May-2019

24 / TRAVEL / Ghana
TRAVEL / 25
IN DEFIANCE of “municipal orders”, the little boy sat
astride the great gun on the battlements of Elmina Castle. His
knees were scratched from climbing trees, which is the main
occupation of many children here. The Ghanaian security
guard – apparently the entire “defence force” of this historic
fort – smiled benignly as the boy’s father snapped a photo for
the family album. Clearly, the municipal orders were not rigorously
enforced.
Below the battlements, fishing boats jostled steadily in
Elmina harbour. Furled sails, rippling flags and strings of
laundry hung like bunting from the rigging, giving the fleet
the appearance of a carnival. As I arrived on the battlements,
the sun on my shoulders and the boy’s laughter gave me a
sense of calm as I thought about the history of this place. The
Portuguese built Elmina Castle in 1482, and it’s said to be the
biggest and oldest former slave fort in tropical Africa.
EXPEDITION
My father and I had driven out of Accra, Ghana’s vibrant
and exciting capital, the previous day in an expedition-prepared
Land Cruiser. It was the start of a journey that would take us
to almost every corner of the country. As volunteers with the
organisation, MAPA (Mapping Africa’s Protected Areas)
Project, our assignment was to explore every trail in the country’s
protected reserves and map them accurately with GPS. It
was typical that Digya National Park, the country’s secondbiggest
reserve, would be our first mapping challenge since it
was almost inaccessible to our Land Cruiser. The only way to
get to Digya (pronounced “dee-juh”), which is on the western
shore of Lake Volta, turned out to be in a wobbly dugout
canoe. “‘Dee-juh’ think this would be easy?” my father joked.
It was clearly easy to get off the beaten track in Ghana, so I
asked the boatman if many tourists came this way. “Plenty,”
he said. “In fact, not even a month has passed yet since the
last one.”
With the help of some friendly locals, we cleared a campsite
with “cutlasses” (as machetes are called here) and spent several
days mapping trails on foot while we enjoyed sightings of some
of Digya’s estimated 236 bird species. Digya is famous for being
the habitat of six primate species, as well as manatees and clawless
otters.
“Many people claim that hippos are the most dangerous
animals in Africa,” said our guide Joshua, from Wechiau
Community Hippo Sanctuary, as he paddled his canoe
cautiously through swirling dawn mist on the Black Volta
River. While the eastern bank is Ghanaian, the western bank
belongs to Côte d’Ivoire, with the official boundary running
midstream, turning the 60 or so hippos in this part of the river
into dual citizens. Joshua kept close to his native Ghanaian >
“I swear you could sniff out a surfboard from 50 km
away,” said my father when we finally parked in front
of a shack bearing the legend, Black Star Surf Shop”
Surfing in Ghana
In 1966, Ghana’s beaches became
famous around the world when The
Endless Summer (the most famous
surf film of all time) showed two
Californian surfers cruising perfect
waves that had never been surfed
before. After that, Ghana slipped
almost completely off the world’s
surfing radar. Recently, however,
interest is reviving, and there are
those who believe that Ghana has
the potential to become the next
surfers’ paradise.
Ghana has 539 km of coastline,
including some of the most
spectacular beaches on the planet.
The now legendary The Endless
Summer footage showed local
fishing boats surfing towards the
beach, and long chains of smiling
fishermen hauling nets. The nets,
the boats and, more importantly,
the smiles are still to be found
along the Ghanaian coast.
Above (clockwise
from top): Two adult
elephant bulls in
Mole National Park; A
surfer catches a wave;
Women sitting in the
Asuogyaman District.
Right page: Boats on
the beach in Accra (top);
Central Post Office
in downtown Accra
(bottom left); A woman
walking on Anomabo
Beach (bottom right) .
Robert Harding, Getty Images, ANP Photo