A few weeks ago we took a week off from running our workshop and travelled north to the largest national park in Ghana.
We boarded the bus in Accra which thankfully was similar to a western school coach with air conditioning. Oddly the seats were still covered with plastic wrapping which proved incredibly sweaty despite the powerful AC. We boarded the bus and watched all the seats fill up, then on came some huge sacks of flour, rice and other dried goods. Finally 12 small plastic stools were placed in the aisle for 12 very unfortunate (paying) Ghanaians. The road north out of Accra was not really a road; it was an incredibly bumpy, pothole filled, wide dirt track that we crawled along. We had some completely hilarious Nollywood (Nigerian Hollywood) movies to entertain us, but after about half an hour the aggressive shouting style started to grate a bit. 17 hours later we arrived at our destination, 700km from our start point!
When we arrived we were greeted by Toby, Mark and Stuart, a family of three warthogs that roamed freely around the grounds of the hotel.
(edit -from Tim-: none of the animals had names, they are wild animals in a 5,000km squared nature reserve. However the hot season is upon us and Lydia is behaving a little odd, and thus, for the rest of this blog all animals will appear to be our close friends...)
After a disappointing safari (we saw nothing) on the first afternoon we went on an early morning walking safari on the second day. Where we met our guide, we also met this little fellow, Jim:
After an hour of walking in the sun, the elephants were winning the game of hide and seek. All we had found were a couple of footprints:
Much to our delight, ten minutes later we caught up with Henry:
He was much larger and darker in colour than I had imagined. It was amazing to be so close, just watching him in the wild.
After Henry retreated in amongst the trees, our guide began telling us about the elephants. Within a few minutes George and Simon, along with 6 other friends sat down nearby to listen:
At the end of the walking tour we spotted Nigel taking a bath in the lake:
After the safari it was time for lunch in a small village. Here the ladies are preparing fufu, a local food made from mashed yam. Toby was back looking for scraps (edit: that is not Toby).
The next morning Tim arranged a motorbike trip to a local village. After assuring the guides that we were all competent motorbike riders, he gave our friends, and complete novice riders, a quick lesson:
Soon we were ready to go:
When we arrived at the village, Larabanga, we were given a tour. First we were shown to the Mosque, the oldest extant building in Ghana:
Then we were shown around the village:
We climbed up a traditional ladder, carved from one tree trunk, to look over the village and to see the veg and spices they were drying on the roofs.
There are lots of bicycles and motorbikes up North compared with where we live in the South. In fact, there were no cars in Larabanga. In pidgeon English bicycles are knowns as iron horses.
Throughout the village there were plenty of children who loved having their pictures taken:
The following day we travelled south to spend a day in Kumasi, Ghana's second largest town and the capital of the Ashanti region. The traffic was horrendous on the narrow roads with huge traffic jams everywhere; we thought it was bad in Accra, but this was far worse. We visited an Ashanti museum and then a craft market. Here you can see some of the carpenters hard at work:
These are typical Ashanti stools. Similar to those sat on by members of the Ashanti Royal Family.
After the stools have been carved the are polished:
This was on of the many stalls selling the wooden carved items. It would definitely not have passed western building regulations.
Also in Kumasi, there were plenty of children who were ready to smile for the camera:
So that was our little holiday. All in all it was a really fun week and the 30 hours on buses was definitely worth it, to see Henry :-)
Love Tim and Lyd xx
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