This weekend has been one amazing adventure, but I am beyond happy to be sitting here clean and eating ice cream. I can finally relax and breathe, boy, it was one crazy weekend, but let me start from the beginning.
Morgan and I set out Thursday to take the bus to Kumasi to meet up with Fent. A downpour delayed our departure time; however, we still got there relatively smoothly. It was a 5 hour bus ride (please take notice of the ridiculous total amount of time spent on transportation this weekend). We spent the night at Fent’s house, which was fun. Morgan knocked out early, but Fent and I stayed up to watch a movie and talk.
Friday morning we set off early in the morning (but apparently not early enough) to try to catch a bus to Tamale. When we got to the bus station, the first bus was already full and we were not going to make it on the second because the line was too long. We would have made it on the third, but we would have had to wait for it to arrive from Tamale. The three of us decided to try out another bus station. This bus was not even close to being full and since the bus wouldn’t leave without being full, we tried our luck at yet another location, and some bittersweet luck this turned out to be! We found a trotro loading to go to Tamale that would be leaving shortly. Tired and anxious to leave, we, against the protests of Fent, decided to get n this tro. Morgan and I sat in the back row because we thought it looked comfortable (key word: thought) and Fent sat in the front. The back row not only had five people crammed into a four seater, but also had “special seats” – this means that the floor was basically at the same level as our seats. While this may have been comfortable when it was just the two of us back there, it quickly became painful once five people and one little boy were crammed back there. To begin with, what would normally be a five hour journey became a nine hour torturous ride because the roads were so bad and full of potholes. I had the window seat, so I was basically hanging out the window with a whole bunch of dust blowing in my face the whole time, but at least I got a nice breeze. Morgan had our big backpack on her lap with a bit resting on one of my legs. That would have been fine, except the woman sitting next to Morgan was leaning so heavily on it that she messed up my hip flexor, but we will get to that later. During the first hour of the ride, the trotro broke down, but after some struggling, the driver fixed it, so once again we set off. It was quite frustrating though because the driver kept making random stops to say hi to people on the road or to buy food or just for the heck of it. Needless to say, Morgan and I were in a ton of pain, and now back to the hip flexor. It began hurting so bad at one point after some bumps in the road that I cried out in pain and started tearing while I tried to reposition myself in a manner that would be least painful. At this point, the Ghanaians in the three rows in front were so concerned about me that they telephoned a message up to Fent that I was having some problems. Morgan and I were quite amused by this. We finally (and thankfully) arrived in Tamale; however, by this time, our plans had already messed up. We were not able to catch a bus to Mole that night as originally planned. Instead, we spent an hour looking for a good, cheap hotel room. We eventually found one for nine cedis. We settled in and bought a nice tub of ice cream for dinner, stuffed ourselves, and fell asleep, but not for long.
Saturday morning we woke up at 3am to Fent’s dismay, but Morgan and I were determined to not miss this bus. Luckily, our efforts paid off and we got on the second bus to Mole at 6:30. We got to Larabunga around 10am. Here we saw the oldest mosque in Ghana. It was built in 1491, if I remember correctly. Morgan and I could not go inside, but Fent went in for a little to pray and see it. I really wish I could have gone in to see what it was like. The outside was impressive and beautiful. After seeing the mosque, we finally got to Mole National Park. We got to do a two hour jeep safari ride. It was so ridiculously beautiful. Our tour guide had a massive gun to protect us against any possible animal attacks, which was a bit frightening. We did get to see a few animals really close! The first was an elephant. Anyone who knows me knows that this is my favorite animal, so I was super thrilled! I tried to get closer to the elephant because I was so mesmerized, but when I walked past the tour guide, he yelled at me that I was being unsafe – oops. I also saw baboons, bush cow, and that damned tsetse fly that attacked our car. Sorry Jenny, no lions – they only come out at night. L After our safari, we were pressed for time so we had to argue with the jeep driver to convince him to drive us to Damongo to try to catch the bus to Tamale. Once we got there, we found out the bus had left twenty minutes earlier. Super. That led to an hour and a half argument where these guys tried to get us to pay one hundred cedi for the ride to Tamale. Yeah, okay, no. We finally got the man to take us to Tamale Junction for the regular fare because we found enough people to fill his trotro, even though he lied and said that would not be possible – that was super frustrating. Now this trotro was just as fun as the first. The three of us we squished with our luggage in the first row, not surprisingly in a spot made for two people. But these seats also had an added bonus. There was enough leg room in front of us for only us; however, there was a cushion there to be used as seats for more people to sit in front of us. That basically meant that we had people sitting on us the whole time as well. We were so squished and our bodies were so numb by the end of that two hour ride on them bumpy roads. Halfway through the ride, the trotro picked up a boy that carried a live chicken on. Yes, a live chicken. Fent kept talking to the boy, and the boy desperately tried to avoid Fent’s eyes. I thought this was because he was shy, but Fent later explained that it is as a sign of respect for young ones not to look people older than them in the eye. At another stop, one woman alighted and two grown men got on. I do not know how this worked out. Morgan, Fent, and I were so dusty by the time we got to Tamale Junction. From Tamale Junction, we caught another trotro that was heading to Tamale – another hour and a half. The mate was hanging out of the door the whole time. I feared for his life, but we made it back safely. We proceeded to find a trotro heading to Bolga. This three hour tro ride was spectacular because it was during night time and there were not any lights on the road, so I was able to stick my head out of the window and stare at the millions of stars in the sky. It was not by any means more comfortable than our other tro rides, but it was just so beautiful. We got to Fent’s brother’s house at 10:30 that night. We got to take surprise “showers”, which consisted of basically rinsing our bodies (not including hair) with water. Although that did not do too much to help us get significantly cleaner, we were so grateful. That night was a lovely sleep, followed by another early morning.
On Sunday, we voyaged on half and hour away to Paga Crocodile Pond to pet crocodiles. Since Paga is on the border, we walked up to the border of Burkina Faso, which was pretty sweet. At the pond, we had to sacrifice a poor chicken to do so though, which truly upset me. L I felt so selfish. We then went to Pikworo, which was a slave camp in the past. It was so ironic that such a beautiful land was used for something so disgusting. The name Pikworo means “land of many rocks” – as the name indicates, it was called that for the many rocks found there. Rocks were used in many different (terrible) ways here. Food and water bowls were carved into the rocks themselves. Two rocks in particular were used as drums. Men were trained to play these rocks as drums to keep the slaves at least a little “happy” and occupied with drumming and dancing. Morgan, Fent, and I were given the opportunity to play the rocks as well. Each place that you hit the rocks produced a different sound. It was so impressive. The rocks were used as a looking post to make sure slaves wouldn’t run away. Rocks were sued as markers for the mass grave sites. Next to the cemetery was the punishment rock. Slaves who misbehaved were chained to this rock and whipped until they died, hence why the rock was located so close to the cemetery. Touching the rock was so eerie, just thinking about all of the blood shed here needlessly. It was worn down so smooth, I just could not even begin to imagine the pain that some had to encounter here. The taxi then drove us back to Bolga. From there we headed to Tumu. This time, Fent found us an exciting mode of transportation – we jumped onto the back of a random guy’s pickup truck. In retrospect, this was not a very smart idea, especially considering the bad roads and Ghanaian driving. Once again, seven people plus one child were squished into the back with all of our luggage. Halfway through the ride, the little boy had to pee, so instead of asking the driver to stop, the women concocted a way for the boy to pee in a bag. Just, I don’t even know what to say about this. He squirted a little, thankfully only a little landed on my leg (ugh), but lucky Fent got covered. After we drove for about two hours, the driver stopped and asked for the fare. Everyone argued and got the fare to be three instead of four cedi. The driver was not too pleased, so the rest of the forty-five minute drive was even less pleasant. (Again, I repeat, this was a reckless decision on our parts.) The driver stopped slowing down as much over the bumps so at a few points, everyone and our luggage was up in the air. We finally made it to Tumu, where Fent went to high school and has some family. We visited his family’s house there and relaxed for a little bit. That night, we were going to stay in Vamboi, Fent’s home town. Our method of transportation to get there was by far my favorite of the trip – motorcycles. I rode with Fent while Morgan rode with his friend. At first I was a little nervous to get on the bike with Fent (sorry man), but he turned out to be an excellent driver. I felt very safe with him. The drive was about an hour. It was so gorgeous. There was just enough light from the motorcycle to illuminate the greenery on the sides of the road. The star-filled night sky was simply breath-taking. Frogs kept jumping out in front of the bike and we almost crashed into a few goats, but alas. When we got in, we were super dusty yet again, or rather, just added on. We slept really well that night at Fent’s house.
I woke up early on Monday morning because I wanted to see the sunrise. It was beautiful, needless to say. We proceeded to greet everyone in Fent’s village in the morning. It was really sweet watching Fent interact with his family and the other people who lived in his village. Unfortunately, the morning became stressful once two trotros passed without stopping. We needed to get to Wa, but were quickly running out of options. We then jump on the motorcycles again and speed off towards Tumu where our chances of catching a tro were greater. Of course, I was not complaining about this part – I loved those bikes. It was sp awesome being able to ride during the daytime as well. The scenery was absolutely marvelous. We rode for about 45 minutes and were only 5 minutes away when Fent’s bike started rattling, so we stopped to fix it and lucky we did because the tro to Wa passed right then and stopped for us. Fent’s friend hopped off the tro and took the second bike back to the owner while we hopped onto the tro to Wa. The road was terrible, so that made the four hour ride a bit painful, but at least we got to Wa. From there we got food and got on a two hour trotro to Wechiau to go to the Hippo Sanctuary. This unfortunately turned out to be a waste of time because in order to do this, you have to stay over night and we simply did not have enough time to do anything here. It was around 4:15 by the time we went to try to catch a tro back to Wa. This attempt was once again met with some arguing until we got the trotro driver to actually leave to go. While we were on the trotro, I got a text from my friend Jordan saying “Profs on strike. No class. Woohoo! (according to meerkat and cool breeze). Mission complete, cobra out.” Yeah, Morgan and I started cracking up at his text. We were skeptical of its accuracy; however, hopeful that it was true because that we take a great weight off of our shoulders (we were staring to worry we wouldn’t make it back to campus on time for our Tuesday classes). The tro got into Wa at 6:30, within an hour and half of leaving. We were all exhausted by this time. We proceeded to try to find a bus to Kumasi. Some guys tried to get us to go on a trotro, but we absolutely wholeheartedly refused. I was trotro-ed out. I was not about to get on another one to Kumasi. Ack. We managed to find a bus and some food. The bus left at 7:30pm and got into Kumasi at 1am. This was such a frustrating bus ride because they played their darned Ghanaian movie so loud that I could hear it over my headphones. From here, Fent departed and went home while Morgan and I journeyed on towards Accra. We decided to spoil ourselves and got onto the VIP bus. I mean, it was only 3 cedi more expensive, so why not? It was so roomy and wonderful compared to everything that we had been on over this trip. AND they didn’t even play a movie, so it was quiet and lovely and so spectacular. Morgan and I got into Accra at about 6am. We jumped onto a trotro home and got to our room by 7:30am. From there, we rushed into the showers. By God, that was by far THE BEST shower I have ever experienced. I spent the entire weekend sweating, being covered in dust, and being bruised. That shower, man, I am still thinking about how amazing it was! I washed my hair and body and face three times each and now I feel so squeaky clean. I am almost in tears, that’s how happy I am. Haha. I also found out that Jordan was not lying or joking around when he told us that the professors were on strike, so I in fact did not have class today.
A group of us are going to an Ethiopian restaurant tonight – a perfect dinner to bookend this adventure of a weekend.
On Saturday, Morgan, Whitney, and I woke up in the wee hours of the morning to do a 66K bike tour of Aburi. The sites were so breath-takingly beautiful! The trail was super cool! We had to go through bodies of water that reached our chests, the single path parts were super skinny and frightening and I could not keep my balance on them, and the downhill was scary (but that part was only my problem, haha). The guide was really frustrating though because he did not know where he was going or how far we ever were. I was really happy till we got to this one point when he told us that we were 5 or 6K away. Then 8K down the road, I asked the guide if we knew where we were and he said that we were close... about 20K or more later, we got to our final destination. He kept stopping to ask for directions, but got angry when we asked for directions ourselves. The guide was also getting angry that we were "slow", yet I was in front of him the whole time and had to stop for him multiple times. Regardless, I really enjoyed the bike ride. It was very difficult, my bum is super bruised, my hands are swollen, and I have numerous cuts/bruises on my legs (I was of course the one to fall into a mud puddle), but the bike tour was very worth it. Our final destination, Boti Falls, were very impressive and beautiful. :) 
