Charle, Wote North! (Lets go to the North!)

I think it hasn’t hit me yet that I leave Ghana in a week. I have my days all planned out - when I will write my last paper, study for my last exam, beach days and touristy shopping days - but I'm still waiting to fully realize that I am leaving this place that has been my home for the past 4 months. Maybe it will never sink in. But I guess all I can do is go with it and make sure I am taking in the fleeting moments I have left. 

I came back yesterday morning from a whirlwind four days in the Northern and Upper West regions. The trip, I have to admit, was not all good. It was amazing in so many ways, but it was much more difficult to navigate, to negotiate and to avoid being scammed that I have ever experienced in Ghana. I felt like every other turn we were getting ripped off or received wrong information. I have developed a happy medium between weary and trusting, in which I feel I can gauge when I am being treated differently or unfairly, but this trip blew that out of the water. One example is that on our bus ride from Tamale to Mole we were told 1. that we needed to give the conductor a "tip" to make sure we would have a seat on the bus (this is something I have had to do on route to the Jewish community, so I knew it was a valid practice), and that we had to pay the full fare even though our stop was halfway through the ride. Once we got onto the bus it was half full so we didn’t need to “tip”, but the driver informed us that we actually only had to pay 5GHC, not 13GHC, and once he had change he would give us each our 8GHC: 40GHC in total. When we were getting off the bus at our stop, the bus driver gives me 10GHC - 30GHC short of what he owed us. We started arguing with him and it turned into a screaming match between us and local passerbys on our behalf, and the driver. It ended with the driver speeding away and me left with a measly 10GHC in my hand. This was one of many similar instances where I felt that because I was a foreigner, white, a woman, who knows why, I was being treated differently and it was a huge disadvantage. However, we made a conscious effort to not let these inconveniences damper our experience. 

After 20 hours of traveling from Accra to Tamale, we arrived in Larambanga, a small village outside of Mole National Park. We stayed at the Salia Brothers Safari Lodge. The Salia brothers (twins) and their "nephew" Inusah were amazing and so hospitable. We got a tour of the village and the local mosque, which is rumored to be the oldest building in Ghana. 

Mosque of Larambanga

Of course the tour included hoards of screaming children wanting to take photos and asking for goodies. We then went to Mole National Park to go on SAFARI! Unfortunately we did not see elephants, which they warned us about, but we did see plenty of warthogs, kobs, bushbacks (in the antelope family) and even some monkeys. So we decided to come back the next morning to see elephants and OH did we see them! They were so beautiful and HUGE! It made the already amazing time in Mole even better. 

We then waited for a tro-tro to Wa in the Upper West region, but none were passing. So, after an hour or so of waiting we had no choice but to go by pick up truck. It was a bumpy ride but resulted in a very nice tan, so I can't complain. Wa is a neat town - lots of motorcycles, no cabs and oodles of mosques. However, our hotel was atrocious, never go to the Kunetah Lodge, the room was infested with bugs and manned by idiot brothers that were inconsistent, inhospitable and rude. I normally would not speak so bluntly, but they were really awful - thankfully we were only there for one night. However, Wa itself was really cool. On Wednesday we got up early, jumped on a tro tro to Wechiau and went on a river safari to see HIPPOS. 

Hippos wading in the water

I think we were pretty worn out and sunburnt by this point so the group energy was low, but it was still really cool! We saw hippos wading in the river - they are so much bigger than I imagined. You cant see them on land because they are nocturnal and apparently really really dangerous! The river safari was in the Black Volta river, which happens to be the border between Ghana and Burkina Faso, so after seeing some hippos we hopped over to Burkina Faso to take a photo

The rest of the day we hung out in Wa and toured a beautiful mosque near the bus station. We got   the tour from this funny old man who knew no English but kept saying “Wow” every other sentence (definitely making fun of me), and his grand daughter who translated and lead us around. 

Then it was time to head back to Accra. I feel that we rushed through our trip a bit, but considering I only have a few days in Ghana I wanted to get back. We had to take an overnight bus  to Accra because there are no other options, but it was nice because we thought the ride would be 22 hours and it was actually 12, so we got back to Accra Thursday morning and had the day to sleep off the trip. The bus was the nicest bus I’ve ever been on, but that was cancelled out by the AC blasting (I got a cold!), the music blaring from midnight on and that the driver only stopped twice in 12 hours for less than 10 minutes.  

Now I only have a week to do everything I want to do and study/write papers. I did a bunch of shopping yesterday and I almost have all my clothing made (I’ll post photos later)! Since I am leaving early to meet Mommy in Europe, a bunch of friends and I are going to the beach for two days! It should be fun, and a good motivation for me to get my work done before Wednesday so I can enjoy the beach!

I am going to post one more time (now that I wrote it I have to!), so look out for my parting thoughts and a list of my favorite things about Ghana