We visited the Kakum National Forest and its celebrated canopy tour, walking along the rope catwalks hundred of feet up in the treetops. The steamy tropical air was dense with humidity, but the forest beneath us was gorgeous.

The Bight of Benin is a slowly curving shoreline of sand flats that juts suddenly southward into the Atlantic at the Keta Lagoon. Keta is gorgeous and enormous, full of small wooden canoes, lined with charming villages, and cool with shade. As we passed through Adina, Blekusu and all the way to Azizanze, the road was lined on both sides with beautiful, dark coconut palms, and beneath them were thick areas of leafy undergrowth.

There is no escaping the legacy of slavery in Africa. In Ghana, where from 1600-1700 between 10,000 and 15,000 slaves were exported per year, the ghastly slave castles remain horrific monuments that bear silent tribute to a horrific practice. We visited the Elmina Slave castle at Ghana's western edge and the shore of the narrow Benya river, an inspiring and appalling place of contrasts surrounded on all sides by a vibrant and modern African fishing village.