Little town, big history!

The magnificent Cape Coast castle is in the heart of the little town overlooking the sea.
The Dutch converted the building into a castle in 1637 and the Swedes expanded it in 1652.
The castle was captured in 1664 by the British (changed hands 5 times in 13 years), the Brits took control for 2 centuries a and the castle was the headquarters for the colonial administration until 1877 and the capital was moved to Accra which is the current Capital of Ghana.
Please read "things to do" in Cape Coast for more details.

 

Things to do

 

Cape Coast

 

I went to Expertravel Agency to arrange for a trip to Cape Coast the following day.

It wasn't an easy task, it is better to arrange for the trip with the Agency before you get there. It costs $70 for a trip to Cape Coast and Kakum Park.

 

We drove our Toyota 4X4 to the cape coast castle. When we got there, I joint the guide of the castle and his tourists. He explained in details the journey of the ‘unwilling immigrants’. One of the tourists was an African-American, completely touched by the story, he asked questions such as: So, the African brothers and sisters didn’t think about attacking the castle and destroying the whole system?

 

The guide Peter was super patient and explained to him that the Africans were divided and some Africans were traders. They used to go and destroy villages and capture everybody in village and sell them to the white traders.

 

This magnificent castle is in the heart of the little town overlooking the sea and its strategic position helped defending it (see pictures)

The Dutch converted the building into a castle in 1637 and the Swedes expanded it in 1652.

The castle was captured in 1664 by the British (changed hands 5 times in 13 years), the Brits took control for 2 centuries a and the castle was the headquarters for the colonial administration until 1877 and the capital was moved to Accra which is the current Capital of Ghana.

 

At the end of my visit to the castle, I was truly exhausted. I was psychologically drained. The horrifying history of slave trading and the brutality of slave traders are overwhelming.

Kakum National Park

 

In March 1994, the president of Ghana, Rawlings officially opened Kakum National Park.

The park has been created to conserve one of Ghana’s rapidly vanishing tropical rainforests and the rare wildlife it contains.

Prince Eric, this is the name of my guide came to my hotel at 6 am to pick me up, he was a very nice young man with a big smile on his face.
We went to Kakum National Park on our way to Cape Coast; Price said that this is going to be a thrilling experience. I wasn’t sure why a visit to a “park” would be thrilling. Well, I found out when we got there. The park has 7 different bridges, very scary bridges. My experience in Vancouver (Canada) prepared me for this experience, we have a similar bridge. I wasn’t concerned about the height but I saw a Ghanaian woman who was so terrified that she decided to go back. People (all Ghanaians) laughed, cheered and applauded when she turned around and decided to skip the fear test.
The humidity at this point was behind imagination, I couldn’t believe how badly I was sweating.

The park is very beautiful, if are into hiking and a bit of "thriller", don't miss Kakum National Park.