More about Ghana

The Ghanians want to develop an active tourist trade--but they aren'tready for it yet. Roads are totally inadiquate. Well over 75 people from our ship (that's just the ones who went to the clinic and got tested) develped E Coli from food in Ghana, even though none of us drank the local water or ate food not cooked. We all came with medicine, so all are fine now--but people were horribly sick for days. I sent a post card from the only place I saw that had them--the castle of Elmina, overlooking the sea.
Morocco, on the other hand, had a well developed tourinst industry that provided phoney tourist experiences which were what the Moroccan's seemed to think the Americans and Europeans expected.
Slaves in Ghana were kept in dungeons at Elmina Castle and the Cape Coast Castle(where we had tours), among others, to be shipped to the Caribbean and then to South and North America. The slave trade was so horrendous that I will not even describe what we saw. I included a picture of the two of us at the beautiful castle overlooking the sea, where local fishermen go out every day by the hundreds, fishing for one of their main food staples. The people earn their living by fishing and/or farming. Fiftypercent of their food is still imported, so the small farmers (there are no large farms) do not grow enough to feed even just the people of Ghana.
Rob went on a trip I missed (I just need to take a day off to restup) to a national park in the rain forest. I sent a photo of Rob walking across the swinging bridge in the canopy of the rain forest.He loved it.
His trip began with a traffic adventure. The roads ofGhana are clogged with traffic at all times. The guide for this particular trip had a friend on the police force who lead their big tour bus with his motorcycle. Cars pulled off the road to the left and right. It was very exciting. The bus went fast right through the path cut by the policeman on his motorcycle--sometimes pulling over, with the bus right behind, onto the opposite side of the road into oncoming traffic, which pulled off the road quickly to get out of the way. Look at the picture of the motorcycle (below) taken through the front window of the bus and imagine a big bus speeding right behind.
Ghana is full of vehicles. Over 95% of transportation moves by cars on the highways which are totally overwhelmed by the traffic. Having the policeman at the beginning of the trip was great--but they were still 5 hours late getting back to the ship because the bus broke down and the trafficwas horrible. Trip after trip got back to the bus late. Some people had 12 and 18 hour bus trips because of traffic and delays at boarders. It took Rob's group 7 hours to get back from what was supposedto be a 3 hour return trip.
I sent Liza a picture of her Dad kissing a fish as we crossed the
Equator--part of a day of silly ceremonies. Apparently it struck
Schuyler as hilariously funny and he rolled over laughing. That humor
is clearly a guy thing. I am glad he enjoyed it.
I still love shipboard life. Tomorrow we land at Cape Town to spend
6 days there. I am looking forward to it very much in spite of a
pre-port meeting last night telling us how dangerous South Africa can
be for us. We can drink the water and walk freely around the
commercial area near the port. But the violent crime rate is high,
credit card theft is high, and aids is more prevalent than anywhere
else in the world. We are not to go into the Township around Cape Town
(the slums around Cape Town) unless we are part of an official tour
group with a local guide, no taxis to Townships because it is too
dangerous to us. I want to go--but will heed the warning and go only
on a group tour with Rob. I am not a risk taker.