Day 5: Cape Coast and Accra

Beach near Cape Coast

Before you go to Ghana you need a serious batch of vaccinations ranging from yellow fever and hepatitis to polio and typhoid fever. One of the more important ones is the Dukoral oral vaccine that protects you against cholera and traveler’s diarrhea. Essentially it allows you to eat the local food without getting sick immediately. It gives only an 85% protection so you are still at a considerable risk. You have to watch what you eat and of course you can only drink purified bottled water.

We never figured out what Måns had eaten, but in the morning he was not in a good shape. He was pale and not feeling well at all, having toiled through a rough night. Matilda wasn’t feeling all that well either but Måns was in worse shape. Still, we all managed to take a walk down to the Cape Coast castle for the guided tour.

Cape Coast castle

The castle was built in 1653 by the Swedish and was called Karlsborg and part of the Swedish Gold Coast colony. It was seized by Denmark in 1663. The Swedish Gold Coast became the Danish Gold Coast. Present day, the heat was insufferable and we were very happy to return to the hotel. The tour of the castle was interesting, but essentially the same as in Elmina.

The cannons of Cape Coast

We decided that it was time to head back to Accra so we took a taxi to the bus station. There it turned out that the 14:00 bus was cancelled for unknown reasons and that the next bus would leave in two or three hours. Maybe. Well, that’s Africa. Instead of waiting and taking a chance we called the taxi driver who had taken us to Kakum the day before. We were very pleased with his driving which had been very calm – the man even used his seat belt, so we had gotten his number. It was a good choice as he managed to get us through several police check points without us having to pay any bribes.

In Accra Zayid had a key ready for me. Her second house was empty and I could move in. The place that was going to be my base of operations for the next few days was huge. Two days before a Lebanese family that had been living there for several years had moved out. I had the whole place for myself and it was clean and nicely air-conditioned. It had a large front veranda and came with two uniformed guards (one day guard and one night). At one point the night guard just left his post leaving the gates to the street wide open – but that’s a different story.

Zayid had prepared a meal for us with traditional Ghanaian food that included a spicy chicken soup and rice. It was quite nice. The girls had asked her before how much the rent would be for me and she had replied that it would be the same as for them - $15/night. Since I got a whole house and the fact that it was air conditioned I asked Zayid if $100 would be ok for the five nights. She said yes but with a slight hesitation. I thought that I had offered too little but it turns out it was the other way around. Later Zayid told Matilda that she felt bad because I had paid too much. In the really crappy hotel I had stayed the first two nights I had paid $60/night and the high-end European quality hotels were priced $200-300/night. And Zaiyd is very affluent by Ghanaian standards – she owns two large houses in one of the best districts of Accra and drives a modern 4x4 car. When I talked to her later she told me that the huge palaces (20+ rooms) in the Airport Residential Area would rent for as “much” as $1000-$3000/month. That’s including full staff and cars.

As both Måns and Matilda weren’t feeling very well and we all felt taking it easy a while would be nice, we didn’t go out that evening. Instead I was on my veranda enjoying a traditional colonial style evening. I had purchased some Montecristo cigars in Amsterdam which I now enjoyed laid back in a comfortable armchair. In the evening when the temperature drops (albeit slightly) and when you sit down, it can be quite comfortable. I enjoyed my cigar with fresh mango juice while listening to an audio book. Then I spilled the mango juice all over my laptop’s keyboard, but that’s a different story.

The view from my veranda in Dzorwulu