Adventures in Africa

23 April 2007 - 17:51

Arriving late into Cape Coast, we initially thought we were going to have the same problem with hotel rooms as we did in Kumasi – the first “budget” place we checked only had a $30 room available (we’d been paying about $6-8 for doubles everywhere else). But the second hotel we went to had much cheaper options, and we decided to splurge and get a hotel room with air conditioning for $15, to help wash away our memories of hot and dirty Kumasi.

cannons at Cape Coast Castle

For our first full day in Cape Coast, we hit the main attraction in town – the Cape Coast Castle. Cape Coast was first set up as an outpost by the Swedes several centuries ago. The Portuguese and British took over soon after, taking turns capturing, adding on to the structure, losing control, and then recapturing it throughout the 17th, 18th, and 19th Centuries.

castle window, looking out on the beach CANNONBALL!!!

The simple Swedish outpost eventually became a massive castle and a central collection point for slaves captured in the area, who were then shipped westward for the entire duration of the slave trading era. The castle included a well-designed and informative museum (organized by the Smithsonian, interestingly enough) on the history of the castle and of the slave trade, and offered stunning views of the surrounding beaches.

The "Door of No Return" where slaves were loaded onto ships. Entrance to the slave cells.

Looking out of a cannon hoel. Fishing boats sailing in.

That day was sunny and hot, and after our castle tour, Cailin and I found a local thirst-quencher – the coconut man. Coconut men push a cart or wheelbarrow full of fresh coconuts around town, setting up in one location for a while before moving on. They whittle the tops of the coconuts down to a point, ready for consumption. For 30 cents, the coconut man will chop the pointed end of the coconut off for you so you can drink the milk inside. After you finish the milk, he chops the coconut into thirds and hands you a chip of the husk to use as a spoon to scoop out the soft meat inside. Even though I hate dried coconut and coconut flavoring, I loved the taste of the fresh coconuts, which were quite refreshing on such a hot day.

Coconut man

We spent the rest of the afternoon at a restaurant overlooking the beach next to the castle, then called one of the tourist-volunteers that had traveled with us to Mole to see if we could stay at the tourist-volunteer house in El Mina, about 15 minutes away from Cape Coast.

beach

Which brings me to my short aside on tourist-volunteerism… Tourist-volunteers are people who sign up for “volunteer” programs in beautiful developing countries, paying a couple thousand bucks to come “volunteer” for four weeks to a few months. These “volunteers” don’t learn a local language, know almost nothing about the local culture, have very few transferable skills, lack even a basic understanding of development work, stay for such a short amount of time that they make almost no decipherable difference, spend most of their time goofing off and traveling around the country, spend very little time with any host-country nationals, are really full of themselves for making such a “self-less” sacrifice, oftentimes fundraising the money for them to make this trip from charitable-minded people, then return home with stories of how touching their tourist vacation was, without a clue that they don’t have any real idea about the country they just spent time in, and they have the gall to call themselves volunteers instead of being honest with themselves and admitting that they are merely tourists (and there’s nothing wrong with being a tourist, as long as you don’t kid yourself that you’re anything more than a tourist). And that’s why I don’t like them. Fortunately, Mauritania is too tough for there to be many of these pretenders, and I don't have to deal with them very often (except on vacation, I guess). End of rant.

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