A Million Minutes in Africa

On Sunday we visited Aburi Botanical Gardens, located about 35 km north of Accra. What a difference 35 km can make. It was noticeably cooler, the landscape was hilly rather than flat like Accra, and the air was clearer. There was also far less traffic.

The gardens themselves are divided into lawns with paths leading to each. Many of the trees, brought in from the far reaches of the British Empire in the late 19th century, are labeled with their scientific name, common name and uses. It was a real treat to go for a walk under tall, shady trees.

For some reason, there is a broken down helicopter in the gardens. Dan and David enjoyed climbing around in it. Despite appearances, they are not injured in any way.

Near Aburi is the town of Mampong, where we visited Tetteh Quarshie’s farm. Tetteh Quarshie was the man who brought cocoa to the Gold Coast (now known as Ghana) back in the 1870s. Now Ghana is the second largest exporter of cocoa in the world (behind Côte d’Ivoire). Chances are that some of the delicious chocolate treats you enjoy originated in Ghana.

We had never seen cocoa fruits before and were surprised to see the way they grow right out of the tree trunk.

The fruit is cut open, and the seeds are removed and dried for 10 days. Then the seeds are ready to be ground and made into chocolate. We tasted some of the dried beans. Of course they are not chocolate – no sugar in them – but the taste of cocoa is unmistakable.

The caretaker and his daughter explained all this to us. Some cocoa beans are drying on the table in the photo above.

Here we are next to one of the original trees, supposedly. Funny how it’s so skinny after over 100 years.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 22nd, 2006 at 2:55 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.