A trotro to Cape Coast

We went to the coast today, specifically Cape Coast and Elmina. I want Mave and Kuno to get out of Accra and to see the ‘slave castles.’ We took a ‘trotro’ from the Kaneshie bus station and market in Accra; I thought we would be taking a ‘very nice bus,’ but instead it was Ghana’s ubiquitous form of public transportation, the trotro, what in southern Africa is called a kombi and what in southern Africa is always white and somewhat more pristine, shall we say. We were fully loaded, of course. There was lots of traffic along the way and frequent road signs warning ‘overspeeding kills’ and then listing the number of ‘persons’ killed on that spot. The towns that we passed through were bustling and there was commerce everywhere; foodstuffs included tomatoes and potatoes, papayas and pineapples, coconut, plantains, watermelon and cassava among many others. A local delicacy is very large rats, otherwise known as grasscutters, that were also in abundance. [Kuno did some research on these and found out that they are also called cane rats because they eat sugar cane; also that people actually raise them for consumption.] We saw blue plastic bags piled high with (cooked) kenkey which is basically fermented (cornmeal) pap and which is a staple in Ghana. I saw everywhere the second hand fridges that are imported from the US and Europe that the government of Ghana is trying to discourage and get rid of. And of course second hand clothing everywhere as well - the single largest export from the US to Africa! We saw many primary schools and kids in their brown and yellow uniforms to match their brown and yellow schools. Once we got to the coast we saw wooden fishing boats being carved from felled trees. At all junctions there are vendors of every imaginable item or food stuff one might need. There were many police check points along the way though we, in our old trotro, were never stopped by any of them. Wherever we go we also see lots of campaign posters left over from the presidential election. Once in Cape Coast we got a taxi to our hotel, the Coconut Grove Beach Resort, which is just beyond Elmina. I was surprised at how densely populated Cape Coast and Elmina are - definitely not sleepy fishing villages - and a smell of fish pervades everything everywhere. All in all our ride had been quite a dusty one and had taken us more than four hours.