The oldest European building south of the Sahara and a must see so we went. Built in 1482 by Portuguese traders, the castle was originally built to protect the gold trade. (El Mina means “the mine” in Portuguese.) It was\u00a0appropriated\u00a0to accomodate the slave trade after being captured by the Dutch in 1637 and in the 1800’s it came under British ownership.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n We arrived before Jeremy, Louis, Justin, Laura and Lauren and had already decided against going on the castle tour. On top of the reasonable admission fee, the tour guide proposed an additional fee to bring in our cameras which was double the original price. We were unwilling to support this kind of nickel and diming behavior and Bob had toured the castle interior as a young boy so we said “No thanks.” Our friends confirmed the impressions Bob remembered from the 60’s. A bit depressing,\u00a0surprisingly\u00a0pretty and smelling of urine.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Here is a photo of Elmina Castle taken in 1972 which we found amid photos of Bob’s family when there were in Ghana.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n FAMOUS COMPASS<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n This is the compass Christopher Columbus used to calibrate his compass before setting sail for the New World, something the tour guide failed to point out to Jeremy and company.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n UNDER THE GUN<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0 We were prepared to get mobbed by vendors and were not disappointed. We spent some time chatting up these capable young ladies and even watched the watermelon vendor dance the Azonto without shaking her tray. Needless to say, we did not buy anything. We prefer instead to trade smile for smile, English for Twi and story for story.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n BACKSIDE<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n The backside of the castle was an interesting combination of boatyard and toilet. The light was surely on our side on this day!<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n ELMINA HARBOR<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Colorful, bustling and crowded, the harbor provides sensory overload.<\/span><\/p>\n Elmina is home to 33,000 people, a significant portion of who were busily buying and selling stuff on the crowded streets or hanging laundry on their boats or fishing and so on.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n FORT SAO JAGO DA MINA<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n From Elmina Castle we could see Sao Jago da mina, the second castle in Elmina Harbor so we walked up the steep walkway to see what we could see.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n LAUNDRY DAY<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n We saw lots of drying laundry and a great view of Elmina Castle, the boat yard and harbor.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n HAND MADE FISHING BOATS<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n We were\u00a0mesmerized\u00a0by the simple beauty of the fishing boats the hulls of which are made from a single tree trunk with rough-hewn boards above.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n LARGER THEN THEY LOOK<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n From a distance, the boats look like toys but they really are quite large.<\/span><\/p>\n We are tempted to call and get a price on the solid part of a starter boat.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n ANACHRONISM<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Lurking about behind the castle, we were transported back in time to hundreds of years ago until we spotted the remains of a basketball court.<\/span><\/p>\n ____________________________________________________________<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Elmina Harbor – a day trip to be remembered <\/p>\n <\/p>\n ELMINA CASTLE<\/p>\n \n The oldest European building south of the Sahara and a must see so we went. Built in 1482 by Portuguese traders, the castle was originally built to protect the gold trade. (El Mina […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":925,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sub-story","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=676"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1046,"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676\/revisions\/1046"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/20120728ElminaObruniWaha.jpg\" "\\"20120728ElminaObruniWaha\\"")
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