Cape Coast Festival

The road to Cape Coast and Elmina is now becoming very familiar but I always enjoy a few days at Kosa on the beach. It is so relaxing and they always have mashed potato on the menu. I rarely see potatoes so this is a real treat. The big disappointment this time was that I hadn’t anticipated am off-season for lobster! We did find crabs for sale along the road, though. They looked exciting but we decided to give them a miss.

Our time here was short as there was a large area of Ghana to be covered in 2 weeks. How fortunate were we when it was discovered that the annual festival in Cape Coast was the day we had planned to visit the castle and city. In typical African style, the start time was about 4 hours out.

We had time to take in the slave castle, for me the fourth visit, and have lunch before threading our way through crowds to find a place in their Jubilee Park in order to watch the festivities. Along the road we came across a group of expert roller bladders and excited revellers, some dressed in bright costumes with masks, familiar we realised from the front cover of the Ghana guide that has become my “bible” to Ghana here.

The news reached us that the new President was due to attend this event. No doubt that was a contributing factor to the more than a little late start. His arrival was preceded by the grand entrance of Chiefs and representatives of local Asafo Societies. Their elaborate umbrellas shielding them from the sun and announcing their superiority never fail to impress me.

There were colourful groups of all ages singing and dancing.

The President finally arrived in a cavalcade of SUVs driving unnecessarily fast into the arena. The man waving to everyone was not the President, I was assured by children around me. He was the nervous looking guy in the brown suit, pictured here in the middle.  

We stayed long enough to see a stilt walker and some characters in carnival costumes before we decided we would leave the residents of Cape Coast to their celebrations and head back to the beach.