East Side

1) Christi, Me, Christina and I walking to the entrance gate for Wli falls, the little boy was guiding us.
2) On the bridge heading towards Wli falls: Me, Christi, Cora and Christina
3) Eating cocoa from the plant! Yum Yum!
4) The falls...and if you look closely you can see us!
5) No mom I am not really falling into the water! ;)
6) A true Ghanaian.

“Obruni, come”

Cora and I found a taxi from our home in Labone to the trotro (bus) station, Tema Station. Even before we entered the station we were bombarded with trotro drivers who wanted us to ride their trotro. Overwhelmed with the “Obruni, come” phrase we somehow managed to pull away from the mob and figure out where we needed to be. We were going to meet with Christina and Christi who were coming from Cape Coast (2 hours to the west of Accra). Apparently, there are actually at least 4 trotro stations all within 2 minutes of each other. After we found them at a different station, we finally found a nice trotro that would take us to HoHoe (at least 4 hours away) in the Volta Region. For 7 cedis we got to ride in an air conditioned, country blaring trotro! After dropping in the HoHoe station, a whirlwind of vehicles zooming by, girls selling bread, eggs and water sachets from their head and the bombarding of taxi drivers all vying for our attention, we found our way to a taxi that would take us to Wli Waterfalls (another 45 min. away). I shouldn’t really say “we found our way”, because everyone was so helpful, telling us how to get to our destination, all we need to do is say where we want to go. The taxi we took to Wli, was a shared taxi, meaning that when the car fills with people then it will go to set destinations (a dropping taxi is one that will take you directly to your destination-more expensive). So the four of us girls crammed in the back (the taxi is a little hatchback), a gentleman, lady and three little children plus the driver all rode up front (mom, I saw your cringe!). We had to stop quite a few times one for dropping the other passengers and also so that the driver could fix his door, that looked as though it was about to fall off. The ride wasn’t so bad-in Ghanaian terms! Finally he dropped us girls off at the Waterfall Lodge, we hadn’t had any reservations but managed to get into a tent for the night. It was such a tranquil and lovely lodge and the owners-a couple from Germany-were very sweet and helped us with directions. Dinner of pineapple chicken and rice was amazing, topped with chocolate FanIce and fruit for dessert (FanIce is the local ice cream here). In the morning we had eggs and toast and coffee-and none of that Nescafe stuff-thus stuff was good! (Nescafe is the most commonly drunk coffee here) Apparently, it was too good for me- 3 cups and one caffeine high later- we started our 45 min. walk to Wli Waterfalls. Our guide showed us raw cocoa and we tried it and it was delicious! Wli falls was amazing, magnificent actually! It was about 40 meters high (no idea how high in US terms) and ended in a pool of water no deeper than my stomach. After we enjoyed “running” under the waterfall, we snapped a few more pics and headed back.

“Obruni, what happened?”

On the walk back to the lodge my pants got wet from the underclothes I wore in the water, so it basically looked like I didn’t make to the ladies room in time. A Ghanaian lady passing us on the trail took one look at me and said “Obruni, what happened?” I guess I must have been a funny sight! We wanted to go to Tafi Abuipe, a kente cloth weaving village so we left for HoHoe as quickly as possible. After learning that we did not have enough time to go to the village and make it back to our lodge-it was now about 4:30pm and it gets dark about 6ish-we decided to take a tro to Fume. The guidebook says that you can walk the 45 min. trail to Mountain Paradise Lodge, where we were staying for the night, the book did not say that it was a 45 min. arduous walk up the mountain! Since it was getting later in the day I was afraid that we wouldn’t make it to the lodge before dark, so Christina and I booked it up the mountain. Finally after about 40 min. we saw a building! It was on the other side of the valley!! 30 min. later we finally saw our first sign! I was so happy and relieved! We made to the lodge before dark. When Christi and Cora finally met up with us 5 min. later they said that they took lovely time-why was I so paranoid?! All Christina and I could think of was after the sun goes down movies! The lodge was surreal! So peaceful, I could stay there indefinitely! Later, we met a young man from the Netherlands, he joined us for dinner and went with us to Tafi Atome (the monkey sanctuary) the next day. We all went to bed about 9pm.

Monkeying Around

Tafi Atome, a little village that hosts the monkey sanctuary, is situated right next to a rainforest. Sometimes the monkeys will actually come down from the trees and eat bananas from your hands, we weren’t so lucky but they did come part way down the tree to snatch a banana out of your hands before booking it up the tree again. It was interesting to see the Mona Monkeys so close in their natural setting. Our guide told us that, although the monkeys have a vast rainforest to sleep in, they sleep in a field close to the village. Back on the main road we hopped a tro to Accra. This one wasn’t as nice as the first-no air conditioning and cram packed seats. At one point on the drive back we even had a tire blown, these guys should be the pit crew for the racecar drivers, they were so fast changing that tire! Well after haggleing a price for the taxi ride to Labone, we finally made it home.