Il Costa De Elmina de Ouro

A quick tro-tro down the coast to Elmina only took 20 minutes and only COST the equivalent of 55p! Bit of a bargain. The original name of Elmina is in the title of this blog and is the Portuguese name for 'The Coast of Gold Mines' and is important as the first place that Europeans actually purchased some land form the local chiefs, and there the Portuguese bought a small fort that became Elmina Castle. The town is now a major fishing producer and from the heights of the castle, you can see the other main industry - salt. Shallow lakes of sea water are dried by the sun and the salt is collected by hand, and sent via huge trucks all across Africa and Europe.

As we arrived quite early in the morning we had breakfast by the lagoon that separates the castle from the rest of the town. The bridge (as we were in Ghana, it was a bright red Vodaphone bridge) that crosses this small stretch of water had hundreds of men and boys sitting anywhere they could. As we sat watching, the guys would cheer any boats or pirogues coming back in from a nights fishing - the bigger the applause, the bigger the haul. Such a good atmosphere! The boats carried onto the dock, where women with huge silver bowls on their heads collected full bowls to be sold in the market or taken by car to other towns. Also as in we were in Ghana, the bowls and boats were all emblazoned with religious sayings such as "Creator" and "God sees All"!

We dumped our gear at our accommodation and headed to the castle for our second slave fort tour in two days. Pretty hardcore. We got another English guide who began talking about the church in the middle of the courtyard. he asked us what religion we were and we all answered "None". Luckily we were the only ones in the group at that moment as he went off on a rant about religion and God being real. We weren't arguing but he made it his mission to try and convert us. Kez also tried (gallantly) to explain about evolution and science being our main beliefs, and that it is okay to believe anything you want to, but our guide started off again. he seemed truly shocked that we weren't religious. Thankfully some more people turned up and the tour started again, but he kept saying "I'll talk to you later"!

As I mentioned before the site of the castle was sold to the Portuguese to aid commerce, but the local chief was cautious, but the gifts of booze and tobacco helped calm his nerves somewhat! The castle grew year on year, and was even able to stop two attacks by the Dutch from the sea. Unperturbed the Dutch bribed a tribe to show them an inland way. They started another false attack from the sea, and then fired cannons from a grassy hill behind the castle, where there were no cannons, and so no protection. The Dutch took over the castle and then built a lookout known as Fort Jago on the grassy hill, to stop this happening to them.

Gold and ivory were the main things traded, but later on the Dutch also became involved in the lucrative slave trade. Elmina Castle was also very impressive, standing on the rocks right on the shoreline. As in Cape Coast Castle, we were shown the dungeons and holding cells for slaves, as well as the Point of No Return. The slaves were put through a very narrow gap in the outer wall before walking down an old jetty straight into the cramped ships. Unfortunately, even if over half the slaves died en route during the months at sea, it would still be a worthwhile exercise financially speaking from the traders point of view.

The tour was still very good, and the guide was full of useful information saying that the castle was the oldest European building in Africa (sub-Saharan), but it was all interjected with questions about where do we think we come from and who created all the animals etc. Kez did a stirling job trying to talk to him, but he wouldn't even listen to anything that wasn't about God or the world created in six days!

We were shown the store room and a magazine for keeping ammunition (full of bats) before being shown two cells that were next to each other. One was for drunk soldiers, or those who disobeyed orders, and although it was definitely a cell, it was far bigger, with more ventilation and lighter than the cell next door; which was where disobedient or unruly slaves were kept before being executed or just left to die over a week.

We had a bite to eat in the Castle's restaurant and then used the Internet. Bad news - Green Turtle Bay were completely booked over Christmas. Change of plan. On the way out, some kids were running a scam. On the way in they asked your name and got chatting. Once you left they handed you a big shell, painted with "To my friend _____" and then the name filled in with fresh pen. They wanted you to keep the shell as a gift, but give a donation to their football team. We'd been warned about it in the book, but I would be very dubious anyway about giving money for nothing; with no idea who it would go to.

In the afternoon, we took a walk up the hill behind the castle to Fort Jago and had a look around. There was an old guy inside that showed us around for a small fee, and we had a really good view of the quayside, castle and salt flats. The fort was quite compact, but had a really cool room with low windows that was something to do with carpentry. Out of the windows we were shown the Dutch cemetery and old church. Up in the lookout tower we had another go at the notorious pictures with us all in, using Barneys camera and the stand. It worked well but unfortunately didn't have the castle in the background.

We got back to our hotel just as dusk fell to discover we didn't have any light in our room. I stayed in the room and wrote all of my Christmas postcards (date was the 17th...) by torchlight. We took a shower in Dree's room, dodging the mini cockroaches, before getting a great takeaway dinner of jollof rice and chicken from a lady on the street. We eventually had a light bulb brought up to the room, but were eaten alive by the mozzie parade.

Tomorrow: to the beach!