the drivers haggled over the payment for the new driver) and we were on our way again.

One trade-off that comes with traveling inexpensively by tro-tro is the dropping off and picking up of passengers along the way. This was mostly done in the larger villages, but it did add to our travel time. We made it to the tro-tro station in Cape Coast about 3 1/2 hours after we left the first station.

 After finding our bearings, we did some exploring. The first thing was to EAT. So we headed off to Baobab, a vegan restaurant that is a part of a bigger organization to provide training for young women.

http://www.baobab-children-foundation.de/laden_en.html 

View east from Baobab

Donn's finishing off my fresh pineapple/coconut smoothy.

This little goat was the last of an unmanned flock (?) that walked up and down the street while we were eating lunch.

We continued our exploration of Cape Coast, mostly to find our accommodations for the night, Mighty Victory Hotel, so we could drop off our stuff and then explore some more. We eventually got lost, thanks to the lack of marked streets and the incorrect map scale in our travel book. We did get to experience and see some sights we otherwise wouldn't have had we taken a taxi around the town, but boy, did we get sweaty!

View of Cape Coast from the Catholic cathedral

Fort Victoria (L), one of the look-outs for the Cape Coast Castle, and the Catholic cathedral, from our hotel

Might Victory Hotel turned out to be a very basic place to stay. For 40 cedi ($20) we had a queen bed with crisp, white sheets and our own bathroom with a shower (hot water!), but no air conditioning or mosquito net. Well, it was a place to stay.







By then, we had an excellent idea of the town's layout, so off to the coast we went to hang out at Oasis, a beach-side restaurant. We were hoping to see and hear some local, authentic, cultural-type entertainment later on in the evening. But while we waited we were treated to some other things.

The man on the right was giving acrobatics lessons to the two boys. They were working on a routine we thought might be happening later at Oasis. Surfing at Cape Coast is apparently a draw as well. Oh, there's also the constant fishing boat out there as well.

Pigs on the beach!

These young vendors were persistent, trying to sell dried plantain and peeled oranges. Donn eventually had a great conversation with them about going to and staying in school.

Another beautiful sunset!

After a few drinks and some stone oven-cooked pizza (not as good as brother Joel's), we were disappointed to learn that the cultural show wasn't going to happen. Instead of walking back to the hotel (by then it was quite dark and not safe to venture out on the side streets), we hired a taxi to take us back. Danso, our driver, was willing to take us around the area (Kakum National Park and Elmina) the next day. We had our doubts after stepping into his car to take us back to the hotel. He had no key to start his car, instead he hot-wired it! Hmmm, what would the next day bring?!