Kakum National Park and Elmina Castle

After hiking Wli Falls 2 weeks ago we realized we needed something more hardcore, so we decided to hike the jungle from the top of the tree line at Kakum National Park. Kakum is a canopy walk above the tree line, about 40m (120 feet) above ground. There are 7 sets of rope bridges that you walk across.



In this picture, I thought it'd be fun to do part of the bridge backwards.



You can see for miles, it was quite the thrill!


The place I knew I had to see in Ghana was Elmina Castle. Elmina Castle is where the majority of western slaves were shipped out of. Slaves were gathered from all over western Africa, taken to Elmina in Ghana and shipped out to various parts of the west.

Background of Elmina: The castle was built by the Portugese in the 1400's to trade gold and other resources. The Portugese needed more man power in South America, so they started shipping out slaves from western Africa to what is now Brazil. In the 1600's the Dutch took over the Castle and started doing the same. The Dutch moved the slaves from Africa over to the Carribean and Dutch colonies in present day Latin America. And then in the 1800's the Brisith colonized Ghana and started shipping out slaves to the U.S., Jamaica and other British colonies.

The picture album on Picasa details the castle and what we saw. I'm glad we got to see such an important part of world history.