First Weekend Adventures

Eight of my roommates and I had an awesome weekend filled with history and nature! We drove for about and hour and a half to Cape Coast which is a big tourist spot in Ghana. Cape Coast is a big historical site for slavery because it is where the castle is located. Here, the slaves were kept in cells and dungeons before they were sent off on ships. We toured this castle and although the scenery was incredible, it was hard to put myself in the shoes of the slaves when they would put us in the cells with the lights off, shoulder to shoulder, with little oxygen. Not even a little bit comfortable. I can see how it wouldn’t take long for someone to pass out in there! I’m usually not a history or museum type of person but this was interesting for me and I enjoyed it!

Cape Coast

After some wandering around the castle we grabbed some lunch and shopped around the markets a little bit. We made our way to the tro-tro station where we all packed in and headed up to Kakum National Park. This is where we would sleep over night in a tree house in the middle of the jungle! When we arrived there we went on a loooong hike to get to our sleepover spot!  Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see any animals like we were hoping to but we did hear them all night long! Since it gets dark out at about 6:30 we were all ready to fall asleep by 7:30 or 8 and it was absolutely heavenly! I slept so well because it was nice and cool! 

The treehouse we slept in

We woke up with the sunshine at 5:30 and took another hike to the canopy walk. This was incredible. We walked on this netted wooden plank type thing above the jungle. Again, no animals, but the view was amazing! After soaking it all in we made our way to our next adventure.

Canopy walk

Breakfast and crocodiles were waiting for us at Hans Cottage. When we got there I was a little nervous that the crocodiles would just come running out of the pond and eat us because it wasn’t fenced at all. As we turned the corner, sure enough, there was a big one just sitting in the walk way tempting us to come closer. Let’s just say I wasn’t the first one to make a move towards it. I was pretty nervous and wouldn’t take my eyes off of its teeth! Believe it or not, I scrounged up the courage to actually touch it! Oye, that’s something I never thought would happen. I was happy to walk away from it with all of my limbs still attached.

Yes, it's alive

And that was that! We had our weekend completed by 11am on Sunday morning and had the rest of the day to lounge, write, and contact back home! At night we attempted to hand wash our clothes...what a mess! All I cared about was to get the sweat smell out which only partially worked... Let’s hope I get better at this!

Since I was planning on getting this blog out on Monday and then I blinked and it’s now Thursday I will fill you in on a little bit of this weeks activities! Monday was an African holiday so I didn’t have to go to placement but unfortunately it was a rainy day so our attempt at the beach failed. Otherwise we have had issues at the house with power outages and water running out all week -- that means no showers, flushing, dishes, or washing hands. Because of this there has been a small cold running around the house that I caught and luckily got rid of pretty quickly! We have spent a lot of time at the beach when the sun is out and when the clouds are around we do some souvenir shopping! Tonight we are packing up and headed on a road trip for our next weekend get away! Don’t want to tell you too much to spoil the surprise! Hopefully I’ll get another one posted earlier in the week next time :)

Typical day at placement

Hope you are all doing wonderfully! I miss you all!