Saturday, February 12, 2011

Ghana Christmas Vacation

In December two friends and I set off for our Christmas Vacation in Ghana, a two day trip on the coast of the Gulf of Guinea. We were lucky and got a direct bus from Bamako to Kumasi, Ghana which took 44 hours.

Kumasi hosts West Africa’s largest open air market and it was in full Christmas shopping swing when we arrived. Ghana is almost 50% Christian and 50% Muslim and with the larger disposable income of the country the market was swelled with people. It was amazing to see blenders, X-Box, iPods, and laptops on Christmas special where in Mali most of those things are inaccessible to most of the population.



We also visited several slave castles along the coast, including the two largest slave trade castles in West Africa. The historical significance of visiting these places, having local Ghanaian’s as tour guides explaining the savage history of their land will be something that I will remember for the rest of my life.


On a lighter note, we also meet up with two other friends from Mali and took the aerial walk outside of Cape Coast. Towards the coast of Ghana is rainforest and in the Kukuma National Park they have constructed a walkway bridge between eight trees stretching more than 400 meters into the air. You could feel the rope bridge swinging in the air and at parts you couldn’t even see the ground threw the trees below us.



Ghana also has some amazing coast lines. For Christmas we spent three days at a “Green Resort” on a secluded beach. We passed the days in the water and the nights around bon-fires on the white sand beaches. However, sadly all vacations must come to an end and this trip was no different.

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