Cape Coast

The modern bus station in Kumasi was a model of efficiency.  Our tickets had our names printed on them and our luggage was weighed and a computer generated ticket was stapled to our rucksack.  The bus left on time and we were on our way to Cape Coast. Passing through Kumasi it was intriguing to see the Christian influence on the shops and businesses. There was the ‘God’s Blood’ exhaust and brake centre, the ‘Our Lady’ hairdressing salon and ‘He will provide’ supermarket.   The bus was a luxury coach with comfortable seats, seat belts, air conditioning, a toilet and a flim being shown on a retractable flat screen TV.  We just couldn’t believe the level of sophistication we were experiencing.  It was like being sucked through a time warp from the centuries old lifestyles of the Tuareg  at Timbuktu and the Dogon people in Mali to this bus heading confidently to the Cape Coast.

As we headed south the vegetation gradually became more luxuriant with tall trees, bamboo thickets, broad leaf bushes and palm trees.  We had finally left the semi arid scrub and were now entering the tropical rainforest zone.
 
We arrived on time and took a taxi to our hotel. Our taxi driver, Robert, was a genial local who could spot a good thing when he saw it. Two toubabs arriving from a coach was definitely a good thing.  He took us to the Sanaa Lodge hotel which had certainly seen better days.  It was run down and needed maintenance.  The staff were depressed and despondent and this was reflected in the standard of service.  The food served in the restaurant and by the pool was poor, if the staff remembered to serve it.  Here we met John and Barbara, an energetic British couple who were working as teachers in Nigeria, and loving it. They were so disgusted with the food that they went elsewhere to eat or brought food in.  The staff told us mournfully that the hotel had been sold to a black American and that they were waiting for the new owner to take control in March 2006.  So perhaps the fortunes of the hotel and the staff have improved by now.

In the evening Robert drove us through the cooling air to Cape Coast castle. It was marvellous to be at the ocean again after our journey through Mali and the desert. The castle glistened white in the warm evening light. From the ramparts black iron canons still pointed out to sea where fishing boats with brightly coloured sales raced for the shore. This was once the seat of British administration in this part of West Africa, which the British colonised and called the Gold Coast. Our guide made a very interesting and perhaps obvious point in his presentation on the history of the castle.  Whilst this was certainly the last staging post for salves on their way to the Americas they had previously passed through several dealers. The African kings of the interior, The Ashanti, had captured these people during battles and skirmishes and held them captive. The slaves were then sold and transported to the coastal kings.  These kings controlling the coast not only charged the Europeans ground rent on their castles but also charged rent for every slave kept overnight in the castles. So the African kings were heavily and not honourably engaged in the slave trade. Indeed one of the reasons for the eventual British military action against the Ashanti kingdoms in Ghana was that they refused to give up the slave trade.

This article is part of a series describing our tour of West Africa
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