Day 6: Elmina, Ghana (January 13, 2011)

I spent the day in Elmina, a town a few miles down the road from Cape Coast.

Thatched houses along the road to Elmira.

Elmira's main draw for tourists (of which there are few) is the Elmina Castle. It's over 500 years old and was started by the Portugese when they first came to the area to mine gold, but was conquered relatively quickly by the Dutch, who expanded the building. Like Cape Coast Castle, it pretty quickly became another waypoint for slaves on their way from Africa to the Americas. And like Cape Coast Castle, the tour came with some pretty depressing sights and stories.

The Door of No Return.

Like this room pictured below where the condemned went to die. Usually slaves who tried to escape. Apparently they were put in the room and left there until they died. Sometimes more than one person was put in, and no bodies were removed until everyone was dead. :( (So many frowny faces along the coast in Ghana! But more for the past than the present.)

But there was some humor too, in the church of all places. Ok, well, I found it funny:

After leaving the Castle, I re-encountered a young man I'd met when my taxi pulled up. Kind of by accident, my taxi driver and the young man, Richmond, knew each other. (It's funny, I never take taxis in the States! But I've taken several already here. Mostly because I'm not brave enough to try a tro-tro, which are basically old VW buses filled up with people like a clown car.) So Richmond starts up a conversation and offers to show me around town. And again I was like, Oh no another tout! But I decided that around here, touts are a good thing. At least for a singleton who's never been here before and wouldn't normally just wander through the shanties... And it turned out Richmond did seem content with being friendly, not seeking anything else.

So we toured the fish docks, which were quite extensive and very stinky:

Some smokeyards where they smoke the fish (and where people live among their livestock):

And more ordinary market streets.

The other obvious draw for tourists in Elmina is the Fort, which was built to protect the Castle. This Fort actually has a "docent" (really just a guy who gives a 5-minute speech about the place, in his socks) but for some reason, no one goes to the Fort, so Richmond and I had it to ourselves. And, happily, we could go everywhere, including up the very rickety stairs to the top of the tower:

And... I just realized I didn't take a good shot of Richmond. (Richmond, if you're reading... sorry!)

I love old cemetaries, so we checked out the "Dutch Cemetary," where the Dutch, the Irish and some other Europeans have been buried for the past two centuries. Having already been to the Castle, and learned about what assholes the Governors were, I suspect this guy really deserved what he got: