I didn‘t know I could sleep that long here. Despite the usual noise outside I sleep until 8:30 am - I must have been really tired. After this long rest, Melanie, Ilse and I use our Saturday to visit St George‘s Castle in the nearby town Elmina. The castle is a Unesco heritage site, built by the Portuguese in 1482, captured by the Dutch, then given to the British and its storerooms usually hosted hundreds of slaves waiting to be shipped of to the New World. It is an impressive sight even from the distance when we see its white walls peeping through the palm trees on our way along the coast to Elmina. Getting out of the car we are at once surrounded by locals who spotted us as tourists. While we wait for Marijke to join us, competing kids offer us oranges. We enter the castle over the bridge across the moat and after paying the various fees are let to the museum. The museum is placed in a building in the castle‘s courtyard and consists of one room with information boards. They inform visitors about Elmina‘s past, the local way of salt making and the impact Europeans had on the area. Some ten minutes later, we are called to do the tour through the castle. The guide leads us to the grim dungeons for the female slaves on the ground floor and then up to where the officers lived and to the balcony from where they selected their partner for the night. We see the Condemn Cell and go through the Door of No Return. Luckily nowadays people are allowed to return through the Door of No Return. From the upper floor of the castle we have a great view over Elmina, the beach, the fishing harbour and to the next hill with Fort St Jago. This is where we want to go next. Leaving the castle, we are again captured by young men selling bracelets, necklaces and other souvenirs. They urge us to buy something to support their education. I am getting irritated. As we walk through the harbour across to the Fort, one of the orange selling kids follows us. He left his goods somewhere and guides us now. From the top of the hill, in front of Fort St Jargo, we look over Elmina and back to the castle on top of the other hill. White walls against blue sky. It is hot. Nevertheless we continue our scouting and go to the Dutch Cemetery, a few fenced square metres with graves of former soldiers who died during their service at the castle. The cemetery lies on the foot of another hill with a big Catholic Church. We climb the stairs to the top and meet children playing football. They want us to play with them and their limp ball until they ask us for money to buy a new ball. Next we want to see a little art and crafts market. To get there we walk along the beach where we again have a nice view to the castle situated on the cliffs above the sea. Built on the sand are shacks, children are running around and women are cooking. The children want us to take pictures of them instead of the castle. I bend down to show a group of them their photo and a wave wets my trousers. In fact with every other wave water washes through the paths between the shacks and floods the rooms. I wonder how families can live there. Our little guide shows us the way back to the road. He says he knows how to get to the market but we can‘t find it. We wander through the busy streets, looking for pineapple. For the first time, we cannot see any but only bananas and oranges. We definitely entered an area where the normal tourists visiting the castle don‘t go. Fishing nets everywhere, locals doing their work. Finally, we get tired and decide to go back. We feel how our shoulders and faces are burning from walking through the sun-burned streets and decide it is enough. We got an extensive impression of this colourful little town and its people.
Sunday, time for the second castle, Cape Coast Castle. This time, we enter through the front door and join a tour that has already started. The castle is similar to the one in Elmina, the guide even uses some same jokes. He shows us the room the Europeans used as church, just above the dungeons. Heaven up here, hell down there. I can imagine hell down there. The tunnel from the dungeons to the sea is blocked with thick walls now, erected after the prohibition of slavery by the British but we can peep in at a few places. Again we leave through the Door of No Return and return. After the tour we wander around the castle on our own. It is bigger than St George‘s Castle. We find a room where a man sells his bright paintings. From the top of the castle we look down on the strip of beach where men are working on their fishing boats. It is fun to watch them. For lunch we go to the restaurant next door. On the beach we overlook, boys are fighting. A few minutes later, they practice acrobatics, balancing on each other‘s shoulders. When they notice us watching them, they make signs to us to give them food. I am in a adventurous mood and order Banku with Okro Stew, Ghanaian food. I try and it tastes not too bad but then I get a fright. Dipping the Banku in the stew, I come across a crab sticking out of the bowl. I didn‘t expect that. Ilse finds more fish in the stew but I don‘t look to closely. I have seen enough. The crab could have been alive. Next time, I‘ll try something different. The sun feels even hotter today but that doesn‘t stop us from wandering through the streets again. We go back to the fishing boats but something is different. We can hardly pass through the boats to get to the back of the castle. Then we see that the flood has come. The boats are pulled further up the sand and only few are working on their nets. Instead, everybody is in the water, playing with balls and having fun. They just go into the water with all their clothes. Walking along the streets through the shacks we pass lots of young men all soaked wet. They just come back from their swim and ask us to join them but we continue back to the main streets, cross the market and walk up a hill to overlook Cape Coast. On the roofs we see clothes drying. To avoid being baked in the sun, we take a car back to the house and relax the rest of the day in the shade.
