Cape Coast, Elmina & Kakum National Park

A few weeks back, I had the chance to visit Cape Coast for the weekend. Pretty much anywhere outside of Accra is far more relaxed, with a perceptible change in atmosphere as soon as you reach the city limits. It’s hard to put a finger on what exactly changes, because we’ve definitely been to urban centres outside the capital, but it seems to hold true no matter where we go.

Needless to say, it was a nice change to be outside of Accra for the weekend. So far, in our adventures, Cape Coast seems to be the most developed in terms of typical tourist routes. Elmina is a sort of sister town to Cape Coast, only 15 km further west. We stayed in a wonderful Eco Lodge on the beach, just outside of Elmina.

On Saturday morning we started off on a Canopy walk through the rainforest of Kakum National Park….designed by Vancouver engineers, I might add! Kakum doesn’t contain any of the large animals you might think of when you think of an African park, but it does host a population of monkeys. Unfortunately, we were part of a rather large group on the walk, that included a group of British secondary students – alas, we saw no monkeys in the park.

Luckily for us, on the road between Kakum and Cape Coast, there is a monkey sanctuary owned by a somewhat eccentric Dutch couple. We stopped in to see the various monkeys, snakes, and a few smaller mammals that had been rescued and brought in for rehabilitation.

We stopped for lunch at a restaurant that, for me, bordered on ‘tacky tourist’ status. It’s located on the bank of a river that is home to ….crocodiles! The staff throw bread in the water and the crocodiles appear, quite alarmingly, out of nowhere….I’m not really sure why, maybe they think it’s chicken? In any case, it didn’t seem to be the most ecologically ethical tactic, and perhaps a little fate-tempting…

Back in Cape Coast, our next stop was Cape Coast Castle. Actually, both Cape Coast and Elmina contain castles which played significant, and tragic, roles in the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Cape Coast Castle has been converted into a museum, and we were able to tour the grounds, the slave dungeons, and the colonial quarters.

I’ve never really been exposed to the African perspective on the slave trade. I think our education focused mostly on the history of the slave trade once it was already established in the Americas. Or maybe it was just that I couldn’t comprehend or identify with such a faraway place and people at the time I was taught it in school. Whatever the case, it was a powerful experience to hear and see the terrible story of so many people from a West African point of view. Everyone knows it (or should), but especially belonging to a community here, I find the atrocity of what the colonial powers did during the slave trade truly incomprehensible. It’s not the first time I’ve been surprised at how astonishing and disgusting people can be.

At the end of the day, I think it’s a story that needs to be told and remembered, so I am glad to have had the opportunity to visit the Castle.