I realize that I'm a bit behind on the postings, but between having to sleep to get up at 6 and go to work, the 8-hr workday, the 2 hr commute, and being at the complete mercy of slow kitchens every night (dinner is a 2-hr affair – 1.5 hrs of waiting, 15 mins of eating), I've been having trouble finding time in the evening even just to do my assignment.
Time to talk road trip! We went on the first of our study tours a couple of weekends ago, driving north from Accra (southernmost of Ghana) to Paga (hrs away from the Burkina Faso border). The beauty of traveling by road is that you can see change in vegetation and building structures. As we drove north, the vegetation became less dense, tall grass and palm trees and banana trees are replaced by progressively shorter grass and shorter shea butter nut trees. The scenery was consistently green only because it's the rainy season, otherwise, I've been told that we'd be see a lot more of the red soil. Houses change from the typical low rises, single houses, and makeshift stalls in Accra to low mud huts, with thatch roofs, then round roofs, then flat roofs as you move north. The village structure also becomes clearer as you begin to see groups of mud houses forming a family compound for nuclear and extended families. Also interesting is that all the men in the villages are related, it is only the women that would marry out, though this is rapidly changing as people move south towards bigger cities such as Accra and Kumasi for jobs and opportunities. The problem with travelling by road is the road. Ghana's key highway connecting to Burkina Faso is in a constant state of construction/repair due to a combination of high usage and lack of attention from the ministry. Where the highway breaks off into offshoots into surrounding areas, the roads are often unpaved, and the rain and wear makes these roads extremely bumpy and terrible to travel on. It's the same within Greater Accra Region. To give you an idea of how bad the roads can be, it took us 2.5 hrs to travel 85km from Mole National Park to reconnect with the highway. Even the paved highways and roads are peppered with potholes that often couldn't be avoided. Driving to meet the speed limit may not even be possible due to the conditions of the roads. Most memorable is when we had to drive the van (think minibus, can carry about 20) across a wooden bridge over a waterway that was more than half the length of the bus – the bridge was made of planks, none of them seem to have been nailed down. Miraculously, we drove over it – twice.
We spent most of the first day driving north towards Tamale. We started at 6am-ish and arrived at our first destination roughly 10 hrs later - the Boabeng-Fiema Monkey Sanctuary, where the villagers consider the black and white Mona and Columbus monkeys to be sacred animals. After a brief walk through a surprisingly lush forest, we were shown the monkey cemetery, where monkeys who come into the village to die and special priests/priestesses are buried. We saw mona monkeys everywhere, though none of the Columbus showed themselves as they tend to be a shyer breed. That night, we stayed at a hotel in Tamale – a bit of a sketch experience. The room we had was fairly large, though, probably because travellers don't often visit the north, the room was fairly musty. The key issue though was the bathroom. It was so dark in there that washing hair became a 3-person endeavour, one to soap and wash their own hair, one to hold the flashlight from behind, and one to hold the showerhead. We needed a headlamp just to use the bathroom. Interesting experience... We ended up staying at this hotel again on the 3rd night, on our way back to Accra. Ironically, this hotel was called Life Hotel – not the life any of us were looking for I think.
On the 2nd day, we went to Mole (pron. Mo-lei) National Park and went on a mini-safari ride in our trusty minibus. On our drive there, we came across a village – at the sight of our bus full of "obrunis" (the Twi term for "white man", used generally to refer to all non-Africans), the village kids came running, there was even this one kid who ran out of the yard naked b/c he was so excited to see us. After a brief introduction to shea nuts, which is apparently edible, though I can't say I liked the taste, we finally arrived at the Park. According to the guide, there are 8 species of mammals to be found in the park, and along the way, we saw antelopes, boars, baboons, and after a brief walk through the bush, we saw one of the park's prized elephants! At first, we weren't sure that we would see any elephants, as it was the hottest part of the day and the guide seemed reluctant to take us out at that time, but thanks to a skilled guide (with amazing eye sight), we all snapped at least a dozen shots and left relatively satisfied.
The highlight of the trip for me is definitely Paga, where we visited the crocodile sanctuary. There, we bought some small chickens to feed to the crocodiles. I must say, watching them eat the birds was a little fascinating, though a little morbid as well. The crocodile that was called out of the pond was approximately 80yrs old, the 2nd oldest one in the pond. Then we did the tourist thing, and sat on the crocodile to take pictures. Other than opening its mouth, the crocodile didn't move at all the whole time – pretty crazy.
We spent the last day in Kumasi, where they are known for their weaving, called kente. The clothes were beautiful, though the experience was a little mired by the unbelievably pushy tradesmen. We went to the local weaving center, thinking that we would be able to see weavers at work, and have a chance to purchase a few things. Instead, we were herded into a building that was roughly the size of a small barn, with the walls all draped with various pieces of clothes that were being sold by what must be about 20 traders, each with their own stall. We spent a few minutes watching a demonstration, after that, we were grabbed left and right by people eager to sell their clothes. But given that most of the room was taking up by looms, the aisles were small, and the room was stuffy, we could not wait to get out of there. Except outside, we're met with a different wave of vendors – the "black market", operating right outside of the "formal market" – trying to sell us random trinkets and clothes. We got out of there as soon as we could. Not that this type of thing is uncommon, but I definitely felt a little trapped with all the crowding.
All in all though, a great trip. More updates to come!
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