The Mole Adventure

What a crazy adventure! There is no way I can describe all of it in this one post. Here are a few journal excerpts.

7-28-08 Day 43

All of today was spent on a bus. The 10 hour bus ride from Accra to Tamale turned into a 12 hour bus ride. My butt was not happy with that by the time we arrived in Tamale. The ride wasn't all bad though. It was very cool to see the extreme differences between southern and northern Ghana. Northern Ghana is A LOT more rural. We passed countless small villages made up of sticks and mud. The people are also darker here in northern Ghana. Unlike southern Ghana which is predominantly christian, northern Ghana is predominantly Muslim. There were a lot of men wearing long dress looking things and funny hats on their heads. A lot of people would wear black eyeliner around their eyes. Men, women, and children all wore this eyeliner. I'm not sure if it is a tribal thing or just a cosmetic custom.....

7-29-08 Day 44

We started our day at 3:30 AM today. We had to catch a bus to take us from Tamale to Larabanga which is right outside the park. We went to the station where one of the big orange Metro Mass buses would take us to Larabanga. We spoke with a guy there and he said that it would probably be hard to get tickets since we didn't book them the day before. The same guy told us he could take us to a different bus which could also take us to Larabanga. The walk to this mysterious bus station was extremely sketchy! It was pitch black and not a nice part of town (There weren't really any nice parts in Tamale) As we were walking I saw some people running a ways ahead of us. Our guide stopped walking and had a cautious/worried look on his face. I saw one of the men running and carrying a big machete. Our guide told us that it was a thief, the tone in which he told us this made it seem like it was an every day occurrence. We changed our route a bit and headed to the bus station. The bus there was not nearly as nice as the metro mass bus which isn't even that nice. We boarded the sketchy bus which could fit about 30 people uncomfortably, 25 people comfortably. The seats were hard and the horn sounded like a train horn but I figured it was only a couple hours drive so I could manage. A couple hours turned into 5 hours. The road was paved for about the first hour then we got to the dirt roads. At the beginning of the dirt road was also the first place that we picked up people from the small village there. We were stopped there for 45 minutes just waiting for all the people and their various items to get packed into the bus. It was CROWDED! We got underway and continued along this dirt road going about 50 MPH on this very bumpy and dusty road. WE continued to pick up people from the small villages along the way and the bus got fuller and fuller. Just as you thought that they would not possibly pack even more people onto this rolling steel death trap we would pull over and load in more and more people. The smell of the people and their various market items was absolutely foul. There were at least 50 people on this bus by now. We finally got to Larabanga which was a small and interesting town. We put our stuff down at the Salia Brothers' Guest Houses which are made up of clay and stick huts. Then we took a tour of the oldest Mosque in Ghana, built in 1421. After a well needed nap we woke up in time to go to the National Park. There we saw baboons and whit ox (warthog looking things) walking all over the Mole Motel grounds. The walking safari started at 3:30 and we saw elephants right off the bat. It was AMAZING! There were 2 of them and they were eating. It was cool to see and hear them ripping off entire branches of leaves. They didn't even seem to mind us watching them at all. After they walked away we kept walking through the park and saw lots of different animals. We saw Bushbucks, white ox, these striped barking deer things (they really barked like dogs!) and a lot of other cool animals. After the tour we ate dinner and went to bed with our alarms set for 3:30 the next morning.

7-30-08 Day 45

We had to go on the treacherous bus ride again this morning. We were on the orange Metro mass buses but they were still packed way beyond maximum capacity. It was raining really hard and there was lightning which would light up the entire early morning sky. As it rained more and more the roads got slicker and slicker but this did not slow down our driver. I was drifting off to sleep when our bus fishtailed out of control coming within inches of hitting the dirt banks and tipping over. After we finished sliding around we continued at the same speed we were going before. It was truly a miracle that we didn't tip over. We finally made our way to Kumasi (about an 8 hour journey) which is the second biggest city in Ghana with Accra being the first. I loved Kumasi! We went to where they weave the beautiful kente cloths. It was really cool to see them in action as they weaved intricate designs into the cloths. After dinner that night all of the sleep deprivation and our schedule of 1 meal a day caught up to me and I got a little sick :(

7-31-08 Day 46

We left Kumasi at around 6:00 this morning and had a surprisingly tolerable bus ride to Accra. I didn't get sick on the bus and I even got to sleep a bit. The ride was about 5 hours from Kumasi to Accra......Despite all the time and pain in the buses I had a good trip. On the previous page of this journal there is a quote which reads "[B]less not only the road but the bumps on the road. They are all part of the higher journey." ~ Julia Cameron. This quote is highly applicable to my trip. It was a great experience and every bump, both literally and figuratively, contributed to the excitement and adventure of the trip. I miss my kids terribly and can't wait to go back to work. What ever am I going to do when I have to leave them forever??? :(