On the road again...

I don't think I can begin to describe the epic journey that was last weekend. We decided (we being a group of people doing homestays, comprised of Treza, Kate, Hilary, Julie, Mallory, Lindsey, and myself) to undertake the daunting task of going to Mole National Park, home of wildlife galore. Now, for those of who you don't know Ghana's geography that well (which I expect is most), Mole National Park is about 17 hours northwest of Accra. And that would be 17 hours by bus. It is quite the undertaking for 4 days. We actually began our journey at 4 am friday morning and concluded it on monday night around 8 pm.
This story however cannot be told in a simple blog post. There are too many funny side anecdotes and too many pictures that must accompany the story telling. Thus, I will have to resort to the readers digest version.
So we began our journey with at 4 am planning to catch the 6 am bus to Kumase, about 6 hours north of Accra, in the heart of Ashanti country. However, with some luck, we ended up catching the 4:30 bus and made excellent time. We were also joined by several other CIEE students going north to meet a colony of Jews outside Kumase for Rosh Hoshana.
Once we arrived in Kumase, we realized we missed the STC bus to Tamale. STC is essentially like a charter bus. It's the nicer of the options for transportation. So, we had to go across town to the MetroMass bus station in order to get a bus there. However, this bus is nowhere near as nice as the STC. First of all, it is packed. Some people didn't even have seats. They were sitting on large bags in the aisle. Secondly, there isn't air conditioning. Thirdly, and most importantly, the man behind me decided to transport a chicken with him to Tamale, and store it underneath my seat for the 8 hours we spent on that bus. It slid around so much that it ended up directly between my feet several times. And naturally, on occasion, it would casually peck at my feet and ankles.
After that (somewhat) painful ride, we finally landed in Tamale and found our guest house for the evening. The next morning we got a ride with Frederick who was already taking a trotro (small van/bus that seats up to 20 [usually illegally]) out to Mole. We really thought we caught some luck because the 7 of us had the entire tro tro to ourselves. It was so lovely...

Until it broke down.

So naturally, we got out and pushed. Frederick called his mechanic friend while we were pushing and we heard him say, "Yeah, I'm with a bunch of whites. They're pushing."

About 3 hours and countless amounts of riddles and word games later, our friendly mechanic came to our rescue and got us back on the road. We finally made it to Larabanga (a small village right outside Mole) after the bumpiest ride I've ever encountered. I imagine the Oregon trail to feel something like that 2 hour trotro ride.

When we arrived in Mole, there were just tons of baboons and warthogs hanging around the hotel. That right there made the entire trip for me. They literally were 20 feet away. Every now and then, a small monkey would just dart across the road. It was fantastic.

We went on a river cruise that evening and saw the beautiful overflow of the Volta River. After a hearty meal and a Star (Ghana's favorite beer) we went to bed and rested up for our walking safari the next morning.

James, our faithful guide, took us on a three hour walking tour of the Guinea Savanah where we saw tons of monkeys, warthogs, antelopes, and other various birds and insects. We didn't however, see any elephants, which is what we set out to do.

After our long unsuccessful walk, we ate some breakfast at the hotel. As I was finishing up my coffee, I see a monkey saunter up to our table. Before I know it, he jumped on our table, quickly surveyed the site, and made his way over to my plate where he stole the sugar and marmalade right off of my plate. He was then shooed away by the waitresses. I couldn't believe it. A monkey was literally one foot away from my face, only to steal my food! I luckily snapped a picture just in time.

After breakfast we headed back to Larabanga to try and find a way back to Tamale somehow. The only metromass bus that goes to Tamale leaves once a day at 4:30 am, so we had missed that one. We eventually bargained our way back to Larabanga and then on to Dimongo where we got another tro tro to Tamale, but only after heated debates over a fair price, which ended up not being that fair.

Eventually, we made it back to Tamale and our wonderful guesthouse to get a good nights rest before going home all the way to Accra that monday.

We spent every single day of our trip traveling. There wasn't one single day out of the 4 that we didn't spend on a bus in some form.

Now this is only the abridged version of the story and I'd be happy to give the full account with pictures to anyone who asks.

I can't wait for our next excursion. Cote d'Ivoire maybe? Togo? Who knows!?