After our nice yet slightly challenging stroll around Lake Bosumtwi (the people although nice, being the challenging part). We had a quick beer before driving finally to the coast, it did seem a bit wrong to be drinking a beer at 10 o’clock on a Tuesday morning, but we had had a long couple of days. Although tired we were certainly in good spirits as it seemed we would at last be back at the coast with promise of warm waters and maybe even some surf.
We weren’t really sure where we were driving too until the last minute, when we decided to go to Elmina which was described as a relaxed seaside town of only 20,000 people. Elmina is the home to ‘the oldest european building in sub saharan africa’, the building is a fort turned slave barn and cuts a pretty imposing figure on the town. We found ourselves a nice little if not slightly dubious guest house, so we felt quite at home. We took our first swim in ages, watched on by a few friendly kids. For the evening we wandered into the town, which wasnt so quiet and there must of been at least 100,000 people out on the street. I think lonely planet were a bit out on that one. It had a nice atmosphere however, so we had kebabs, rice and a few beers with the friendly locals. It appears most people in Ghana are football players, all of whom are good enough to play for Manchester United, they just need someone to sponsor them for new boots, we took their word for it but kept wallets in pockets.
Elmina is rumoured to have a point break (surf) breaking just outside the fort, we couldn’t find it at first so decided to take a guided tour of the fort. Outside the fort you have the normal tourist touts and hustlers, who are generally a bit friendlier in Ghana. They often ask for your name quite a few times, so they can remember it, we were to find out why later on. All tourist attractions in Ghana have a price for locals and one for tourists, the fort was no exception. A few days later some dutch friends pointed out the irony ‘we built the thing, why should we pay more to go in!’
Inside the fort we had a quick look around the museum before we were met by our guide. He took us on a informative if not slightly bias tour of the fort, where the europeans got a bit of a bashing for our previous sins. We saw the infamous door of no return, where the slaves were piled onto the boats taking them out to the Carribean and Americas. It was quite poignant to see the poor conditions in the fort and to know that the conditions only got worse afterwards, very few survived the journey. It was also interesting to know that most of the slaves were actually gathered by other africans, as either prisoners of war or for trade. Anyway back to the important stuff, we eventually spotted the point break and the surf was too small. We decided to get back on the road and head for ‘Big Millys’ in Kokrobite near Accra (the capital).
