So my plan worked out. Sunday night i watched the ghana vs tunisia game where ghana won 2:1. After that there was a party in the house b/c it was robert's (ghanaian aisecer that i danced with when we went clubbing) swiss girlfriend's birthday. So they bought lots of drinks and played fun music and we danced n drank. I have a whole thing about white girls dating ghanaians but i'll save that rant for it's own post, however i would like to note that she was only turning 20 years old and robert is 26 but i'll elaborate on this later. Susan and I went to sleep late (like midnight) though bracha even later (after 2am) coz she was blogging.
At 4.30am Monday morning susan myself and bracha got up, got dressed, finished packing, caffeinated and by 5.15am we were on our way out. We caught a taxi with a total asshole to one junction and then a tro tro to the city and then another taxi to the bus station. We were there by 6.15am. This was important b/c the bus was leaving at 7am and none of us had valid tickets b/c we'd missed our bus the previous night while i was waiting to have my passport returned to me. So what we had to do was wait until 7 and if some people with valid tickets didn't rock up then we got their seats. Luckily this happened and by 1.15pm we had arrived in tamale. On the bus i listened to more philosophy podcasts, some mechon hadar shiurim and frank ocean on repeat.
The view on the bus was really interesting. The north of ghana is super different from the rest of it. There's no lush jungles anymore instead dry scraggly savannahs. The houses are totally different. In the south you get few mud huts here and there but mainly concrete homes with tin roofs. But in the less developed (who'd have though it was even possible) north almost every town was made up exclusively of traditional round mud huts with straw thatched roofs. The population here is majority muslim and polygamous so the huts are built in circular compounds. Each wife gets her own hut that she lives in with her children while the husband has his own hut and the women rotate taking turns with who sleeps in his hut each night. Even though this area is muslim i havn't noticed an increase in the number of women wearing hijabs or other muslim dress. I mean, women all over ghana cover their hair out of practicality not modesty so i suppose here it's simply a combination of the two.
When we arrived in tamale we bought return tickets to accra for Thursday night. We then hopped in a taxi (i'd like to say that each taxi has been around about $1 each and therefore worth it even though a tro tro would only cost 30 cents). We arrived at the government bus station, the only bus of the day to mole (pronounced mo-leh) national park was leaving at 2.30pm and when we asked at the ticket counter she said all the tickets are sold out you need to go try to ask the ticket conductor at the bus to let you on. So we did, and we got on. Super lucky.
The bus ride to mole was rough. 4 hours on a dirt road on an overcrowded bus. But by 6.30pm we arrived in mole, checked in and went to go chill by the pool. But given the length of our day by 9pm we were all totally exhausted and ready for bed. So we went to bed.
Tuesday morning we went on a walking safari at 7am in the park for 3 hours. We saw elephants and crocodiles and antelopes and baboons and what we called gazelles but are apparently actually called bush bucks in ghana. Because we were walking we could get up super close to them all. Was pretty cool but by the end i just wanted breakfast.
So we went back and had eggs, toast and coffee. Super happy fun times for me and my fellow coffee addicts.
We then went to go an organise sleeping in the park in a tree house for the night. Susan wouldn't be able to do it since she had a bus to catch early Wednesday morning so it was going to be just bracha n i. Sadly though, when it was time to go bracha was feeling very tired and woozy and so we had to cancel it. Within an hour she felt better but it was too late by then. I was very disappointed but when you travel with people you are with them for the good bits and the bad bits. So instead we moved rooms again (the 3rd one of the day...long and boring story why) and went to the pool and ended up chilling with a Dutchman who's travelling his way all across west africa.
As for today, i plan on lying by the pool overlooking the watering hole below where many animals come to drink or to hunt. Maybe i'll go for another walking safari this afternoon. Tomorrow morning at 4.am brach n i need to catch a bus to tamale to begin our million hour journey to accra so we can go to this adorable beach town for the weekend.
So i guess that'll be all for now.
Cheers
No comments:
Post a Comment