The past five days I’ve been traveling in Ghana. We (Emily, Amy, Jenna, Janna, and I) decided to leave last Thursday afternoon. We got bus tickets for 3pm on Thursday to go from Accra to Tamale, but the bus didn’t really leave until 5pm. It took us about 12 hours to get to Tamale. It’s pretty crazy to think about how fast road travel in the US. My experience with traveling in Ghana has really made me appreciate the US’s highway system. It’s a marvel that it’s so efficient and well planned out. When we got to Tamale in the early morning we had to wait several hours for the next bus to take us to Larabanga. That bus didn’t leave until around 11am. We eventually made it to Larabanga around 4:30pm. Larabanga is small village right outside of Mole National Park. There isn’t much there but in recent years they’ve been trying to boost tourism in the village since pretty much anyone who is going to Mole first has to go to Larabanga first.
In Larabanga, we stayed at a place called Salia Brother’s guest house. It’s called that because the people that own it are identical twin brothers. It was cool to stay there because Amy and Allie (Allie had been there a couple weeks ago) are also identical twins. The guest house was pretty simple. There were about five rooms, electricity, and a pit toilet. When we got there we took a bucket shower and took a tour of the village. One of the Salia brothers took us to the watering hole and to get something to eat. That night we tried to sleep on the roof where it was cooler and we could see the stars, but pretty soon after we lay down, it started pouring.
The next morning we woke up early so we could get to Mole for a Safari by 7am. We hired some guys with motorbikes to drive us about 7km to the park. That was the first time I had been on a motorbike and it was a lot of fun, not to mention it was nice to feel the cool morning air and see the savannah. When we got to the park, I stepped off the motorbike and burned my leg along the exhaust (or whatever it was along the side of the bike). I should have known better because a couple weeks ago Amy had done the same thing while on a bike in Benin, but it was my first time getting off a motorbike. So now I have a third degree burn roughly the size of a tennis ball on the side of my leg. I don’t mind so much. It will give me a scar to remember Ghana by.
We went on a walking Safari that lasted about two hours. Our guide carried a rifle and is really good at what he does. He pointed out some Gazelle to us which would have been impossible for me to spot alone. We also saw some monkeys, guinea fowl, and of course, our motivation for going to Mole, some elephants. Our guide tracked the elephants for us and I don’t know exactly how he was able to follow them in some parts but he did. After lunch we went on a river safari. We were told that it would be free except for transportation because they were filming for a promotional video for the park. The free river safari only lasted about 20 minutes which was disappointing and the time of day wasn’t even right to see animals like baboons even if we did go on the real thing. It was still nice to go on a little boat ride though. After that they took us to a village nearby and showed us around a little. The village was very traditional and isolated. The people live in mud huts and do subsistence farming but they also get income from tourist visits and the shea butter soap that they make there. They showed us hour they make the shea butter.
That evening we just got dinner and had a few beers. We were planning to stay at the Mole hotel but they didn’t have any room for us. It was probably better that we didn’t stay their anyways because the rooms are so expensive, we would have been sharing three beds for five people, and they didn’t have any running water at the time either. It worked out better just to get motorbikes back to the Salia Bros. guest house and stay there for cheap. The Salia brother was very nice and accommodating too. Even though the guest house didn’t have much, he was very helpful in fetching us water, setting up our beds, and even having our laundry done if we wanted. That night we slept on the roof. With practically no light pollution we could see a lot of stars and the Milky Way. Bats flew above us and we could hear their chirps. In the middle of the night it got pretty cold but I bundled up the best I could in my sweatshirt and stole heat from Amy and Emily who were sleeping next to me.
The next morning (Sunday), we went to catch a bus to Wa. The bus was full when it came so we ended up jumping in the bed of a truck to take us. There were about 25 people in the bed of the truck at some point. It wasn’t the most comfortable ride with all the bumpy dirt roads along the way. It took us about 2 hours to get from Larabanga to Sawla where we switched to a tro that was only mildly more comfortable. I’ll spare you the rest of the details of traveling that day but basically we were told that it would only take 2 ½ hours to get there and it took about 6 hours.
We eventually got to the small town of Wechiau where there is a hippo sanctuary. We got there in the late afternoon so by then there wasn’t much we could do. We got some dinner and then headed to the compound where we’d be spending the night. There wasn’t electricity at the compound so we went to bed pretty soon after getting there. We slept on the roof at this place too. Again it was cold and there were bats, but this time there weren’t as many goats and roosters to wake us up in the morning.
The next day we went on a river safari on the Black Volta River. On the other side of the river was Burkina Faso; it was close enough to touch. The river safari was about an hour and we went down stream until we found some hippos. There were probably about five hippos hanging around in the middle of the river. We couldn’t see them that well since it was mostly just their noses, eyes, and ears that stuck out of the water. I’d say the river was about as wide as the Ohio River when it’s running low. It’s still the dry season here so the river was low too. We hung out near the shore in the boat to watch the hippos. Apparently hippos in west Africa aren’t as dangerous as the ones in east Africa so we were safe to sit there and watch.
After we got back from that we took bucket showers and left to go back to the center of Wechiau. In my haste to shower, I accidently ripped open the huge blister over my burn. That was painful but when we got to the welcome center they had a first aid kit. It was probably a good thing that I ripped it open there because I got medical attention. I probably would have been fine because I don’t think Amy had hers looked at but I feel safer now. They put some “Gentlian Voilet Paint” on my burn. I had no idea what it was but I guess it’s mostly iodine and it disinfects, drys the wound, and acts like liquid bandaid.
Later that morning we left Wechiau to start our trek back to Accra. At the start of our trip we had also wanted to go to Paga to see crocodiles but that would have added another 2 or 3 days onto our trip. Instead of coming back to Accra late, we decided to come back a little early. We got a bus from Wa to Kumasi. We had the treat of watching low budget Ghanaian films on the way back that always involved things like murder, rape, theft, prostitution, etc. Miraculously, it only took about 6 hours. We thought it was going to be a lot longer since Wa is so close to Burkina Faso and the trip from Kumasi to Tamale had taken 8 hours. From Kumasi to Accra we had to wait a few hours for the bus to fill up with people so it could leave. We ended up getting back to campus around 4am. We were exhausted from all the travel but it was nice to be back in our own beds.
It was a really intense experience with all the traveling but also a lot of fun with the girls I traveled with and the things we got to see. I have pictures of just about everything so you’ll have an idea of what I was talking about… even my nasty blistering burn. Unfortunately, facebook/the computer I'm on right now are being difficult so I'm not sure when I'll have all the pics up. I think I’ll be doing some more traveling in a couple weeks.
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