Great Weekend!

Saturday morning we got up early, as we seem to do everyday, and headed to Cape Coast. It took us about 4 hours to get there after we took some back alleys and bottomed out the van. Got to love the roads here. We went to the Cape Coast Castle and the Elmina Castle. The history of these two castles is overwhelming at points. These two castles were used for many different things, but they are most famously known for their purpose during the time of slavery. These castles were the points where salves were taken to before they were loaded on ships and sent all over the world. The tours were very powerful. We were put into the slave chambers and told many facts. It sent chills through my body. I learned so much. There is much more to this part of history then I felt I learned in school. The tour guides made it very clear they the blame was not placed on the white people, but is blamed on humans as a whole. They also noted that the North America received the least amount of slaves. I cannot remember the exact number but of the total number, the amount North America got was significantly less! Overall, the castles were amazing and I learned so many facts and so much information.
On a lighter note, there were some funny points. As I published in the last blog, we were told that the children were mean in Cape Coast. We didn't really experience that. There was a lot of hounding from adults. On the whole, when a group of white people get out of a van, we are flocked with people selling things. We are getting use to that. It is annoying, but we are getting use to it. At the second castle, we were bombarded! It was crazy. Eric, our driver, told us to watch out for these rascals. As we were waiting for the whole group to walk out of the castle, these rascals spotted us and were waiting for us. We told Eric we were not coming out until he opened the van. We headed out as a group and charged towards to van. Kind of felt like a celebrity. After we fought our way into the van, we headed to the resort. Amazing. We stayed at a beach resort. Yup, we had rooms right on the beach. You had to walk through the sand to get to your room. Rough life we are leading. Then we got ourselves some milkshakes and such and lounged on the beach. It was great. After dinner, we went back out to the beach to watch a fire. To sum it up, on November 20, we were sitting on the beach watching a bonfire. :) Basically, it was amazing! After the fire died down, we went to bed. We showered and had the A/C going and were all ready for a nice restful sleep! Then we lost power. We laid there for a few minutes because usually the power comes back on with a few minutes. Then we get up and look out the window and notice that the other villas seem to have lights. We come out and only our room and the other girls room did not have power but everyone else did. We found an employee of the resort and he said give me 5 mins. We start walking back to the room and all the power goes out. I guess if we couldn't have power no body could. Just kidding. A few minutes later the power came back on. It was a good laugh. Sunday morning, we got up bright and early and headed to Kakum National Park, which is in a rain forest. (It was raining/sprinkling. Pretty cool to be in a rain forest and it be raining!) The resort was a bed and breakfast, but breakfast was not served until 7:30 and we had to leave by 6:30 to get to the park to see the animals. The resort was concerned so they packed us some boiled eggs, LOTS of bread, jam, and butter. It was fun to try and put jam on your bread while driving. We got to the park and went on the tree top canopy walk. It was so cool, but scary. Basically, you are walking on a plank from tree to tree. You have to use the ropes because it is so hard to keep your balance as you are swinging back and forth. You walk on a total of 7 bridges and they only let 2 or 3 people on at a time. In between each bridge, you stop at a tree stand where only 5 or so people can be. It is crazy! You are so high up! It was very scary but also very exhilarating! To get to the canopy walk, you have to walk up this hills and the guide tells you about some of the trees. As the park was first being researched, guys would go out in twos and do some research. If they lost there partner, they would not yell or clap their hands, but they would bang on this certain tree because it sounds like it is hollow and sends an echo into the rain forest that can be heard up to a mile away. I was very impressed with that. Who would have thought to do that?! After our walk, we loaded back into the van and headed to back to the resort. We stayed there for a few hours and ate lunch and walked along the beach. 3 of us took a long walk down the beach. As we got further away from the resort(which there were many white people, probably the most white people we have seen at one time,) the beach was filled with garbage, such a bottoms of rubber shoes, underwear, rags, fish nets, and lots of plastic. It is a shame that this beautiful place is trashed like this. Also, another group walked the opposite direction the night before and they also found something more disgusting. As they were walking, they came across many fishing boats and fishermen. That part of the beach area was used as their bathroom. It was used as their toilet and their shower. During many of our trips, this one more so then others, you see people openly bathing in the ocean/water and bathing suits are very much an optional clothing item.
After lunch, we headed back to Tema. The drive seemed to be quick, which we all really enjoyed. When we got back, we went into our rooms and 3 out of the 4 girls huts did not have power. Of course the boys did have power. Apparently we were not to have power this weekend. We did get power back after a few attempts were made to fix it. The weather has been chilly and over cast both yesterday and today. I got a slight chill last night and closed some of my windows. It was a nice change in temperature. Walking to school today, I was not soaked with sweat. I enjoyed it. This week is going to be a short week for me, but not as short of a week if I was in the US. I am looking forward to the break. For the last 5 weeks, it seems as if we have not really had time to relax. It is still hard to believe that Thanksgiving is 4 days away! Pretty sad I won't be getting on Turkey or stuffing or mashed potatoes or...PUMPKIN PIE...this list could keep going :(