Ghana is 50? No way!

So once you get over the smell of open drains and burning rubbish, the sight of people spitting and urinating everywhere, and the sound of people hissing at you to get your attention, you’ll find that Ghana is a great place to be! First I wanted to say, girls, if you are after a bit of eye-candy, come to Ghana! The men here seem to be sculpted perfectly, and it helps their bodies that everyone does manual labour here : )

I went on a weekend trip to Cape Coast, the small beach-side village that was once the port for slave-trading. Slaves from all over Ghana and some parts of Burkina Faso were transported to the castle that I visited. Once they were there, they were inspected by the officials to determine where they would go and what they would be doing – construction in the UK, working tobacco or sugar cane plantations in Central America, etc. If they were lucky/unlucky (depending how you look at it), there would be a ship ready at the port that would take them to their new land straight away. If not, they were shoved into the dungeons with the hundreds of other slaves to wait for a ship, maybe for a week, maybe 2 months. During this time, they were given food and water, but weren’t given the facilities to bathe or go to the toilet. They did their business in a small bucket in the corner of the packed dungeon, to be cleaned the next day. If the bucket was full, then anywhere in the dungeon would have to do. Noone bathed in the entire time they were held there, so you can imagine the spread of disease, and the number of deaths. People that died were just thrown into the ocean… I can never believe that our world has such a terrible history. Thankfully we’ve grown and adapted to become more mature and humane in the way we treat other humans and our Earth. Hang on a second………..

While I was out there, I also visited Kakum National Park. The place is pretty amazing. They have a 350m long canopy walkway that’s strung between the trees 30m above the ground. I thought I’d be petrified but it was just a lot of fun! It’s only wide enough for your feet to stand side-by-side, and people walk across one-by-one to avoid too much swaying and swinging. The guide also assured us that the walkway could hold the weight of 2 elephants, but I’m not so sure about that. Every now and then I would step too far to the right or left and it felt like the whole thing would flip over! I met 3 guys from The Netherlands who were hilarious. They looked after me for the day and protected me from the loud group of 40 or so Americans who were on the guided tour with us. :p

I took a trotro to a tiny fishing village called Elmina, which was beautiful. Lonely Planet guidebooks seem to get their descriptions perfectly right every time! Some Australians must have been there before, because when people found out I was Australian they all said ‘G’day mate!’ It was so funny hearing all these Ghanaians saying it, and they were saying it wrong, and they didn’t know what it meant, which made it all the more hilarious! By the time I got there I was so tired after walking through Kakum for a few hours so I didn’t visit any of the sites.

While I was in the Cape Coast area, I ate a the Castle Beach Restaurant 3 times because it was so incredibly good! The place overlooks the ocean and it’s all open so there’s a fantastic breeze. They serve amazing food – banana smoothies, banana pancakes, fried chicken with rice, ‘Chicken in hawii’ which was a wrongly spelled dish sort of like a chicken stirfry with pineapple in it and rice. One sort of worrying thing was that there was a litter of kittens running around your feet! They were incredibly adorable, but I’m sure totally unhygienic.

March 6 was Ghana’s 50th Independence Day. It was THE day I have been hearing about for weeks - on the radio, on the TV, on the streets. I had such a big Ghanaian day – watching the official ceremony on TV in the morning, eating banku, hanging out with the family all day, then heading to Oxford Street in Osu with Nadia for the crazy street party! There were so many people there. They’d blocked off the street with a big stage, and the DJs were playing hiplife and hip hop all night. They did play My Love by Jussy T so I was happy. Ghanaians sure can dance! Tiko was chilling out at his friend’s place which was right near the street party, so Nadia and I kept going there throughout the night. They kept giving us food, chocolates, vodka, Malibu and peach schnapps, so we had a pretty good night overall!

Some other things I have to tell you…

The goods that guys sell are even more funny than what the women sell! Guys carry around camera cases, lamps, phone chargers, Ghanaian flags, belts, toilet paper… Why would you just happen to need a lamp while you’re driving? This morning though I saw a woman selling bottles of hydrogen peroxide!! What the..?

The way that you get anyone’s attention is by hissing at them. You can’t imagine how rude it feels hissing at a waiter to get them to serve you, but everyone does it!
Imagine this: you’re walking along the road, minding your own business when you hear ‘hello..hello..how are you?...please, what’s your name?’ You look around and there’s some random guy following you. This happens about a million times each day. If you actually stop and talk to them and ask what they want it’s usually just to talk/get your number so they can call you when they get to Australia. Every day I get a variety of ‘ssssssss’, ‘obroni! Come come!’, and ‘hello…hello…’ I’ve figured out that the word for ‘black man’ is obibini so from now on anyone that says ‘obroni!’ is gonna get ‘obibini!’ right back at them! Ha! Take that!

1. The view from the castle in Cape Coast
2. Outside the 'door of no return' was this crazy colourful fishing scene
3. The cool little hut I stayed in
4. Hanging on for dear life
5. Looking awesome
6. Drinkin coconut milk. From a coconut. In Ghana.
7. Elmina and its cool boats
8. A sunglasses seller. They'll just stand there hissing at you until you physically say 'no' or shake your head. Ignoring them just won't do