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. 

My ghanian family lived in a new settlement in the north-east part of Cape Coast. This district was called the Fourth Ridge. I instantly noticed that this terrain is still pretty virgin and pure. The hills, the characteristic red soil, the natural grassy meadows and forests formed of papaya, plantain and palm trees. Even though human presence was noticeable by concrete blocks of newly raised houses that popped up every here and there, the area really had this tranquility of a pure african jungle. The rumours about lack of safety in the neighbourhood were quite hard to believe. 

On my first morning before going to work I wandered around the vicinity trying to capture the morning mists hovering above the hills.

I worked in a small building on the Cape Coast University campus. The office that employed me was working on upgrading facilities and landscaping on the campus, and I participated in the process of designing the university football stadium. 

The campus was enormous, basically forming a city within a city. To walk to the main gate from my office I passed a literal jungle of fantastic tropical trees and bushes including different specieses of palms and bamboo. All growing naturally.

The campus had a wide avenue connecting the gates with the buildings within. We walked only around a tiny bit of the campus, but I know that the campus includes lecture halls, administration buildings, bookshops, printing press, banks, schools, preschools, a hospital, muslim and christian temples, a football pitch and many many more.

Ghana is investing big funds in education, out of a dire need for educated and qualified workers in various fields. University Of Cape Coast estimates to educate over 70 000 undergraduates and 10 000 post graduates, so it's no wonder that the campus is enormous and still developing.

Here I captured my favourite shots of street life. The rush of a market. Everything covered in a thin layer of dust that billows in the air every time a car pases by. Women carrying their products on special platers on their heads. Vivid smells, sights and tastes. On the streets you can buy absolutely everything - from groceries or clothing items up to mobile phones. Supermarkets exist too, but when I realised what are the price differences between a supermarket and street-vendors I fully understand why most of the transactions are still made on the street. 

Products that are available to eat were often a matter of surprise for me in a way that I never would have expected it to be. For example, the only milk you can buy is canned milk. There is no custom of drinking fresh milk, even though Ghana has a big stock of cattle and dairy products could be easily manufactured. When you ask for tea you get a hot-chocolate-like beverage called Milo. Drinking water is sold mostly in rectangular plastic bags and to drink you had to rip off a corner of the bag and suck - this is a very funny experience to be honest. Every meal has to include meat or at least egg. Ghanians love meat. I was lucky not to be a vegetarian.

Walking on most streets in Ghana you need to be super careful not to get hit by a car and not to fall into the open gutter that usually is deep enough to fall in or at least break a leg.

To keep the chronology of the photos, now is a good time to show you how the villages on the road leading to Cape Coast look like. Shooting from the window is a very common practice that I do, even though I risk the photos to be blurry or unplanned. 

A week after I arrived to Ghana I finally went to see the Ocean. Actually, my workplace was close to the beach, literally a 10 minute walk away. Cape coast has two beaches, one is very close to the castle and the other one is right by the campus - this time I went to the latter one.

Honestly? This was the most beautiful beach that I have ever seen in my life. I have seen quite a few beaches in my life in different places, Portugal, Spain, Malaysia, Thailand... none of them seemed as beautiful as this one. Specially, because I have seen it during the golden hour on the sunset. It was like a true paradise, with the untamed ocean and the palm trees. I could spend endless hours just sitting on the sand and listening to the waves breaking.

For the first time in my life I actually felt like crying for this reason, and I suddenly understood that all the raging on the internet about recycling and plastic disposal. Is actually true, and for a purpose. The most beautiful beach that I have seen in my life was flooded with trash, all the plastic bags and bottles casually lying around every here and there... it was heartbreaking. Honestly.

Another curiosity of Cape Coast area was the crocodile pond, a property a little to the north of Cape Coast. I can't say that they have domesticated those magnificent animals, but tamed them in a way that they were not agressive at all and allowed the tourist to... touch them. 

We were told that the crocodiles are very calm if they are fed with chicken on regular hours. A few weeks later I was told exactly the same thing in Paga crocodile sanctuary over 700km to the north. Maybe it was actually true. Anyway, the experience of petting a wild crocodile was something I will remember until the rest of my days.

The father of the family with which I stayed used to be a reverand of a Catholic Church of Ghana. Because of that I had the opportunity of participating in a few ghanian religious ceremonies, despite the fact that I am a very non-religious person in general. 

On the graduation of his biblical school course I was asked to take a few pictures since they knew that I am interested in photography, so I did it with sheer enthusiasm. I am honestly grateful for this experience, because even though it might not be my piece of cake I could get a little closer to the core of the Ghanian culture.

On a different occasion I wandered around a typical market, getting some groceries - we were looking for some good yam - a special species of a potato that is very large and looked like a log.

Last but not least, I visited the Cape Coast castle - the main slave-trading point of the golden coast and the gult of Guinea. The history of this place was daunting, it was this kind of an experience that once you listen to the tourguide you feel humbled and ashamed for humanity in general. 

The castle was raised in 1555 by the Portuguese, however it was at it's most superior at the reign of the Great Britain. It had few small cells in the dungeons with horrible conditions (no windows, no airflow, low ceilings) in which hundreds of slaves were cramped as they waited to be shipped to Europe or America. Well, it was not nice and not easy but I believe it was a good experience and I would reccomend it. The castle itself looks like a typical colonial residence and you might not think of its dark purpose.

Next to the castle, there's a nice beach - the most known in Cape Coast. It seemed less beautiful than the one I have shown you before, but at least it was cleaned of all the trash. At least it had a handful of bars and other venues next to it.