Ghana - Event

This colourful festival by the Benya river in Elmina celebrates the beginning of the fishing season. Chiefs and elders are carried through the streets on palanquin in full regalia, shaded by ornately decorated umbrellas, to visit a sacred shrine.

Celebrated every year on the first Tuesday in July, Bakatue literally means "the opening up of the Benya Lagoon into the sea" and its origins pre-date the arrival of Europeans in Ghana.

The chiefs, followed by family members, singers, dancers and stilt walkers, pour libation and sprinkle food at the shrine. A priest casts a net to signify the start of the fishing season. There is also a regatta of canoes on Benya Lagoon. The first catch is offered up to the local deities to ask for a good season's fishing - Elmina's livelihood.

For something more sobering, visit Elmina Castle - the earliest-known European building in the tropics. Built in 1482 by the Portuguese and later passed into Dutch hands, its damp dungeons were the holding area for slaves before they were shipped to Americas. Guided tours are available - if you can bear it.