So this weekend began Wednesday afternoon as we boarded an air conditioned bus to Tamale, a city in the north of Ghana. The northern part of Ghana is predominantly Muslim while the southern part is predominantly Christian. Also, the southern half of Ghana is predominantly rainforest, with a very tropical feel. The north has less of the tropical feel to it. The drive took about 12 hours, and so we arrived at our destination at 3 AM. Our guide book told us that to get to the reserve (Mole) you have to take a bus from Tamale, with basically 2 options. One at 6 AM and one at 4 PM. You cannot, so the guide book said, buy your tickets in advance and so people begin to buy tickets for the 6 AM bus at 4 AM. We wanted to get there early because apparently the motel dorms fill up and then you have to pay a lot of money for a real hotel room. So, knowing all of this, we decided we would wait an hour in the bus station to make sure we could buy tickets for the 6 AM bus.
BUT….apparently our guide is now outdated, because you in fact can buy tickets a day in advance for the 6 AM bus and everyone already had and it was full!!! Lucky for us, we met 2 other obrunis trying to do the same thing we were, both about our age. We decided to try our luck finding a taxi that would drive us inexpensively. Well, first things first. We were 5 people in a taxi made for 4 passengers. Every hour we would get out and switch the way were sitting in an effort to maximize comfort. NOTE: taxi’s made for 4 are NEVER comfortable with 5 people on a 4 hour drive!!!! Now, its also important to tell you that the road to Mole is mostly unpaved and therefore AWFUL! The taxi, which was old and decrepit to begin with, was literally falling apart. A hubcap fell off, we could smell burning rubber at one point, and all in all I never thought we would make it all the way to the park. It was a pretty crazy drive.
We did, in fact, make it all the way to the park. We were so scared the taxi was going to break down, though, that we got out at the entrance and walked the 2 km to the motel. On our way, in the road in front of us, out walks a baboon with a baby on her back! It was like ***AHHHHHHHH*** you actually did make it. We quickly changed and made our way to the pool, which is on the top of a hill overlooking 2 watering holes and a slight clearing in the forest. We immediately saw elephants in the watering hole, and as we sat and watched, baboons and warthogs and other monkeys wondered around only a few feet from us.
That afternoon we went out on a safari walk, and saw antelope like creatures (bushbuck, kob), crocodiles, and more warthogs and monkeys. We didn’t get to see the elephants but our guide told us he would take us back the next morning just to see them. We were a little disappointed but excited that we had seen a lot of the other animals in the park. We spent the evening relaxing by the pool and enjoying the view. The sunset right over the hill and it was awesome.
The next morning our guide found us as promised and took us down to where the elephants were (we could see them from the top of the hill). We got extremely close and they were so cute! We saw 4 together eating and looking like adorable prehistoric aliens. We stood watching them for about half an hour, and had to leave because it started to rain.
We had some lunch, and then headed out in a cart attached to a motorcyle to a nearby village on the river where we could have a canoe safari. It was more of a nice canoe ride, as we saw no animals at all, but it was nice. We stopped on our way back in a village just outside of the park known for the oldest mosque in Ghana. It was supposedly built in 1421 but there is some controversy over that, and it was neat but we weren’t allowed inside and had to pay for a tour to walk around it. Pretty ridiculous!
We spent the rest of the night enjoying the pool, having dinner and discussing our plans for the rest of the weekend. We left on a bus at 4 AM the next morning, arrived in Tamale at 8:30 AM and bought tickets to drive home. The bus back to Accra didn’t leave until 4 PM so we had some time to kill. There really isn’t much to see or do in Tamale, and the things we did want to do turned out to be a bust. We did enjoy breakfast and lunch in the same restaurant and the food was pretty good. Finally, 4 PM arrived and we were driving. The journey to the park was long, (15-16 hours of driving, longer than my flight here) but theres no doubt it was worth it. Only a week left and I can't believe how fast the time has flown by!
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