I don't even know where to start. Hmmm... could start with waking up to elephants outside my hotel room at Mole National Park. Or sitting on the back of a crocodile in far Northern Ghana. Or oh yeah... camping in a rainforest. I have a predicament... I dont even know how to write this blog.
The past three weeks have been awesome. After madly rushing to finish my papers and research in the village I headed off to do some traveling around Ghana. Met a really cool Canadian, Gloria, in the village who happened to have the same flight as me and decided to travel together. We ended up along the Western coast to visit some of the slave castles (spent an evening at Cape Coast Castle on Ghana's Emancipation Day... quite the moving experience) and camped in one of Ghana's largest rainforests... Kakum. Sleeping in the rainforest is very loud and very dark... cant even see the hand in front of your face. Had the chance to walk along the canopy on rope bridges early in the morning.
A couple of weeks ago we met Gloria's friend, Leah (also a very cool Canadian), in Kumasi to head up to Mole National Park. All in all it took us 3 days to make it up to Mole in the north, taking a combination of hot and crammed tro-tros and a metro bus. It takes a long time to travel here even though the country is about the size of Illinois. You know that you're in Ghana when you are crammed between a man with a live chicken at his feet and a woman on the other side who is breast feeding her baby. Oh yeah and when women with dried catfish heads and bananas run up to your vehicle at every stop trying to sell you a mid trip snack. When tros, taxis and buses fail there is always a kind Ghanaian willing to toss a couple of people on the the back of his motor bike for a terrifying ride down bumpy roads... haha. Besides all of this I have declared riding in a crammed tro with 30 strangers while listening to Reggae music to be my new favorite past time.
Anyways, Mole was awesome. Actually saw more animals around the hotel than on the actual safari walk. There is nothing quite like waking up to elephants ripping leaves off of trees 20 m from your hotel room. Packs of monkeys, baboons and wart hogs also roamed the grounds. Besides Mole we also visited a couple of monkey refuges. They have been protected in many places to bring in the occassional tourist. I officially really like monkeys especially when they eat bananas from your hand!
We spent a couple of days in the far north, making it as far as the Burkina Faso border. It was really cool seeing the huge diversity in people and landscapes here. The north is primarily Islamic and we definitely got our fix of prayer calls. Very hot and dry... too many sunburns equals a very brown Patrick. After that we made our way down south and crossed Lake Volta on a ferri and a leaky motor boat. This was definitely the coolest part of the trip. Much of the area around Lake Volta is quite undeveloped and seems very genuine. Not many white people make it to this area. It amazing being around Ghanaians in the daily course of their lives and not doing the typical tourist things.
Over the past couple of days we have been in the Volta Region in Ghana's far east. Absolutely beautiful... tall mountains and lush forests. Spent a night camping on a ridge overlooking one of Ghana's tallest mountains (which we climbed today!!) and incredible forests. It was nice to get my camping fix and to enjoy some cool mountain air.
Anyways, it has been an incredible trip and I am not ready to go home... although a turkey sandwich and my bed and my cello sound incredibly nice right now. Oh yeah... friends too!!
Now... off to the airport here in a couple of hours. It is really going to be hard to say goodbye to Ghana and to my awesome travel partner. I can't even guess what it is going to be like to be back in Chicago in 48 hours... pretty overwhelming I imagine. All well, that's life. Anyways, time for my last lunch overlooking the Gulf of Guinea.... ahhh I can't do this!! Ciao.
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