Wandering, but not lost

After two days in Accra I was packed in a bus and I finally arrived to Cape Coast, my new home for the following five weeks. I was accepted for an internship in an architectural company working at the University Of Cape Coast thanks to IAESTE organisation. This was the reason for this whole excursion. IAESTE have found a local family with who I could live for the period of my internship. Long story short, I will get into details later in the post. 

Cape Coast is a very important point on the map of Ghana, for centuries. It used to be the capital city before Ghana gained independence from the British, when the function was moved to Accra. It's a city of 170000 inhabitants located by the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, overlooking the gulf of Guinea, about 130km west from Accra. Cape Coast is a significant fishing port, however its mostly known for the castle that lies in the heart of the city just by the shore of the ocean, and that castle has been the biggest slavetrade centre in the whole gulf of Guinea. 

Ghana. Africa. I have spent five weeks on an internship in Ghana thanks to IAESTE programme. Five weeks, of living with a local family and working in an architectural office. Travelling on weekends. More about life in Ghana I shall describe in Cape Coast post. For now, let's take a closer look at Accra, the capital. The only international airport of the country is located there, so after my inbound flight I spent my first days there before being transferred to Cape Coast. 

Accra is fairly different than other Ghanian cities. Extremely busy and overcrowded, it has over 2 milion inhabitants in the metropolitan area. Most parts of Accra seem to look the same, a couple of three-lane arteries with everlasting traffic leading to a maze of suburban streets with a village vibe. Most buildings are one up to three stories high, and it's very common for building sites to be left uncompleted. Inbetween houses there are plantain trees and palm trees popping up here and there. I have been to Accra a few times, and the first three this was the only image of Accra that I had in my mind, because nobody really took me to see any sights in the city. I saw it mostly from a window of an Uber or a tro-tro.