Cape Coast! Kakum!

Quickly, because I have 15 minutes and don't want to pay for more time. I'm
writing from Hans Cottage Botel (not a typo) in Cape Coast, where the
restaurant and some facilities are on stilts above a pond with crocodiles.
Owned by some couple that had this idea, took the risk, and then the
crocodiles moved in. There's also a monkey in a cage that we played with
this morning and he actually tried to grab one girl's fake gold bracelets and
reach into our bags, quite a funny little fellow. More expensive and less
clean than big millie's last weekend, but the shower has running water.

Cape Coast, Kakum, wow. We arrived yesterday and just hung around, had
dinner, and got up early this morning to go to Kakum national park, one of
the protected remants of West Africa's rainforest. We did the canopy walk
high above most treetops, canopy to canopy (net and planks of wood, suspended
on cables attatched to the highest trees), which was great fun for people
like me who don't mind heights at all. Then some of us did the hour hike
through the rainforest. Let's see. At the beginning there were two trees,
similar rlooking but different breeds, growing right next to eachother that
the guide says are called Mr. and Mrs. because the "Mr." is used for pestles
and the "Mrs." for mortar/the large bowl in grinding fufu. Haha, quite
dirty. Another tree which has perfumey sap was the incest tree. We saw a
tree with spikes to protect its soft bark that's used to treat asthma, a
great big tree larger than a few cars at the trunk that doesn't have deep
roots but a huge base, another similar but smaller one with snake like roots
protruding from the ground, a tree that supposedly treats broken bones, one
for ulcers that's also addictive, a vine that will eventually kill its tree
that's poisonous, a tree that makes the ebony black wood used in piano keys,
and a few other useful trees as well as just the fact that I hiked through
the rainforest, ran over a few patches of ants and got bitten by them, etc.
Also talked with some peace corps volunteers taking a break from their
service in Mauritania.

Then we went to the Cape Coast Castle where we saw the slave dungeons and
governor's quarters and all of that. Quite intense. The tour guide was a
bit vivid at times which, this is kind of hard to describe, but seemed
disrespectful almost, just in acting out the way a slave would walk or
whatever. The gate where they used to ship slaves out of, called the gate of
no return, now leads to local fishing. We walked around but couldn't really
find a good market and we had dinner right by the castle overlooking the
ocean with foam and huge crashing waves and a cool, nearly cold breeze. The
service sucked but I tried ground nut soup and now I've had that and fufu
(just a taste, it's not good at all, gelatonous) and the components of red-
red though not together. It felt like a really busy day, and certainly very
cool things to see. Tomorrow we'll do Elmina before heading back to camp.

Travelling with us are an English girl (dead ringer for Kiera Knightly) and
an Irish girl who volunteer down the road in Kosoa and their host family is a
bit protective. They'll probably travel with us often. Very nice girls.

I've looked a bit at the Uganda guide book and I doubt I can afford the
liscence necessary to trek where the gorillas are, but I think I might white
water raft the mouth of the nile and there's tons of other wildlife to see.
Though if it's like here you can only see it at night or absurdly early in
the morning. We'll see.

Time to sign off, I've been online quite a long time here.