The Mole Adventures

Okay this is going to be a long post, but it was a long trip we went on.  And since I am so bad at keeping a normal journal, I am using this blog as one so this is going to be more like a journal entry (kinda) than a blog post…bear with me.

So a couple weekends ago I went on my longest adventure thus far…Mole National Park and everything in between.  Herein lies our experiences…

Thursday:

We started in the afternoon, waiting for 2 hours for a bus that, it turns out, was never coming in the first place.  We found a tro-tro and watched Ghanaian movies (shoot me now) the entire 4 hour trek to Kumasi, where we stayed the night.  Kumasi has the largest market in West Africa – really I can only survive in it about 15 minutes because it is very overwhelming.  Too much to look at and too many people.

Friday:

So our bus was supposed to leave in the morning around 10am…well…it didn’t depart until 2:45pm.  Why?!  No idea.  So we got to hang out around town.  We found 2 lingerie shops which was pretty strange and a big shoe store, carrying lots of shoes, but only a couple sizes of each if even that.  We got invited to a party where we were told we could do the “jiggy jiggy” and the “boom boom slide” of which none of knew or know what those are…we politely declined.  We spent about 20 minutes bargaining with a shoe vendor for a pair of sandals.  The original asking price…20 cedis.  The buying price…8 cedis.  I often wonder how much people actually pay for things.  A man tried to sell us some men’s jeans…like the ones with all the fancy-smancy stuff on it.  First of all, why would any of us girls want a pair of men’s jeans and secondly, how would you ever know if what your buying would actually fit you?  The poor man proceeded to help us with the whole size issue (this was after we decided to play along a little) which ended in him calling one of my friend’s fat!  Well not really, but kind of yes!  It’s funny though because I’m pretty sure he meant it as a compliment!  Then we found a woman who made delicious egg sandwiches for 1 cedi each! That’s 70 cents for a meal!  We loaded up on those and then got on our 8 hour bus ride to Tamale, the capitol of the Northern region.  We met some folks from Australia who were traveling through Ghana for 3 weeks…one of the guys has been to Ghana a few times before (actually he said he was one of the chiefs of this village he stayed in!) and so they became our travel companions. 

We got to Tamale late, glad to have a bed to sleep on.  We weren’t so pleased about the pillows.  They were more like balloons than anything else! 

Saturday:

So this day, we really let our Australian friend take the lead because we really had no idea what was going on or how we were supposed to get from point A to point B…honestly, sometimes we didn’t even know what point A or point B was.  Yet we enjoyed the ride!

The city of Tamale was really neat and quite different from Cape Coast.  I mean we didn’t get to see much of the city, but it just had a different feel to it.  There were a lot less cars and taxis and a lot more bicycles and motorcycles.  It also seemed pretty put together and maybe that is because the areas we walked were a bit more spaced out, but even so, it came across as a relatively (key word there) neat city...this is probably not true though J  It is also very interesting because the Muslim population is very high.  There are mosques everywhere!  They are very pretty - some are big like the one below, but it’s cool too because some of them are just a tiny building with a tower and megaphone on top – beauty in a different way!   

So we spent about 2 hours looking for a car, bus, van, motorcycle, boat…anything that would take us to our next destination…Damongo.  Here is what we found…

It was one interesting ride!

Damongo is where we met “Obama Girl” (or I should say one of the many I have met here-it’s crazy how much everyone here loves Obama!). 

We also experienced one of the nastiest “bathrooms” I have ever seen…it is not a bathroom – I don’t even know what to call it!

We got a tro-tro there where our Australian friends got to ride on top! 

And then we were there!!!  Mole National Park! 

It is a really cool place.  It’s basically in the middle of no where, but has an amazing overlook of an elephant watering hole.  It had a nice pool and good accommodations.  We were just so happy to be there and surrounded in such beautiful nature!

We had dinner at this cantina.  It was the worst food I have had here, but one of the coolest meals I’ve eaten because we basically ate dinner with a bunch of warthogs!  We sat at this small picnic table while the Pumbas casually walked by us and around us.  It was SO awesome!  Long journey, but definitely worth it! 

Sunday:

Early rising for an African walking safari!  We had this awesome guide, Tele, who helped us hunt down our elephant!  He took us into the savannah, bushwacking our way past some watering holes and lots of bush.  We saw lots of antelopes or gazelles maybe.  They all looked at us and ran away.  

It was incredible…we were surrounded by God’s beautiful work and got to experience the smells, sounds, and sights of the African bush and see all the living things He made!  There were so many different kinds of trees, shrubs and grasses and, although we didn’t see too many of them, thinking about all the wild animals that live there is phenomenal!  One of the magnificent giants we did get to see was an elephant!  Well first we ran into what it so kindly left behind…a ginormous pile of poop and some large, round footprints!

Tele lead us around, walking with stealth in search of our elephant. 

And then we found him!  Oh it was fantastic and so absolutely huge!  I think they are very cute looking and look like innocent little creatures…well big, but innocent.  Well as the elephant caught our scent and started walking our way, I learned that they can charge at up to 40 mph!  So first we were stalking our elephant and then we were being chased away!  It was very exciting!  We saw him eat and drink and heard him swim around.  It was just a really, really amazing experience!  It made me think of the movie “Jungle Book.”  It just seemed unreal at times that we were looking at an elephant…his swinging tail, big tusks, funny looking trunk, flapping ears, pillars for legs and flat, rounded feet!  Totally cool! 

As we were heading back, we got to see lots of baboons!  They were everywhere, even near to the staff bungalows and people’s houses, walking around like they owned the place!  They are really cute too and look at you with big, puppy-dog eyes.  I watched them groom each other and chase each other and the babies riding on their momma’s back!  We chatted awhile with them and snapped some photos and went on our merry way.  However, we were visited by them again at the poolside when one of the mischievous little guys stole my loaf of bread right out of my bag!  Eh!  Funny story, but there went my lunch! 

That night we decided to stay in the nearby village to save some money.  We called the place and they said they would send a ride to pick us up…well this is what they sent…

Totally awesome, right?!  It was actually my first motorcycle ride!  It was kind of scary being on this random dirt road with periodic potholes and going pretty darn fast I would say!  I survived the ride, but the motorcycle still beat me.  As we were chatting I took a step back right into the exhaust pipe and got a pretty bad burn on the back of my leg! Owwie!  It will just be a reminder of all my crazy African experiences!

So Larabanga is a really neat village.  We went to the town’s biggest “tourist” attraction- this REALLY old mosque that the people claim was built in 1421.  This guy was looking for a place to worship and threw his spear out, deciding wherever it landed would be the ideal place to build.  After throwing, he went to find the spear and found the foundation of the mosque already built!  It is said that this guy was buried next to the mosque under the big baobab tree.  You aren’t allowed in unless you are Muslim, but all the community still uses the mosque as a special place of worship.

We spent the rest of the evening walking around, observing small town life.  There was a little market, we saw the cows hanging out in the school yard, women cooking, and young children running around, many of which ended up following us around all evening.  Oh the instant love of a child is so heart-warming.   

 

We ended the evening with a home cooked meal of yam and vegetable stew on the roof of this guys house!  So much fun!  It was lightening all around us, the stars were brillant, and here we were, just chilling and eating our dinner on a roof in Africa – amazing. 

 Monday:

Longest day of my life….good, but nuts.  We woke up at 3:30am to catch the 4:00am bus back to Tamale.  Caught a random bus to Kumasi (another 8 hours).  Stepped in one of the gutters in Kumasi…one of the most disgusting things I have EVER done in my life…I basically stepped into a couple inches of poop, mud, dirty water, garbage and any other kind of waste you can think of---EWWW!  Then we took a tro to Cape Coast, arriving around midnight.  That is about 20 hours of traveling – wow!  I look back and wonder what we were thinking, but like I said earlier…it was all worth it!