Ghana 2024

A first visit to west Africa and Ghana

In 2024 I went to a West African country for the first time. The plan was to visit a few different places in Ghana to see what they all could bring. If lucky I would get to see my first pangolin, but then I surely would have to be lucky.

Sadly, this was not a lucky trip for me as I ended up in intensive care after a few days and had to cut my trip short. I guess it was my own making when I tasted the sweet edible flesh surrounding the cocoa bean. I had photographed inside the small plantation and had probably dirt on my fingers. 24 hours later I was unable to do much more than lie in bed and release fluids in the bathroom.

Warm and humid

Still, I got to understand why I had worries about the trip due to the humidity. I did cope okay, but I did sweat profoundly to say the least. If I remember correctly, we had roughly 85% humidity and for a northern it is on the high side.

During the first days we visited Shai Hills Reserve as well as Kakum National Park. Two very different habitats such as Shai more of a savannah while Kakum is a rainforest.

Kakum has a treetop canopy walk, where you walk 40 meters above the forest floor. We had opted for three mornings in Kakum but turned away and explored other parts due to several school buses arriving before us one morning. You cannot know prior to arriving if it is a busy day or not. Kakum is visited by many.

I did not fancy the treetop walk

I did not fancy the swinging walkways as my camera pack got stuck between the wires. Me and heights are not the best friends, but it is a must to visit Kakum if you are in Ghana imho. I did have more fun exploring the undergrowth of Kakum as I could focus on finding insects, and in particular butterflies. I would very much love going back to Ghana during the butterfly season, which coincide with the fruiting season.

The food was good and the fruit excellent. I could have lived off the mango and pineapple we bought driving around. It is such a difference to eat fruits where it is grown than back home.

Highlight or not but worth visiting

The highlight of the trip was a visit to Carolusborg, now known as Cape Coast Castle. If you know your Swedish history then you know Sweden had a short spell in Africa with a colony called Cabo Corso on the gold coast of Ghana.

Sweden bought a trading station in timber from the Dutch and rebuilt it with stone until it was lost to the Danish a few years later. The British Empire claimed it a few years later and turned it into a slave fort after a period of use for mainly commerce in gold and ivory.

It is today a World Heritage site and a place everyone should visit if you are in Cape Coast. I feel much of today’s society could learn from visiting places like this to hear about the way humans “treated” other humans. It is chilling to understand and grasp the cruelty we subject others to. To see the door of no return, to try to process and fathom how brutally and inhumane the dungeons were. It makes you humble to visit places like this imho.