Our little Ghana Getaway

Well, this past weekend, I had the opportunity to go to the next country over: Ghana (aka 'The Promise Land' as some of my friends like to call it). Our trip to Ghana was both ordinary and monumental at the same time for me. Ghana is not far from Togo, but it was only the third African country I've been to, so I was really excited to experience a new place!

It was an extra special trip because one of my friends from the ship is from Ghana, so he took us on the grand tour of Ghana. I think he knew that we'd prefer a little nicer ride than the cars that look like they'll fall over if the wind blows too hard (like that last van we had on our trip up to the waterfall), so he made connections with someone over in Ghana and we had the same guy drive us for the whole weekend! We were all in shock to find it even had air conditioning! We were especially thankful for the good ride down to Takradi, especially since it was almost 8 hours from Lome.

Our wonderful van & driver, Victor

There was a group of about 12 of us from the ship, so it was nice to get to know people better that I don't get to interact with as often (it was on of the first trips I've been on where there were only a few nurses). We all enjoyed getting to know Gray's family and seeing him in his element back in his hometown.

One of the most meaningful experiences I had on the trip was our tours of the castles where the slaves were kept before being shipped to America and a few places in Europe. It was a very eye-opening experience seeing the dungeons that they were packed into and the tiny little air spaces they had. Some were kept in these small, dark, dirty spaces for weeks to months at a time. It was a very humbling time walking through the dungeons and seeing the underground tunnel that the slaves had to walk through to get to the place where they loaded the ships.

The tunnel the slaves had to pass through

While it made me really sad to think about what happened in the past, it was encouraging to see the forgiveness of the people we spoke with at the different castles. They emphasized the importance of learning from our mistakes and the importance of forgiving as God has forgiven us.

As we were coming down from our tour of the castle, I noticed that there was a fishing boat out on the bay and had the brilliant idea that we should all take a boat ride! I didn't think anyone would actually go along with my idea, but everyone seemed to like my idea and our wonderful tour guide, Gray, said it would be no problem! So, we headed to the fishing village and took a ride across the water.

Our boat didn't turn out to be exactly what I had pictured. It was a tiny little fishing boat and started to fill up with water a few minutes after we had started off. It didn't fill up enough to make us sink, but it did make for a little bit of a wet ride...kind of like the water rides at Disneyland :)

In the afternoon, we visited Gray's aunt at her restaraunt and she made us fufu, one of the common foods in West Africa. Then, we headed over to the naval base for a tour.

That evening, we went to a place where Gray used to visit when he was a kid. There was a big lagoon with a few boards nailed and stacked together to make what they apparently call a bridge. It was a little scary going across, especially when some of the boards looked like they would tip over if you stepped on them at the wrong angle. But, it was so much fun going across...I must not have appeared to be intimidated by the bridge at all because, as we were crossing the last few boards, my friend Lindsay said 'Becca, I could see you being on a show like Survivor'....I don't know about that, but it was definitely a fun little obstacle course.

After our fun little adventure across the lagoon, we hung out on the beach and enjoyed the sunset

The next day was a very exciting day...we headed to Cape Coast to meet up with some more friends who had a much longer, scarier, and more interesting drive down to Ghana (they had lots of stories to tell which were very amusing). Once we were all together again, we headed out to Kakum National Park to go through the famous canopy walk. The canopy walk is a series of seven rope bridges that are strung together through the trees, suspended 100 feet above the forest floor.

 

Despite the fact that we were really high up, the trees are so thick that you can't actually see the ground most of the time. So, walking across these bridges was less nerve-racking for me than our adventure across the lagoon. In fact, when I started off on the first bridge, I waited til the people in front of me crossed and began my adventure by excitingly "bouncing" across the bridge (you know, the way you do on those bridges on the playground with little kids). But I was quickly reprimanded by the officials and decided I better supress the child inside me until we were on level ground again. What can I say? Sometimes it just comes out!

                              

 

       Checking out all the trees and greenery below

After the canopy walk, we headed to the Cape Coast Castle, a major site for slave trade across the Atlantic starting in the late 18th century. It was another humbling site to see after the castle we had visited the day before.

Cape Coast Castle

Enjoying the cannons...you don't see these

every day!

After our tour of the castle, we headed to Hans Cottage for dinner. The restaraunt is above a lagoon where crocodiles swim around. It's a little strange walking on a path right above the crocodiles, but I enjoyed the change in scenery. After all, it's not every day you get to eat dinner with crocodiles!

The next day, we ventured into the big city of Accra. There, we visited the national monument and did some shopping in the market. After that,, my friend Jen and I decided that since we had one more day off, we should make the most of it and take a little trip together up north to Wli Falls. So, the group dropped us off at the waterfall and we headed off for another little adventure. The trip to the waterfall was very interesting and deserves a blog of it's own, so I'm going to have to leave you hanging for now..stay tuned for more adventures in Ghana!