Banjul, The Gambia

 

The Gambia is an unusual country. It runs along the Gambia river and is surrounded by Senegal and the Atlantic Ocean. The national namesake river demarcates the elongated shape of the country, which has an area of 11,300 square kilometers (4,400 sq mi) and a population of 2,870,553.

Rushing to help with car on fire

The island of Banjul is its capital. I decided to take a 9-hour tour to explore the family and story of Roots by Alex Haley, since it was a UNESCO world heritage site. We had several encounters during the trip. First, we drove into the wrong port to reach our small boat. Then while waiting at a stop sign to turn on the main highway, we witnessed a 3-car crash. One of the cars flipped over onto its roof and smoke began pouring out. A crowd of people immediately ran toward the car to pull out the driver. One fellow had the presence of mind to get a fire extinguisher and began to cut down the fire, while others finally righted the car so it could be pulled off the highway as traffic backed up. We made our turn and then our fanbelt broke. Luckily, there was a bus ahead of us and we weren’t far from our boat. It came to pick us up and we finally boarded the boat.  

Our tour boat

We started our 3-hour boat trip to reach the village of Albreda on the other side of the Gambia river from our ship. Here we saw a replica of the flagpole which according to legend would offer freedom to any slave who touched it after escaping from the fort on Kunta Kinteh Island. (Of course, few slaves knew how to swim that far.) Here also is a statue commemorating the end of slavery.  

Freedom Flag Pole

We visited the slave museum here (underwhelming), though I learned that George Washington Carver’s family was enslaved from here. He later became the first black graduate of Iowa State University. He was known for encouraging crop rotation and his work on peanuts and sweet potatoes. Then we walked to the village of Juffureh, the birthplace of Kuna Kinte, the central figure of the Halley novel. Here we were supposed to meet the 10^th generation of that family but never did. We did here the story of the family. We enjoyed our lunch as we cruised around Kunta Kinteh island, home to the wreckage of the St. James Fort that protected where the slaves were held before transport. The fort also was used to stop slave runners from the Gambia river, after Britain abolished slavery. Then we had our 3-hour boat ride back to the ship. This time with waves splashing into our boat as we crossed the wide mouth of the river. Unfortunately, this was one of the most boring tours I’ve been on. Too much transportation time for just a few sights.

St. James Fort on Kunta Kinteh Isand

The Gambia was our 111^th country.

Sea Days on the Sirenia

 We had eleven sea days on this trip. What did we do? Of course we ate delicious meals. The food was top rate. We ate together almost every night. There was a lot of variety and always the option for a steak, salmon, and a souffle each night. 

Jim, Andy, John, and Mary

We had lectures from several speakers. The most interesting series was from Adam Tanner, who gave us our history lessons about the African countries, the slave trade, and cruise ships. Some people joined this cruise because he was a speaker here. Dorik Stow had a series about geology, especially about the oceans over time and the major events leading to the major extinction events in the earth’s history. I found his talk about the dinosaur extinction event to be especially enlightening they had been dying out for several hundred million years and either a volcano or a asteroid caused the final decline. Christopher Beckett  brought us general history topics, particularly interesting was the talks on the American Revolution from a British point of view, pointing out that our ‘taxation without representation’ from the British viewpoint was American helping with the huge debt that Britain had after the long war with the French including in America. The taxes were significantly less than Brittons were paying at the time.

Geology and the Oceans

We also played a lot of trivia. Jim and Andy are particularly good at trivia. We gained four other players on our team: Tim, Eileen, Bart, Pamela. Each had their expertise and as a team we took one of the first 3 places almost every time we played together, usually first or second. At the end of the trip, we came in first for the daily trivia. There were also lots of games: shuffle board, golf putting, etc.      

Pam, Bart, Eileen, Andy, Mary, John, Jim, and Tim

We also had a Equator Crossing ceremony. We crossed the equator after Sao Tome, but we only rain storm during the planned ceremony. So it was held on April 14th instead. 

We enjoyed almost all the entertainers. We had 5 shows from the production team and band. Almost all the guest entertainers were superb: violinist, singers, comic, and classical guitar. It was also nice to have the show people lead the games, we got to know them well. 

Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire

 

Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) has a population of 30 million, primarily consisting of five ethnic groups, though it has over sixty groups with 78 languages. The country is 42% Islam and 40% Christian. The country gained independence from France on August 7, 1960. The leader of the independence movement ruled as President for the next 33 years. After a couple of civil wars, the country regained peace in 2011. The country has a strong economy primarily based on cocoa (40% of the world supply) and coffee (5^th largest in the world). The economy is the second fastest growing in Africa (7.1%).

Local group enjoying the forest preserve

Our excursion was to the Banco Forest Reserve, the first National Park in the country. Traffic was a nightmare in the city – we had a police escort to get us through faster. The Reserve forms one of the borders of the city. It is the second largest urban park in the world. It has both native plants and many plants brought in from elsewhere, especially in its arboretum. We entered through a thick forest of bamboo just wide enough for our bus to travel. Cars going the other way often had to park with their wheels in the ditch in the few wide spots of the road for us to pass. (Our police escort helped!) The park provides about 40% of Abidjan’s water. 

Azize explaining the uses for a tree

Our guide, Azize was born and raised in the village at the center of the park. He explained the medicines that were derived from the various trees or leaves. We walked a little over 5 kilometers mostly stopping to see various tree species, and a few butterflies. We could hear birds on occasion but never saw one. The park is home to the Forestry school where students spend six months to become rangers in the park system. The most interesting part of the hike was when we saw huge catfish in the river running through the park.

Côte d'Ivoire was our 110^th country.

Sekondi-Takoradi, Ghana

 

Ghana was formerly known as the Gold Coast and was colonized by the British. The population is 32.1 million people. Most of the nation speaks English and is Christian, but they drive on the right side of the road to avoid confusion with their neighboring countries. Most of the land is owned by the chiefs and their families (tribes). The hierarchy is great chiefs, chiefs, elders, and the general population. While there is a national parliament and government, people most closely relate to their family. In fact, you can ask to stay with anyone in the family, sharing shelter, food, and money. If you get married traditionally that is a marriage between families, not just individuals. The majority of who live in Cape Coast are Fante.

 

Along the road to Cape Coast

We bussed for a little over two hours to go 38 miles from our dock in Ghana to the Cape Coast Castle. We encountered lots of speed bumps on this major two-lane road. Anytime we entered a village, there were speed bumps to control how fast we traveled, because of course there were lots of shops and people next to the road. This road was in the process of being expanded to four lanes, so many of the structures along the road were marked with X’s to indicate this building would be demolished. The people living there were compensated but imagine that they no longer would have the presence of a major road right in front of their building.

Cape Coast Castle

The Cape Coast Castle was built by the Swedes, it was subsequently used by the Portuguese, Dutch, French, and English. This was one of 30-40 castles built along the Gold Coast.  Slaves were marched here from all along the coast or from the interior of West Africa. The slaves were auctioned to various ships in the main courtyard and then the males were separated from the females, and each were ‘stored’ in the dungeons. The dungeons were underneath where the church was. Up to 150 slaves were in each room. We noticed a small trench where they peed and a larger trench for defection. The dungeons were quite dark and very hot and humid. We toured both the male and female dungeons and then walked through the ‘door of no return’ which led to the ships. Today, the beach is covered with fishing boats flying various flags.

Fishing boats outside the Door of No Return

Of course, females of nearby villages became ‘wenches’ for the white soldiers and officers. Many mulatto children were born in the castle, and a school system was started for their education. I’ve been reading “Homegoing” by Yaa Gyasi and the story revolves around this castle, and the family that starts when the Captain of the castle takes a woman as his wench. One branch of the family continues to live in Ghana while the other branch is shipped to America. Both sides of the family struggle with their blackness in a white man’s world. An interesting read while we were visiting.

The Dungeon in Elmina Castle

We then proceeded to Elmina Castle, built by the Portuguese in 1482. This was the first trading post built on the Gulf of Guinea, concentrating on shipping gold and other goods out of Africa. Later it became involved in the slave trade and used by the Dutch, and the British.    

Ghana was our 109^th country.

Cotonou, Benin

 

Amazon Warrior

The kingdom of Dahomey existed for 300 years until the French colonized this area in 1878. The Amazon statue represents the bravery of women warriors of that age. Benin gained its independence on August 1^st, 1960. Cotonou is the largest city in Benin. As we entered the city, there was construction everywhere: new buildings and new highways. The president of the last 10 years has focused on investing in the country. Agriculture is the largest sector of the economy: pineapple, cotton, and cashews. But they are trying to broaden the economy to manufacturing, services, and tourism.

Voodoo God of Fertility

We drove to Ouidah, the center of the Vodún (Voodoo) philosophy/religion. Vodún teaches of a single divine creator being with many spirits who govern different aspect of nature and society. We started at the Sacred Forest to see representations of these spirits. gods, the temple of the earth. 

John at the Python Temple

We went on to the Python Temple (opposite from the Catholic Church). The python is a sacred animal here. Inside is where parents learn the name of their newborn from their ancestors. At 3 months the baby is scarred on the face with the fang symbols of the python. This tells everyone that they are from Ouidah. Then the villagers danced the Sakpata traditional dance for us.

Five forts were built here by Denmark, Portugal, France, England, and Holland to gather slaves from the interior and hold them until the Slave ships came. They were fed two meals a month to see if they could survive the three-month trip to the Americas. Thirty percent would die on the passage chained together lying in the ship. The Gate of No Return commemorates their final departure.

Gate of No Return Memorial

While we were learning about voodoo, Tim was exploring Ganvie lying in Lake Nokoué on Stilts. The Tofinu people live on the lake in wooden houses on stilts. They sell fish raised on small fish farms or fish they catch on the open water. There is a hospital, school, and government buildings. Produce and other items are brought in from the 'outside' by vendors in small boats.

Fishing Village of Ganvie

Sao Tome and Principe

We had 3 sea days including Easter to get to the next port. During this time, there was extra security personnel on board and most of the external lighting was turned off at night. While we had no problems there have been pirating instances to other ships in the past. 

Sao Tome is known as the Land of Chocolate. It is the smallest African country with only 200,000 inhabitants. Chocolate is created from cocoa beans, which originated in South America. Each pod contains 20 to 30 beans in a white pulp. The beans need to be fermented for three to nine days, the shells are removed and the beans are ground. Then a drink was made from the powder. But the magic ingredient that gives chocolate its sweet flavor is sugar. Gowing sugar was a labor-intensive process and led to the huge slave trade. In the 16^th Century, Sao Tome was the leading sugar producer in the world. In the 19^th century. In the 19^th century, slavery was banned in Brazil, so Portugal began planting cacao plants in Sao Tome and Angola, Portugal’s African possessions. In 1900 Sao Tome became the largest cocoa producer, representing 15% of the world’s production.

We visited the Cathedral, which took over 400 years to be built. The problem was pirates, who destroyed the Cathedral numerous times. We walked to Independence Square where we watched a Tchiloli dance, which tells a story of death and betrayal from a 16^th story about Charlamagne that reached the islands and is celebrated in dance. We then visited a nearby fishing village where we saw the Dance of the Congo. We continued to the History Museum for the island and finally to Fort San Sebatian. Here was a statue of King Amador, who led a slave rebellion in 1595. He is considered a national hero.

Fisherman on the beach

Sao Tome and Principe was out 107^th country.

Walvis Bay

Walvis Bay is known for its profuse wildlife in the sea and as the entrance to the Namib Desert. The wildlife is abundant because the Benguela current from Antarctica and the nutrients surface along the coast, creating a huge ecosystem. Jim and Tim went kayaking on the Bay and was surrounded by seal pups cavorting in the ocean.

 

We did a tour of the desert, which has huge dunes near the ocean. The sand comes down the Orange River, is swept north by the current and then the winds pick the sand up creating enormous sand dunes. Dune Seven, the tallest, rises 7 kilometers outside town. 

Sand Dunes

We headed to Namib-Naukluft National Park to see the Welwitschia Plant.

Welwitschia Plant

This plant can live for 1500 years; this one is about 600 years old. It has a 35 foot taproot and morning fog from the ocean provides water. The bark structure grows about 1 mm per year. The female has large cones, while the male has smaller ones. The cones start to grow in December and drop off in April. The plant supports several endemic insects. The white spotted beetle fertilize the plant, meanwhile a red bug feeds on the beetle. Pencil bush and the dollar plant were the other vegetation nearby. We went on to see a moon landscape formed by the erosion of the mountains after the melting of former glaciers. We took a break in an oasis in the nearby valley, watered by the river flowing underground. We would later see this dry river near the ocean when we crossed a bridge over it, needed only in the years it flows briefly above ground. 

Namibia's Moonscape