Kyle Crichton is a summer intern for OneGreenThing. A recent graduate of Bucknell University, Kyle's first blog for OGT highlights his experiences in Ghana.
Accra, Ghana (via Shutterstock)
As my final weeks at college were winding down and friends were making plans for beach week, cross-country moves, and some well-deserved relaxation, I worked on convincing my girlfriend Melanie to travel to and throughout Ghana with me. For the first time, I was taking on the challenge of planning a complicated trip on a tight budget to a country that I fell in love with during my semester abroad at The University of Cape Coast in the Spring of 2023. There was a bit of blind trust in Melanie’s decision (which made me all the more careful with planning), but I believed our three-week visit was going to being full of exciting, perspective altering experiences as we immersed ourselves in a Ghanaian culture -- its food, natural landscapes, conservation ethic, and history.
After roughly 14 hours of traveling, we landed in Accra which is the capital of Ghana just one week after graduating college. Accra is a beautiful city with impressive architecture on the eastern coast. This is the most touristy city in Ghana. Here you can find any cuisine you might be craving. They have fine dining and fast food. There are nice hotels and football stadiums. It is a true westernized city.
During my semester in Cape Coast, I had only briefly visited Accra so while the western comforts were surprising to me, these first few days proved useful in easing Melanie into the African culture. After a couple days in Accra with Melanie getting her bearings, she began eating Ghanaian food and learned a bit of Twi which is the local language. Everyone speaks both Twi and English in Ghana. I breathed a huge sigh of relief as I saw my girlfriend getting comfortable and curious.
We soon left Accra to head to what might be my favorite Ghanaian town, Busua, a fishing town nestled in the middle of dense rainforests and extreme biodiversity on the Western coast of Ghana. We took two shared vans and a taxi in order to get there. While studying in Cape Coast, I escaped to Busua on many weekends because I couldn’t get enough of the relaxed vibe and scenery. The locals rely on the fish they catch every day in order to make a living. But surf tourism has started to trickle into the economy, as Busua has slowly become recognized as one of the best surfing destinations in West Africa.
There is one restaurant in the town and all the locals, many of whom are impressive surfers, know each other. Melanie and I spent a couple days there. We were either on the beach playing with kids or we were in the water surfing. At night we spent time at a small bar with a pool table that stayed open late. It might come as a surprise to learn that Ghanaians take their pool VERY seriously. Don’t underestimate them. Busua is a place with clear waters and minimal amounts of pollution. It is a very simple place but I think that is why Busua is one of my favorite places on Earth.
Next we went to Cape Coast which is on the coast between Accra and Busua. As I mentioned, it is also where I went to University during my time in Ghana. I made lots of friends here and was excited to reconnect.
Cape Coast is a big city in Ghana but it is obvious that it doesn’t get attention from the government. The roads are poor, the buildings are worn down. Stores and street food are sold out of huts made from loose scrap metal. There's a lot of trash and the easiest way for Cape Coast to get rid of it is just to burn it.
Like Busua, Cape Coast started as a fishing village and has grown since. While fishing is still a major part of Cape Coast, sprawling markets and the University of Cape Coast have made the city bigger and more popular. Cape Coast is also home to part of American history that is often untold - two major "slave castles," ports where enslaved people were held, traded, and auctioned. Africans were brought to Cape Coast from all over West Africa. Witnessing the “Door of No Return, ” from where enslaved people were shipped by enslavers helped me face our complicated history in America. Ghanaians also have a fraught relationship with this history. Today, Ghana takes a solemn pride in sharing these landmarks and are doing their best to help Africans around the world try to retrace their ancestry—a challenging task through their new government initiative, the "Door of Return."
Much of our time in Cape Coast was spent walking around, checking out the work of the many artists who live here and introducing Melanie to my friends. We also visited the orphanage that I had volunteered at weekly during my stay.
We enjoyed lots of Ghanaian dishes such as fufu, groundnut soup and red red. Melanie’s favorite was a popular street food called waakye which is a variation of rice and beans.
I wish we could have spent more time in Cape Coast but we left in order to visit Mole National Park which is in Northern Ghana. In order to get there, we had to take a shared van back to Accra and fly to Tamale.
Mole National Park is known for their wild African Elephants. We spent two nights in the park, and we saw elephants, baboons, warthogs, crocodiles, antelope, and more.
Mole National Park was established in 1958 and it came with a bit of controversy. When the park was established, they relocated many locals because they didn’t see them as part of the wilderness they were trying to conserve.
Although Ghana has done a great job preserving the wildlife and species within the park it is important to consider the people who were most affected by the decision.
These locals complain that the park has taken from them their best farmland, hunting grounds and sacred sites. But Mole remains as the country’s largest protected area, rich in biodiversity and ecotourism potential.
It is an important elephant habitat and home to over 90 animal and 300 bird species.
Mole was the last stop of our Ghanaian adventure before taking a 15-hour bus ride back to Accra for our flight home to America.
I feel fortunate to have been able to share this very special place with Melanie. It was bittersweet as we stepped back in the United States and left Ghana.
But we will carry these expanded perspectives from experiencing Ghanaian culture, conservation, and our shared complicated history forward.
As we reentered daily life, I was reminded of the Mandela quote: "There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered."
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