Adventures in Teaching: The Americans Come to Visit- Part 1

My friends Ellen and Tracy told me on Thanksgiving day that they had bought tickets to come see me in Ghana. I was excited everyday for months before their arrival on Wednesday, Jan 28.

I picked them up at the Accra international airport and then took them back to my hotel, Joska Lodge in Osu. We then wandered around Osu. We got lunch at Frankies, a restaurant with a ton of non-Ghanaian dishes, while the Black Stars (Ghana’s football team) beat South Africa. We shopped around the main strip and then made our way to the STC bus station to catch the afternoon bus to Cape Coast. We ended up leaving around 3pm on a bus headed to Cote d’Ivoire. The trip took about 3 ½ hours and was beautiful.

Once we dropped at the STC in Cape Coast we found a cab to Elmina (a town less than 10 minutes from Cape Coast) to our hotel- The Coconut Grove’s Bridge House. It was beautiful.

Our room was very nice.

It is less than 100 meters from the Elmina Castle. Our hotel also had a great view of all of the fishing boats and the fish market next door. It was a great location. Did I mention hot running water and a/c?

The next morning we had the standard free breakfast of all Ghanaian hotels I have stayed at- eggs (usually fried), toasted “butter bread”(the Ghanaian equivalent of white bread), a fruit of some sort (today pineapple), and tea or Nescafe’. I only have the bread with jam and sometimes tea. Today nothing since I freak out on traveling days (more on my IBS on a later date- all I have to say is it sucks and runs my life).

We hit the road with Brother, the cab driver from the day before, and went to Kakum National Park.

Here are Tracy, Ellen, and Myself at the park.

Above is Ellen with an elephant skull.

There we visited the nice gift shop, museum about wildlife of Ghana, and then hiked to the well known bridges that hang high above this rainforest’s canopy. It was so much fun!

Below is our fearless leader.

Tracy is showing how to be safe walking across the canopy.

Here is another person that came on our tour. He is training to work at a national park too!

Our guide also showed us different plants and tons of fun facts about the park, but what I remember most was looking across the bridge I was walking on and seeing my friend Ellen walking along one behind me and thinking, “I can’t believe I am in Ghana with Ellen and Tracy- how amazing”.