24 Hour Drive

We started the weekend early this week by waking up at 3am on Friday to start our 10 hour drive to Kumasi, which is the west trek of our journey to Mole National Park. We spent one night in Kumasi, and it was very interesting to compare with Ho (we all agreed Ho is the best place to live). When we went for a run we were gawked at, hooted at, grabbed, and stared at (this happens sometimes in Ho, but it's usually followed by laughter at seeing Yevus and their silly exercises). To be fair, we committed a series of social faux pas, including running through a funeral procession in the streets, and the boys running shirtless (they were yelled at by a guard and told they wouldn't be allowed to pass through shirtless again). When we ran past a soccer game at a nearby university, we tried to sit in the bleachers and join the fun, but we were turned away by someone in authority (we don't know if it was because we were white, or many of us were girls, or the boys were shirtless, but it was definitely a new kind of experience. Not fun but a good one to have). Despite these initial setbacks, Kumasi was pleasant enough, especially because the nearby market carried mars bars and twix. I also am proud to say I slept in a room in which we found two cockroaches, one dead and one very much alive (though I should say for posterity's sake it took a little bit of wine to prepare myself).

Day two was the northern drive, a 12 hour metro ride that ended in Mole National Park. This ride was particularly noteworthy at the end, when our tin can of a bus jostled over the dirt roads. The noise was deafening, and it was so bumpy that one of the windows fell out of its ribbing (luckily Rosie had some quick reflexes and caught it before it fell on her head), and the floor cracked. But since we arrived late at night, all we could look at was the sky. Despite what I know is scientifically true, the sky here is not the same as at home. I've heard before that there are more stars than grains of sand on the earth, and I never would have believed it until now. 

Sunday morning (happy belated father's day btw!) we woke up early to start our safari, and we didn't have to go far to see some amazing wildlife. The monkeys were chilling outside our door, and the wild boars were hanging out about 20 feet away. When we walked into the savannah we saw baboons squatting with their babies, lots of different versions of antelope, and the cherry on top- the elephants. We followed their massive footprints (and even more massive piles of poop) until we got to a waterhole where six elephants were standing in the water. They then put on quite a show for us when they tramped out of the water and started spraying themselves with mud. Lots of pictures and videos to share. We spent the rest of the day hanging out at the resort at the park, which luckily had a pool, shower, and french fries. Ingredients for a perfect day.

That night we braved the ominous clouds and took a nighttime hike to a massive treehouse (just a large roofless platform in a tree), dinner balanced on our heads, and spent the night in the forest. The clouds parted, a starry sky blanketed us for the night, and describing the following six hours would be too difficult and would sound too cliche, so I won't try. But it was awesome. 

Early Monday morning and Tuesday we undid our first two days of travel, and we finally arrived back home (it's weird that Ho is now "home") around noon today. We had a few hours to re-energize, then we redeemed ourselves from our miserable soccer game by playing a bunch of Ghanians at volleyball and actually winning. Then we tried to teach them frisbee, but most of us got distracted with handstands and cartwheels and spinning little kids in the air. So now I'm extremely dirty and the water has turned off for the night there's no shower in sight. But it was worth it.

Also noteworthy is that a bunch of us made guacamole tonight. It took about 20 avocados, 4 onions, 4 limes, and lots of garlic, but we devoured it all with some fried yams. Delicious.

So tired and dirty and such. 

Anna