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West Africa, Malta and the Balkans in 1999

GHANA

Bec
2004-09-18 19:57:26

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Bolgatanga
My Ghana experience started with a long bus ride from Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso to Kumasi in the south. The big Ghanaian STC bus covered the 750 km distance in 14 hours which is quite fast considering that we stopped once to go through the border formalities, twice to eat to and a number of times to satisfy the ubiquitous road pirates.

Bolgatanga is a small Ganaian town near the Burkina Faso border.

On the bus I met Dantodsi Dosseh a baker from Cotonou and two Texans, Doug and Steve who were going to Kumasi like me.

Kumasi
I enjoyed Kumasi but somehow I took only photo there, this one of the old Kumasi fort which has been transformed into a Military Museum. I guess I wasn't in a picture taking mood. It's a pity because there were lots of good subjects, the national cultural center, the big market and nearby motor parks, the Presbyterian Guesthouse where I stayed, the busy city center and more importantly two fellow backpackers, French Émilie Pierret and German Telse Frank. I can't understand why I did not take a picture of them they were both charming and lovely...

Takoradi
I took a night train from Kumasi to Takoradi and left my bag at the hotel Zenith whose inner courtyard Inn shown here. Then I took a taxi to nearby Sekondi to visit Fort Orange.

Forts and castles along Ghana's coast have played an important part in her history. Competition between European traders led to the construction of over 60 forts and trading posts along a 500 km stretch of what was called The Gold Coast. The Portuguese came first (1470 to 1600), but they were followed by the Dutch, the French, the British, the Swedish and the Danish who all built forts, sometimes within sight and gun range of each other in the 17th century. All this activity was concentrated here because of the proximity of gold mines and because access to the ...