Gone from Ghana and Neptune Day

Me at Elmina Castle a 2nd time and Kakum Nat'l Park canopy
September 25
Ghana Day 4

I forgot to talk about my ‘exciting’ taxi ride back to the ship last night. Fred got us a taxi (there were four of us) and on the way back we were stopped at a police barricade. The police officer leaned in and him and the driver began talking in another language. When he wasn’t letting us through I knew something was up. Then the guard said, “License. Let me see your license.” Apparently the driver did not have a license (I get the feeling many of them don’t). So our taxi driver gets out of the car and walks away, out of sight. Meanwhile, the four of us are just sitting and waiting. I asked the guard if we should find another cab. He told us no. The driver reappeared and began talking furiously with the cop. A man walked over and introduced himself as the brother of the guard who was an off-duty detective visiting his brother. He gave us his card and told us to call him if we were in trouble. The driver peaked inside the car and opened the ashtray which revealed a wad of money. I was pretty sure this meant a bribe. He later grabbed some money and slipped it discreetly to the cop who let us pass. We didn’t really feel that we were in danger through any of this.
Today I was signed up for Kakum National park and Elmina Castle (again). We left the boat at 6am so needless to say I tried to sleep on the 3 hour drive. We first went to Kakum which was a large jungle with a high tree canopy and is famous for its canopy bridges. The bridges extended from tree to tree 1,100 feet and were about 100-130 feet in the air. After walking the bridge we took a brief hike back during which I caught a short glimpse of an anteater which (after consulting Wikipedia) might have been a scaly Pangolin. Our tour guide told us it was an anteater (it had just fallen out of a tree) though I barely got a look at it. For all I knew it was a large lizard with a short tail.
We left Kakum and went to Elmina Castle (which I’d already been to) where I filmed additional footage for my documentary class. One thing I missed the first time here was there’s a roomful of bats that are hanging from the dungeon ceiling. There’s guano all over the floor and it smelled pretty bad. We left Elmina and headed back to the ship. When we got back to Accra, everyone had the same idea of getting rid of their cedis. There were a ton of chocolate, plantain, water, and sugar cane venders that rushed up to our bus. I bought a lot of Ghanaian chocolate from them for all of you back home.
We made our way back to the ship only a little late which didn’t matter. I’ve already told you what I think of Ghana and how it is a really friendly country. It does have a corrupt side to it as well as a good deal of poverty. However, that doesn’t mean the country is hopeless. They have heavy development here and after Obama’s visit they appear to be ready to make a lot of progress. It’ll be interesting to see what happens to Ghana in the future.
The next day we were at sea and crossing the equator for the first time. This meant it was Neptune Day. “Neptune” and his wife (it was the ship’s captain in green body paint and a wig and his wife) came aboard and initiated us, poliwags (people who’ve never crossed by sea), through bizarre rituals. All of us had some colorful substance (I’m still not sure what it was but it washes out) poured over our head. Many people brought swimsuits but some of us (myself included) had shorts and a t-shirt (my roommate had pants). After we had the stuff poured on us we jumped into the pool which after a while got a reddish-brown color. We then had to kiss a fish, were dubbed “shellback”, and then had to kiss the king’s ring and the queen’s hand. Then people had their heads shaved which is a common tradition on the boat. Even some girls had their heads shaved. I did not have my hair shaved but I was really debating it. Now there are a lot of chemo-patients, cult members, and white supremacists walking around the ship. Hopefully when we get to our next stop, Cape Town, South Africa, they don’t think we’re a bunch of white supremacists.