{"id":12773,"date":"2013-04-25T12:25:00","date_gmt":"2013-04-25T12:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/g-adventures-west-africa-day-16-and-17-ghana\/"},"modified":"2013-04-25T12:25:00","modified_gmt":"2013-04-25T12:25:00","slug":"g-adventures-west-africa-day-16-and-17-ghana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/2013\/04\/g-adventures-west-africa-day-16-and-17-ghana\/","title":{"rendered":"G Adventures West Africa. Day 16 and 17: Ghana"},"content":{"rendered":"

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pics: fish market on the shore in front of Cape Coast Castle, inside the
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courtyard of Cape Coast Castle<\/p>\n

Day 16 and 17: Ghana<\/p>\n

Two ports in Ghana gave us valuable additional insight into one of the most
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rapidly developing countries in the West African region. Like so many
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relatively new nations along the former, so-called ‘slave coast’,
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independence brought many new challenges. Unlike its Francophone neighbours,
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English-speaking Ghana was a little easier to travel in and deal with the
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rigours of market negotiations.<\/p>\n

Our first stop at Port Tema, which is the access point to the capital,
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Accra, was a lower key affair with simple visits to a glass bead factory and
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the Shai Hills Wildlife reserve where our late morning arrival meant we
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wouldn’t see many of the animals out and about. Semi-tame baboons and
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ostriches greeted us at the gate before we drove through the park and
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managed sightings of antelope and not much else. Our first day culminated in
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a stop at a novelty coffin workshop where Ghanaians seem to have embraced
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the fad of themed caskets for their final departure. Wooden cars, oversized
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bottles, tools, fish and even a film projector were under construction
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awaiting their clients’ final request.<\/p>\n

The Accra craft and handicraft market sharpened negotiation skills as
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enthusiastic hawkers descended on us like locusts with all manner of wares
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and products. David Conrad demonstrated his years of skill and ethnographic
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knowledge and emerged from the hurly-burly cradling a magnificent
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century-old Benin bronze figurine acquired for a fraction of any Southeby
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valuation. The rest of us made do with shirts, postcards and run-of-the-mill
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wood carvings. Steve Boyes, our naturalist, sadly reported the discovery of
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many illegal wildlife products like hyena hide belts and even a full jaguar
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skin.<\/p>\n

Day two exposed us to the sad history of slavery and colonial servitude in
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the region of the vast Takoradi port. Here two massive, UNESCO World
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Heritage-listed castles serve as a tragic reminder to the era when huge
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numbers of slaves were shipped out to their final destinations. Many guests
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emerged from the pitch black underground dungeons visibly moved, some even
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reporting an eerie presence and faint supernatural mutterings in the empty
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subterranean chambers.<\/p>\n

While some of our party chose to venture out to Kakum National Park for the
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famous forest canopy walk, I chose to hang back for a more in-depth look at
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these solemn monuments.<\/p>\n

The Cape Coast Castle and Elmina Castle are both surrounded by bustling
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fishing villages, especially the latter where fleets of little vessels
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venture out through the surf to fish. The vivid spectacle of traditional
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wooden boats with colourful banners, surrounded by throngs of eager mongers
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created a scene much like a medieval market or f\u00eate. Against the ominous
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backdrop of the castles, the only modern giveaway was fishermen wearing
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modern soccer jerseys and fluro flip-flops. Centuries ago, it would have
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been a similar scenario, except that lines of forlorn and manacled Negroes
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would be seen shuffling onto those same boats for transport to
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God-only-knows-where.<\/p>\n

For more detail on this itinerary, see www.gadventures.com<\/a> > West Africa
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More images at www.flickr.com\/photos\/rodeime<\/a><\/p>\n

Sent to you over a satellite phone using GMN’s XGate software.
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Please be kind and keep your replies short<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

pics: fish market on the shore in front of Cape Coast Castle, inside the courtyard of Cape Coast Castle Day 16 and 17: Ghana Two ports in Ghana gave us valuable additional insight into one of the most rapidly developing countries in the West African region. Like so many relatively new nations along the former, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[344],"class_list":["post-12773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gap-adventures"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12773\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}