Kakum & Elmina

June 1, 2015

We kind of had a early start to head to the Cape Coast area. We were didn’t quite leave as early as we would have liked, but once we hit the road, it was actually pretty smooth sailing. We didn’t even get stuck in the traffic between Accra and Winneba. We did, however, get stopped by a police barricade outside Cape Coast. They were trying to look for something wrong with the van, and when they couldn’t find anything, argued with Dela for 10 minutes to get a bribe. Dela stood his ground though and we were able to keep going without paying anything.

The road to the rainforest was quite bumpy, so while the first 200km took 2 1/2 hours, but the last 20km took 30 minutes. Luckily the place was pretty empty, so we didn’t have much of a wait and everyone enjoyed both the canopy walk and teasing Dela about his fear of heights.

After the rainforest, it was already mid-afternoon. Unfortunately the castle would close before we got there if we headed to lunch, so we went to the castle first with all of us very hungry. The castle was good again, similar stories, but they let us all take photos this time, so that was cool.

We also avoided the haggling pretty well outside the castle, so much so, they didn’t really try after the we were done. We then headed to Coconut Grove for dinner. A few of us got seafood dishes, which were fantastic. It took awhile for the food to come, but the ocean helped pass the time. We hung around a bit after eating, enjoying the ocean air in the moonlight, watching lightning off in the distance. It was some of the most relaxing times of the trip so far.

We had the three hour drive back in the dark, but it didn’t seem to take that long, overall a pretty decent day.