I am now home! This gives me the luxury of filling you in on the last week using a real keyboard and not from my phone.
For our last weekend we headed to Cape Coast, the number one tourist destination in Ghana. Cape Coast is so popular because it has an incredibly well preserved fort, which was used as a port for the exportation of slaves. It was a really eery experience to creep around the dark cells used for keeping slaves before transportation. There was also an excellent museum which told us all about the slave trade and the freedom movement which subsequently emerged. It was a pleasure to have finally found a well run museum after the flops we found in Accra and Kumasi.
We stayed in the Paradise beach resort, which as the name suggests was located right on the beach and was also really lovely. Each room was its own huts, just like at Kokrobite, but the showers were outside so you could shower under the stars. We had a bit of an epic journey to get down to Cape Coast from Kumasi, with a mix up about where we were meeting the new bunch of students from New Zealand. The trotros then decided to break down about 3/4 of the way and we were asked to get out whilst a mechanic took the engine apart and using him mouth, blew some oil/petrol out of a part (we think using our expert mechanical knowledge it was the carbaretta, but it could well have been anything else which is covered in clear fluid).
Therefore everyone wanted to let off a bit of steam once we finally made it, and we had a wonderful time at the bar of the resort getting to know the kiwis and taking in the almost obligatory african drumming and dancing which accompanied each of our nights in the resort.Unfortunately at some point during the frivolities I had my phone stolen, which put a downer on the rest of the weekend. I had to go to the police station and fill out some forms. I then had to sit there for the best part of 2 days for someone to type up the report and get the chief to sign it. It was painfully slow and very frustrating, luckily I had the presence of mind to take a book with me, so it wasn't entirely painful.
I did however manage to slink off for a morning to the canopy walk at Kakum national park. It is a bizarre tourist attraction which, apart from being great because it offers you a chance to walk between trees around 40m off the ground, seemed a little pointless because we weren't deep enough into the rain forest to actually have any chance of seeing any animals. It did provide a terrific photo opportunity, and also much entertainment watching Louise, who is a little nervy about heights at the best of times, edging out onto the walk ways pretending to be calm. After the canopy walk we decided to drop in at the Hans Cottage Botel (yes that's right, it is a botel, apparantly a hotel on water should be called a botel) where the hotel is shared by around 60 crocodiles. For a small fee they allow you to get pictures with and even stroke the crocs, a weird experience which was definitely worth doing purely for the adrenaline rush everytime the docile crocodiles decided they'd had enough and started to move towards you.
After cape coast we headed back to Atibie and did a couple more days in the hospital before a final get together with all the docs and admin staff at the local bar/restaurant, Eastern Palace. Don't be drawn in by the name, there is nothing oriental about this place. They serve a wide variety of dishes: rice and chicken or rice and beef, but the bar is well stocked and it is situated just opposite the compound in which all the doctors live. It was really nice to get to know Dr Addei a bit, becasue although he was our clinical supervisor, he'd been away for 4 of our 8 weeks. It was pretty emotional finally packing up all our stuff and heading for the last time to the tro tros station in Nkawkaw. More emotional was saying good bye to Omar, who was flying out the night before the rest of us, and had been a delight to travel with. The rest of the stay went without much of a hitch, with the 5 hour wait in the airport flying by as we watched the live greece vs macedonia euro qualifier. Ems met me from the airport in manchester and I was a bit of a sleep deprived mess, I'd eaten far too much and watched too many films rather than sleep (a skill admirably demonstrated by Cat, who seemed to fall asleep as soon as she sat in her seat, well before take off).
I will try and get the photo slideshow working down the bottom, so you can have a look at my pictures. If not you can find them if you search for me, Richard Salisbury, on Picasa. Thank you all for reading, I hope it's been interesting for you as it has been for me, and that I have got across what a truly remarkable place Ghana is.
No comments:
Post a Comment