Cape Coast

At 6:15 a.m., we all piled onto a bus to go to Cape Coast, a coastal fishing city west of Accra. We arrived in Cape Coast 3 hours later, and checked into the Coconut Grove Beach Resort in Elmina, ten minutes from Cape Coast. Because our day was full, we didn't have time to go to our rooms. We just left everything but our cameras in the lobby, and got back on the bus.

Our first stop was Elmina Castle, a slave castle built by the Portuguese. In history class, we learned about slave trading after slaves were already on a boat. It was intense and emotional to see the conditions in which people were forced to live. The women's dungeon still smells after 300 years of vomit, blood, urine, and feces.

We ate lunch at Hans Cottage Botel (a boat-hotel), which is made of huts build over a pond filled with Nile Crocodiles. It's hard to forget I'm in Africa while eating red red (beans and fried plantains in a spicy tomato sauce) and watching crocodiles laze in the sun.

After lunch, we drove to Kakum National Forest. which is a deciduous rainforest. We hiked across Kakum's canopy walk, which is made of cargo net and wooden planks. The bridge was about a foot wide at the base and rose to over 120 feet at its highest point. Although it swayed and shook as people climbed over it (some clinging to the rope as much as possible), It was amazing to look down on the underbrush from the tops of the trees.

We had a traditional Ghanaian dinner at our hotel with locally caught fish. After dinner, the hotel built a bonfire on the beach and served us palm wine in halved coconut shells. We danced to music around the fire and explored the beach in the moonlight. None of us had on our swimsuits, but we ran into the ocean anyway. Sitting by the fire before going to bed, salt began to crystalize on my clothes as they started to dry.