We're Going on an Elephant Hunt
Elephants are quiet. Did you know that?
I didn't. Until I went to Ghana and a herd of them literally sneaked up on our "safari." By safari I mean a hike through Mole national park with an armed ranger named Francis who spoke little English. But there we were, a bit disgruntled after having hiked for two hours and stopped short numerous times only to have Francis point out yet another deer, bush buck, water buck, or monkey, and sitting by the side of the waterhole watching a crocodile swim to the other side. It wasn't until Francis told us to get up because we were "in the road" that we turned and saw the group of elephants nonchalantly strolling through the trees toward the water.
That and the 45 minutes of gawking on the shores of the muddy pool while elephants played in the water mere feet away was my favorite part of our trip. That's why I decided to put it first.
Before getting to the elephants Nicole and I first arrived in Accra, and realized before our feet hit the tarmac that we had seriously underestimated the humidity in the wet tropics. Accra is steamy. We left soon after for Cape Coast, where we visited a very eerie castle that would more accurately, according to our guide, be called Cape Coast Dungeon, since it was the location where so many slaves were held in dark chambers underground before they were put on boats for America and the Carribean.
After Cape Coast we spent a day in the rainforest nearby, and walked on top of the canopy over a series of creaky rope bridges. I think I appreciated the height more than the others, since I spend my life so much lower to the ground than most. The women behind me wouldn't look down at all.
We then headed north to get to Mole and the elephants, then south along the eastern side of Lake Volta to the town of Hohoe, where we went swimming in a waterfall and watched the locals hunt bats. Hunt I use generously, they mostly had one person startle them then threw rocks until they knocked them into the water.
And those are pretty much the highlights. If that doesn't seem to fill two weeks keep in mind that I think Nicole and I spent half our vacation on buses. Which was entertainment in itself. Ghana is Christian, very much so, which is incredibly bizarre coming from mauritania. Outside our first hotel in Accra was "Rely on God Hair Cutting". next to it was "Jesus Saves Music" and "Holy Blood Ent"- a boutique selling cookies and such. All the cabs have "God Power" or "Rely on God" or "It's coming" or some other omnious allusion written on their back windshield, so I guess they really do have to rely on God to see what's behind them. And on our bus ride to Kumasi in the middle of the country a man came on and just started preaching as we were stopped at the garage. I guess we were a pretty captive audience. It was in Ashanti I think, so I didn't understand any of it, but he made a tidy little sum before he got off. Other people would come aboard and speak in the same evangelizing manner, and I thought they were preachers as well, until they pulled out a little of whatever product they were selling and you realized they were not trying to save our souls but sell us skin creme.
Ghana is very pretty, but in the end we were ready to come back to the RIM. This took some time, since Slok Air, the cheapest way to get from Accra to Dakar and back, is not a direct flight. You fly from Ghana to Monrovia, Liberia, then to Freetown, Sierra Leone, and then to Banjul, Gambia before you get back to Dakar. The airports in Monrovie and Freetown are literally in the middle of the jungle, kind of creepy really.
We arrived the day before the people of our beloved Islamic Republic voted in their first democratic Presidential election. There are 19 candidates, no one is expected to win a majority and there will surely be a run off. But it was an exciting time nonetheless.
You can look at my pictures here:
If my hair looks strange it is because I had it braided for WAIST. Not just my hair, but my hair plus 4 packets of hair extensions. It's strange carrying around that much hair, but after you get used to it, it was kind of nice not to worry about having to do my hair. They took 4 hours to put in, and about 3 days to take out.
love
amy
posted by amy at 1:09 PM
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