CIA adventure in Cape Coast

After a drive of 2 hours we finally reached the bus station where we would take the bus to Cape Coast. The bus station was so crowded! 1 m^2 consisted of 4 people…! Many people were selling stuff others were yelling through a microphone (sermon). We did not know which bus to take and asked many people, eventually we got the correct bus. It was an old bus, without air conditioning.

Even on the bus the selling continued..people were selling chocolate and other foods. They left before we took off. However, a man who was doing a sermon stayed on the bus. He was standing in the front of the bus and was talking continuously for the upcoming 45 minutes (!) without stopping. After this amount of time the bus stopped somewhere and the man left the bus. At every short bus stop or speed bump sellers were standing there to sell their stuff, for example water and bread. While driving a man bought water but the woman wasn't able to receive the change because the car drove away too fast and then the man on the bus throw the change out of the bus. The women couldn't catch it because another car was coming after our bus . So she waited until the way was free to search for her money (25 cedi cent).

Kakum National Park
A trip to Cape Coast means a visit to the Kakum National Park! It is an unique park as it is one of only 3 locations in Africa with a canopy walkway! this walkway is 350 metres long and connects seven tree tops which provides access to the forest. We walked all the bridges. It was an amazing experience.

Visit to the Elmina Castle in Cape Coast
We visited the Elmina Castle and we had a very interesting tour. The Elmina castle, the oldest European building in existence in the south of the Sahara, is a castle with an interesting and heartbreaking history. In the seventeenth century slaves were held captive before they would leave Ghana through the ‘Door of No Return’. Through this door slaves were transported and resold in Brazil and other Portuguese colonies. In the Elmina castle we have seen where the slaves were kept for months: where they slept, where they were punished for not listening to their masters, where the masters lived and how the slaves had to walk to the Door of No Return. It was a very interesting tour which was long enough to be able to understand everything of the history of the Elmina castle.

At the end of the tour the tour guide opened the Door to No Return and we saw the locals fishing pleasantly. We were surprised to see this serene sight while we had just heard the horrific history of the castle. The tour guide ended on the note of: ‘This is the Door of No Return, but now after years we can also see it as the Door to Return. Slavery is still happening and we have to make sure that history will not repeat. Slavery has to come to an end.’ With this insightful last remark our tour came to an end.  

Adventure in a taxi
On the way back to the hotel we passed by police officers who stopped us. Strange was that they were flirting with us! We wanted to pass by the stop, but they would not let us. They were asking for our phone numbers. Even the taxi driver could not do anything about it.

Our stuff is stolen!
Our nice trip to Cape Coast ended up in a disaster. In the middle of the night two thieves came into our room and stole our phones and Sara’s laptop. We woke up very early in the morning and Rachidatou asked Sara what time it was. However, Sara couldn’t find her phone and that’s when we found out our stuff was stolen. We immediately went to the police station with the manager of the hotel, but that took a long time! When we arrived at the police station it was very unclear who would help us, we were send to different officers that day.

Eventually a police officer came to the hotel with us to do an investigation. After the (short) investigation we had to travel back to the police station. Sara was very frustrated with the whole situation and decided she didn’t want to come along. When we were driving to the police station a taxi approached us and stopped. It was Sara! she took a taxi to come look for us. Sara then jumped in the car with us and we all drove to the police station.

At the end of the day (more than 12 hours later!) a high police officer decided that the hotel had to pay us back, but the hotel had not sufficient funds to pay us. We asked the officer for a lettre which would be proof for the Dutch insurance that our stuff was stolen. However, the high police officer refused. We then agreed with the hotel manager and owner of the hotel that they would write an official letter for us in which they would state that our stuff was stolen in their hotel and that we went to the police station for a declaration.

To be able to take pictures and stay in touch we bought new phones. Funny thing was we got a huge satellite dish as a present from the shop! It was a christmass gift they said.