We started off the day by having a nice breakfast in the hotel. Tea, bread, beans, hot dog-like sausage, and eggs with onions and peppers.
Pamela, Elroy (otherwise known as JuJu), and Richard (our driver for the week) came to pick us up around 7:30. We went to William and Pamela’s house to meet Junior, their youngest son, and Theresa, Pamela’s mother.
By the time we headed out on our adventures, traffic in Accra was completely out of control. We were kept entertained by watching the hundreds of vendors walk among the traffic selling everything from bread and eggs to little cubes of foam.
Our first stop was Elmina castle. This is one of the three castles in Ghana. It was built by the Portuguese in the 1600s, then overtaken by the Dutch, and then the British. It was first designed to be using in the trade of gold and silver, but the slave trade proved to be more profitable. The storerooms were converted into human warehouses, where they were shipped to the United States, among other destinations. A substantial number of slaves died either in the castle or in transit.
After the tour we were thirsty, and since John has been eagerly anticipating the chance to drink straight out of a coconut, we stopped on the side of the road where a couple guys took their machetes and sliced open coconuts for all four of us. This was very refreshing, and we can’t wait to share the video of the experience!
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