Finding an empty Tro Tro at side of the road near our hotel…YEAH!!!
We grumpily decided we’d need to get an early start that Friday (19th of January) in order to make it back to Accra with plenty of time to collect my passport from Isaac and get to the airport in time for our 3pm flight with Africa World Airlines- an airline name that defies our US president – to Tamale, a northern city that serves as the gateway to Mole National Park – Ghana’s biggest and most famous national park (which, incidentally, was not included in any of the Dragoman itineraries)
We managed to flag an empty tro tro on the side of the road that was heading to Ho. I know, this joke never gets old. Incidentally, I had forgotten to mention that when I had arrived in Amedzofe a few days prior, on foot, a taxi had pulled up alongside me, rolled down the window and asked “Ho?”.
Hilarious.
Once we were in Ho, it was an easy transfer to another tro tro heading to Accra – and we were offered the front seat, so it was decidedly comfier. After grabbing some ice creams (which are basically plastic tubes of ice cream that you suck through the corner of the bag after you’ve ripped the corner off with your teeth) it was a relatively easy journey that even dropped us off at a bus stop for the airport.
Thankfully, Issac met us at the stop and walked with us to the airport. I haven’t walked to many airports before, so this was interesting.
After checking in, Mike and I caved in to eating some comfort food in the form of pizza and beer and before we knew it, it was time to board.
Boarding our Africa World Airlines Flight
The flight only lasted 50 minutes but was incredibly comfortable and well serviced. We were given a drink of juice and a meat pie (which we thankfully ate later in the taxi heading to the park) and we were able to see the outlines of dusty villages from the dry and barren savannah lands that define the north of the country.
On arrival, we met a Cameroonian who played basketball in Austin, which is incidentally where Mike last lived before venturing out on his travels. His name was Alex, and he has started a non-proft called Leading through Reading and was there doing some work. Apparently, his parents adopted him from Cameroon when he was already 14 years old and didn’t speak a word of English. At 6ft 8”, he was a gentle giant and I’ll always remember his warm smile and demeanor.
Mike chatting with Alex about Basketball, presumably showing him how to shoot hoops
We were bundled off into a taxi with a very miserable driver (not many of them in Ghana) who complained about my trying to negotiate a rate with him to drive us all the way to Mole saying the usual “Petrol is expensive. That is too cheap, Madam, and you understand this is the standard price…blah blah blah” bullshit that every driver spits out the moment you question his quoted fare. In any case, he was only taking us to the station where we were going to catch public transport to as close to the park as we could get.
As we headed to a tro tro, I stopped to ask another taxi driver what he would charge to drive us all the way privately (it was at least a two hour drive and would be longer/dark by public transport). I managed to negotiate a rate that was less than half what Mr Misery wanted and given the fact that he would also take us straight to the Mole Motel where we had a reservation, and the fact that we’d been traveling all day, we jumped at the chance.
Ecstasy over finding a top sheet
This driver was the total opposite of the first. His name was Abdullah and he had the most infectious, raucous laugh that came from nowhere – he laughed at almost every thing we said, even when it was just to comment on the speed bumps.
Oh, speed bumps. In Ghana. Are the worst.
Though the fact that we timed cute noises as our driver ran his ramshackle beat up car that hadn’t seen a new cabin filter in over two decades over the bumps at breakneck speed made him crack up even more heartily.
He made the two hour journey in about 90 minutes. I had a headache from the fumes that seemed to be coming directly into the car and keeping the windows open wasn’t stopping us from inhaling it. But we were super grateful to arrive at our hotel with enough time to grab a quick bite to eat (which ended up being a rather stale and dry piece of chicken that the waiter claimed was Guinea Fowl and looked at me with a death stare for daring to question the validity of his claim) before retiring to our massive three-bedded room with corresponding three blue buckets of water in the bathroom.
Our beds had topsheets and we enjoyed a good laugh taking some pictures of me ecstatic from having a topsheet.
The next morning we woke early to catch a 7am game drive. Safaris here are some of the cheapest in Africa, costs being about $11 per person for a two hour excursion (with five persons sharing the vehicle.) . We were lucky in that we were able to share our vehicle with a group of three young ladies from the Netherlands who were volunteering in Tamale as this kept our overall cost down.
Our Safari vehicles in Mole
Immediately upon trying to leave Mole park headquarters, we spotted an elephant roaming around the ranger residences and getting extremely close to the tourists who had opted for a walking safari. Although it was lovely to see an elephant so soon, we didn’t want to photograph an elephant that had a crowd of people in the foreground and houses in the background. It just didn’t feel right. That, and the fact that we had paid for a vehicle, which was thus far only following the walking tour.
After heading out of the area, we passed Mole village where many of the park workers live. We saw a lot of baboons and warthogs hanging around and they seemed totally habituated to humans.
The rest of the drive did not disappoint, thought it was bitterly cold in the morning air and I cursed at myself for not grabbing my windbreaker. The safari vehicles were kitted out with rows of benches for sitting on the roof, allowing for a great viewing platform from which to spot animals. We managed to see more elephants, a beautifully vibrant-colored bird called an Abyssinian Roller, lots of antelope, waterbuck, a mongoose and we ended the drive at a watering hole complete with crocodiles. We were allowed to descend from the vehicle and take photos and as we did, another herd of elephants arrived to drink at the water and afforded us some lovely photographic opportunities.
Mike and I by the watering hole with Elephants
By the time we returned, we were ravenous for breakfast and happily joined our new Dutch friends who were young enough to be our children and still shone brightly with the naivety and innocence of barely having reached adulthood.
The day grew quite hot and I was excited that the hotel had a pool. We were planning on getting changed into our bathers and taking a dip when someone called over that a group of elephants were now getting in to the watering hole and were bathing themselves.
In all, there were nine elephants that we were able to watch and observe for a good few hours as they frolicked about and swam in the lake below. I was even able to do this with a cold Smirnoff in my hands by the pool in my bikini.
I was liking Mole thus far.
After a much needed afternoon nap, I awoke to Mike returning from a very hot meander around the village where he had spotted warthogs trying to eat a carcass. I decided to shower and found myself sharing it with a little gecko who afterwards very much needed Mike’s help in getting out of the tub for fear he might get sucked down the drain.
Watching elephants while relaxing by the pool
We had a little happy smoke before heading over to the restaurant for dinner. I was very giggly. All was good.
We took a night safari that evening and though it was a little more pricey at $20 each – it had a great atmosphere to it with the night sky overhead, being all wrapped up in multiple layers, and using flashlights altogether to try and spot the animals.
Gecko who shared my shower
As well as the same animals we’d seen during the day, we were lucky enough to also spot some Janet cats, bush babies, and a giant owl from the drive.
Getting back we were beat and as we had to face another long travel day in the morning heading back to Tamale and onward to the border with Burkina Fasso, we went straight to bed.
Special thanks go out to Mike for keeping a log of these gems.
The visit was just as haunting as my visit to Elmina, so I won’t recount my reactions here except to say that we were given a lot more free time to explore once the tour was over and I chose to go back into the dungeons alone and stand quietly in the darkness.
After the visit we had only a short journey north to Kakum National park where we would be dividing into groups and hiking into the jungle for a night up in the tree canopy in the treehouses that offered a pretty unique place to sleep.
Elmina had not really been touted as a destination in and of itself by the Dragoman Itinerary or trip description. In fact, almost nothing was mentioned of its stunning harbor that dramatically juxtaposed alongside its famed Slave Castle that I had read about when I was a teenager in high school.
The next school was far more moderate and struggled with class sizes of over 70 or 80 kids. It felt like we were diverting the children’s attention from their classwork, and so the visit didn’t sit well with me at all. In addition, these kids were some of the most aggressively “friendly” of any crowds of kids I’ve come across on this continent. When trying to leave, they practically clawed, scratched and grabbed at me to get physical hold of me, along with pulling off my hat and grabbing my hair. I didn’t appreciate that at all.
One highlight of the visit, however, was that this school itself sat on Elmina beach where a local team of fishermen just happened to be pulling in the day’s catch when we were there. It was a spectacle to witness as the men sang songs and clapped in time to create the unity and coordination necessary to pull in the thousands of tiny fish in their nets ashore. I managed to get a good video of the event which I will include here.
Once we’d eaten, it became quickly obvious that there was so much here to see and do and the photographic opportunities in Elmina’s gloriously colorful harbor full of life, locals, and fishing boats coming in and out of the harbor demanded that the rest of the day be spent here.
I managed to convince Mike and “Precise” Peter (aka Pipi Lou Lou) to come along with me for the $9 tour of the castle and we further planned to make our own way walking all the way back to the beach that housed Stumble Inn and our accommodation for the night.
Our guide was incredible, thorough and managed to infuse just the right amount of humor when it was needed so as to not detract from the serious nature of our visit. He did a wonderful job of giving us the preliminary world history that set the stage for the slave trade to begin in the first place – namely the decimation of Native Populations in the Americas due to European-introduced diseases, the noteworthy observation of the physical strength and working characteristics of the African people and a backdrop of inter-tribal warfare that set the stage for the creation of the slave trade, which was, in large part started by Africans enslaving other Africans in exchange for weapons to fight.
For almost 400 years – men, women, and children were brought here against their will, separated, thrown in dungeons where a process of elimination would begin and only those “surviving” these harshest of environments would then be subjected to the grueling and inconceivably inhumane Atlantic crossing to their eternal servitude.
A drainage system had been built into the floor but it was obviously not adequate to eliminate all waste. The stench must have been beyond imagining. In addition, the guide explained that if you wanted to sit or lie down, you would have to get the agreement of whomever you were chained to – and often this person didn’t speak the same language as you and moreover – he might have been from an enemy tribe. Sometimes, your chained partner would die and they would have to wait for a guard to find that person dead before removing him and throwing him into the ocean.
The Portuguese were replaced by the Dutch who were then replaced by the British who did the heavy lifting during the slave trade at Elmina. It made me sick to my stomach when after visiting the dungeons we visited the floor directly above the dungeons where the British soldiers had built a church directly over the heads of the persons they were enslaving and torturing. How a person could sing a hymn in praise of Christ with that misery below is beyond my comprehension and it filled me with rage.
If not more upsetting, above the church was the stunning floor that was the Governor’s quarters – palatial and airy with an incredible 365 degree view over Elmina harbor, the beach and the blue ocean – the color of which most of the slaves marched here never even set eyes upon.
Once we left the castle – we were literally blown away by further exploration of the bustling life that was to be observed and photographed in the harbor and along the busy main street that marked our path back to the Inn.
As the sun started to glow a little lower on the horizon, we took a daring early turn to the beach hoping against hope that we might be able to take advantage of the beach “wall” that had been created that year to help prevent shore erosion, but that also happened to provide a rather unique way to walk along the beach back to our accommodation.
I felt especially full and joyous from the day’s learning, and experiences. I would highly recommend Elmina to anyone visiting Ghana – just make sure you have longer than the one day we had!
Tuesday the 9th turned into a super long, hot, and frustrating day of driving with a long sweaty border crossing thrown in for good measure. The guards at the Ghana border were quite funny though and kept telling us that all was good because we could finally stop having to talk in French and speak English again. “This is Ghana! We speak English here!” they kept saying.
We stopped at a market to do cook team shopping and I caught sight of an exact replica of the very first car I drove – a 4-door Silver Renault 5 from the early 80’s. I had a photo standing next to it and for some reason, it made me feel rather nostalgic.
The reason for my stress was quite a personal one but I will share it here as I will surely look back upon it with relief rather than embarrassment. The truth was – my monthly flow was severely overdue and I had finally broken down and bought a pregnancy test. Due to the stress I’d experienced prior to my departure, my last menses was extremely light – and that fact combined with the calculation that I was now 18 days overdue had caused me to become completely paranoid that I might be pregnant. That is not something I would wish upon anyone traveling on an overland truck in West Africa. Denial was proving to be much more than a river in Africa, and I had been putting this off for days now – convincing myself that there was no WAY I could be pregnant with my ex’s baby given the fact that I have an IUD – and ignoring the fact that I had been throwing up in the morning the past few days and feeling more bloated and emotional than possibly any other time in my life.
Thoughts of what it would MEAN if I were pregnant had been haunting my every waking moment for days and it was my friend Jack who convinced me after I’d broken down crying to her in Grand Bassam that it was time to buy a test and just find out for sure.