Mole National Park (slash probably the most ridiculous weekend of my life, ever)

This past weekend was probably one of the most fun/ridiculous/hilarious/confusing/exciting times I've ever had in my life. On Thursday I went up to Mole National Park in the northern part of the country. Greta, Kate, Clara, and I all signed up to go with the computer science department who had planned the trip. (Friday was Ghanaian Independence Day, so classes were cancelled. It would have been cool to stick around and see what happens on Independence Day here, but Mole is a 12-hour bus ride away, and I really wanted to go with a student group so I could meet more people and not have to worry about transportation there and back.) Anyway, we were supposed to meet at 3:30 Thursday afternoon so the bus could leave at 4:30. It actually left at almost 8:30 that night. The bus ride was INSANE. Probably 80% of the roads between Accra and Mole are unpaved, so it was a very bumpy ride. Also, apparently Ghanaians don't sleep on overnight bus trips. Instead they have very loud dance parties and watch soap operas all night (also very loud). And let me tell you . . . African soap operas are even worse than American soap operas. Basically people just yell at each other and smack each other a lot. I'm not sure there was an actual plot in any of them. But it was certainly an experience! And we finally arrived around 8:00 am on Friday at the park.

We took a walking safari into the park with a guide. (You're actually not allowed to enter the park unless you have an armed ranger with you, if that gives you any idea how close you actually can get to some of the animals!) I saw a few baboons, warthogs, and antelope. THEN I SAW ELEPHANTS!!!!!! MAYBE 40 FEET AWAY!!!!! Lots of them!!!! And baby ones!!!! It was very cool, and I got some AWESOME pictures. I'll try to get to a place that I can easily upload them by the end of this week.

Right after the tour, the bus was going to head back to Accra. My friend Molly and her roommate had also come on the trip and were planning to stay. I had thought about it but didn't want to go back by myself, so I had decided against it. But when I found out they too were staying, I opted to stick around as well. Molly and I both wanted to camp out rather than stay in the motel at the park, so we rented tents and headed for the campsite. THAT was an adventure. We've both been camping before, but neither one of us had a clue what we were doing as we've only been in groups. (The extent of my tent-pitching knowledge comes from having helped the Crowleys or Phelpses in the past . . . and really I was usually more of a firewood-gatherer than tent-pitcher.) So we struggled for a bit trying to get stakes into the ground, but then two other guys who were camping out came over to help. Alex from France and Ian from England. We never quite figured out Alex's story . . . it seems like he just kind of wandered around Burkina Faso for a while and then decided to come to Ghana. Ian has a Land Rover that he converted into a camper of sorts and he DROVE DOWN TO GHANA FROM ENGLAND!!!!!! Literally, he attached a tent to the roof of his car and installed a water purifier, refrigerator, and stove into the trunk and just took off for Africa. He's driven through all of west Africa and is going to the Ghanaian coast. When he gets there, he's taking a boat to South Africa and then going to drive around the southern part of the continent till he runs out of money. Later Friday night we also met four New Zealanders (Carrie, Richard, Greg, and Sandra) who have been traveling the world since September. SEPTEMBER!! OF LAST YEAR!!! Where people find the money to do these things, I don't know. I have now decided what I will do with the money if I ever win the lottery.

Friday afternoon Molly, her roommate (Jen), and her roommate's friends (Lu, Liu, and Wang) hung out by the pool at the park for a while. Baboons kept running around and trying to steal people's things, which was definitely entertaining to watch. Everybody did a pretty good job of fending off the baboons (one little Dutch boy did a great job chasing after one with a lawn chair) . . . but I have to be honest: despite my extraordinary rugby skills, if there were a showdown between me and a baboon, my money would be on the baboon. They're sneaky little things!

After the pool, we went to a nearby village called Larabanga where the oldest mud and stick mosque in Ghana is found. It wasn't all that exciting of an excursion, other than the fact that now I can say I've been there. I was actually probably more impressed with the huge baobab tree right next to the mosque. (Baobab trees are important in one of my favorite French books, Le Petit Prince, so it was cool to see one in real life.) Also there's a legend our tourguide was telling us about, but I couldn't quite understand it . . . I think the first imam of the mosque had been telling people before he died that he should be buried right next to the mosque and a tree would grow there. Well, sure enough, a baobab tree grew right where he was buried. Also, there were lots of cute little children running around and holding my hand. They were fascinated by my camera so I kept taking pictures of them and then showing them. So as I said, the mosque itself wasn't all the impressive but it was definitely a fun afternoon. That night Molly and I just chatted with people at the campsite (her roommate + friends stayed in the motel), and then we woke up at 6:00 the next morning to do another walking safari. We saw hardly anything on that safari - just a couple of antelope, so it made everything we had seen the day before that much more special. Even though it's a national park, it's apparently still very rare to see things!

THEN the most epic adventure of a journey home began. There's only ONE bus that leaves the park for the nearest major city/transport hub (Tamale) . . . and it leaves at 4:00 am. We were actually awake then because people were moving around, but we had wanted to do another safari so we stayed for the morning and were going to figure something else out. Well that "something else" ended up being a LOT of somethings else that took about 20 hours (instead of 12). First, we had to take a car to Damangoe (21 km from the park), which the driver at the park had told us would be the perfect spot to catch a tro-tro to Tamale, or headed south so we could later pick up transport to Accra. Well that was not the case. Apparently we actually needed to go to Damangoe JUNCTION (another 56 km away). So, we had to get a taxi that charged us a ridiculous amount of money, but it was obvious after almost an hour that it really was our only option. The road between Damangoe and Damangoe Junction is unpaved. 56 km of unpaved road, with the 6 of us + the driver crammed into the cab, plus all of our bags. Also we had the windows open because of the heat, so we were getting FILTHY from all the dust flying around. About 30 minutes in, we got a flat tire (naturally)! BUT, thank goodness, the driver had the amazing foresight to get a new tire and put it in the trunk just before we left. He said he'd never had a flat on that road before and was surprised . . . and we started to think perhaps he had finally bought the tire because he knew he was charging us an arm and a leg to drive us. But, anyway, it was definitely funny as we all piled out of the car in the middle of nowhere. The entire rest of the way (another hour or so) we were all just praying we didn't get a second flat, because there was NO traffick on that road, and our phones didn't work so we couldn't have even called a friend of the driver to help us out. Luckily we made it to the junction finally. But THEN we realized that's not really a great place to catch a tro-tro either, because there were 6 of us, and almost any car/van/tro-tro/bus/anything that goes through only has 1 or 2 available seats, if any. So instead we took a tro-tro to Tamale (another hour and a half, AND this was out of the way as we had to go back on that exact same road later towards Accra). But finally, we got to Tamale, found a bus headed straight for Accra, bought tickets, grabbed food, and boarded. Around 4:00 this morning we got into Accra, then got a taxi back to campus by 4:30. It was certainly an adventure! It was definitely tiring, but Molly and I were laughing almost the whole time at just how ridiculous the situation was. And it was great fun meeting people all along the way from all over the world.

This was definitely a more tourist-y weekend for me, so I don't have as many thoughts on it as usual, but there were a few things I realized. While we were always smiling, it was still very frustrating at times knowing full well that we were being ripped off and paying way too much money for taxis. This happens a lot, as drivers (and anybody really) assume that white people have lots of money. While in relative terms this is generally true, it's certainly not always true, and it also doesn't mean that just because I HAVE money I should have to pay more than the going rate for a cab. So when several people kept promising they were helping us get to where we needed to be, and when we realized after paying that that wasn't the case, it was frustrating. And then I remembered . . . at least I'm fortunate enough that I can be ripped off from time to time. It sounds weird to say that, and I'm not sure how to explain it. I guess I'm just grateful of the things that I have, the opportunities I'm given, that I'm privileged enough to be able to travel to a national park for the weekend, and that I can afford to figure out complicated transportation home. The other thing I realized is that I need to be VERY careful who I travel with at the end of the semester. The chaos of that last 24 hours showed me how important it is to be with people who are able to laugh at the situation and stay relaxed. It wouldn't have been nearly as fun as it was if I was with people who got stressed out by the confusion. (I've actually surprised myself at how relaxed I've been here, as I'm usually fairly high strung and like to have everything planned out in advance.)

Now I should sign off after that insanely long post. But one more thing: I'm SO excited about this week. The place where I'm interning has been working with a community near Cape Coast. We're going back tomorrow through Wednesday to meet with them about child labor and domestic violence in the community. I have no idea what to expect, and I don't exactly know what I'll be doing, but I think it will be a great experience to interact with people in the village and learn from their stories.