My dear followers, I have been absent. I have been rather busy. I have been bushopping around Ghana like a hitcher on speed.
Since I last wrote, I have hiked hundreds of miles up, around, and down the country. It has been one of the most hectic, exhausting, and exhilarating experiences of my life. Everything really kicked off the day after my nineteenth birthday- (I hired a jetski; one should always do these things in style). The Scientist and I travelled together for a couple of days, one step ahead from the rest of the volunteers. We took a bus up to Kumasi; the second biggest city in Ghana, which has a covered market covering over 14 hectares of ground. Camden was like a toytown by comparison- and nowhere near as
badass. The two of us spent a whole afternoon wandering between the labyrinth of stalls, and when we found ourselves suddenly lost in the meat section of the market, The Scientist suddenly muttered-
"Whatever you do,
don't look in the back of that truck."
Of course I looked. Cow heads. A huge pile of gigantic severed cow heads, completely whole, but skinned, with their windpipes hanging out of the back of their heads, and enormous swollen eyeballs. All of them were looking at me. I averted my eyes, only to see what looked like the back end of a cow being shoved into the boot of a taxi. The smell was intense.
We had a complete contrast to the hubbub of Kumasi the next day, when we travelled to Lake Bosumtwi- a meteorite crater, which filled with water over time and is now the largest natural lake in Ghana. It looked rather like the Lake District, only tropical- cocoa trees grew all the way around the rim of the lake, and the water was the temperature of a warm bath. We spent all afternoon in the lake, then met other volunteers in the evening, while lightning played out over the hills and the flat surface of the lake.
The entire volunteering group raised their collective standard in Techiman, around four hours North of Kumasi and the lake. We spent our first morning together slashing our way through dense rainforest to reach the Buoyem bat caves. We jumped rivers, climbed near-vertical rock faces, and crawled through stone passages on our hands and knees, while hundreds of bugs crawled over us. It could have been an Indiana Jones film- only the Nazis were wanting. The caves were full of bats- who were hardly impressed with the eighteen adolescents who had suddenly appeared in their home. So unimpressed that, once we were all on our hands and knees crawling through a cramped stone tunnel with only inches of space around us, they decided to fly through, beating us with their wings. One got stuck underneath my (rather baggy) t-shirt. There was a fair bit of screaming, and that was only from the boys. I was so filthy by the end of that day that I went so far as to wash my clothes in a bin- at least I had something (comparatively) fresh to wear the next morning...
I cleaned up nicely the following day though- My Roomie, Bryan, and a couple of other girls stopped off at the Kintampo Waterfalls on the road North to Tamale. We paid three cedi for a guide to take us down to the base of the falls (152 concrete stone steps down; My Mother would have hated it), and spent a fantastic hour having the most intense power shower of our lives. The falls were about seventy metres high, and cascaded down over a steep rock face surrounded by rainforest, and in a clearing full of brightly coloured butterflies. It was safe for us to clamber under the flow of water- although slippery, as I discovered through trial and error, and seeing one of the other girls perform the most amazing slip-and-slide tumble I've ever seen in my life. Once under the thundering water, I felt the cleanest I've been since I arrived in January. In fact, I would never be dirty again, surely not after this... Our guide helped me climb up the rockface through the sheets of water; until I was sitting behind the waterfall on a mossy ledge, and looking out at the world, shattered by thousands of rainbows.
On from Kintampo to Tamale, the Muslim Capital of Ghana, and the main connecting city in the North. Here, motorbikes are the main form of transport- it's quite a sight watching stately old men in full muslim dress; (long dress-like robes with little fez-style hats perched on top of their heads) sitting sedately on a motorcycle speeding through the lanes of traffifc. As they go, their robes fill with air and billow out behind them like sails. Even more alarming is the women, who all wear skintight neck-t0-ankle dresses, sitting side-saddle on the back, often holding their tiny babies in their laps. Helmets? Protective clothing? I'm sorry, I haven't a clue what you're talking about.
Tamale was our springboard to get to one of the highlights of our trip- Mole National Park. We were all hoping for some intense wildlife viewing; after all, this is Africa. More than anything else, I was in search of elephants. Two years ago, my family and I had been on safari in South Africa. We were told we were very lucky to have glimpsed elephants in the wild- despite the fact that we only saw them for a few minutes, and every other jeep in the park was jostling for a look. I never thought I'd get much closer to wild elephants than that. How wrong I was.
We were taken out on a two-hour foot safari in the early morning, and within half an hour I found myself standing within fifteen feet of a huge African elephant. We had already passed two young males enthusiastically showering in a waterhole, and almost straight after that we came across a small herd of females, considerably older and larger than the first two elephants. At Mole there are over two hundred elephants, and many of them are used to the tourists approaching them. Patiently, they turned this way and that, giving us their best sides, while we gibbered in awe at their sheer size and proximity. It was incredible to see them so close, calmly ignoring us and interacting naturally with each other.
The evening was given over to sheer, surprise entertainment from the boys in the form of a little light-hearted cross-dressing. When they appeared in the bar, everything went quiet for a moment, while all the Ghanaian men stared slack-jawed at these two weird apparitions who had appeared in their midst. Though a very friendly country by nature, Ghanaians are very strictly religious, and so not terribly appreciative of drag, or its implications. In short, you can get up to seven years in jail for homosexuality- so who knows what cross dressing could involve? For a few minutes everything was slightly tense, while the boys ordered drinks and sat cross-legged in their chairs, adjusting their large, curly wigs (earlier that day we had removed the weaves from several girls' hair to take their braids out). Then one man found the courage to walk up, reach out, and hesitantly prod the padded material at the front of 'Robina's' dress. The silence broke, all the Ghanaians howled with laughter, and we were allowed to fully appreciate the genius of their surprise. The absolute highlight of the night though, was The Scientist, who, solely for the sake of amusing us, shaved off the beard he had painstakingly cultivated over the course of the previous eight months. No one dares say our group doesn't make sacrifices for each other.
From Mole, the more adventurous of us were ready to try another extreme trek; the Yeji-Akosombo ferry, which travelled down the length of Lake Volta. This was the point at which our large group split; we had all heard tales about the ferry from previous volunteers, and most of them were pretty bad press. Those of us willing to bypass the horror stories and go for the experience were chased back out of Tamale at five a.m in a torrential downpour, onto a horribly damp and uncomfortable bus, where we steamed slightly as our clothes attempted to dry, which took us to a large open canoe, which carried us and about thirty Ghanaians across the river to Yeji. The engine kept cutting out in the middle of the river, and all the Ghaanaians (who are not terribly fond of water as a general rule) started screaming and praying to Jesus to save us all. We just sat there and felt rather damp and silly, while worrying vaguely about the holes in the bottom of the boat, which seemed to be letting in rather a lot of water.
Still, we arrived at Yeji safe and sound, then had a twelve-hour wait for the ferry to arrive. It pulled in at midnight, and we boarded and fell asleep as best we could- the ferry left the shores of Yeji at about 3 a.m. The three-day trip down Lake Volta was one of the most arduous experiences I had during my travels. During the day we were hot and sweaty, with very little on board to amuse us. The single bathroom on our deck was frequently locked, and several of us went the full three days without a shower. I'm not sure if I've ever felt so filthy before in my life. The boat docked on the first day, and spent hours loading hundreds and hundreds of crates of yam onto the lower deck- for the rest of the trip, the whole boat reeked of yam and the stale straw it was packed in. We spent the three nights sleeping on the metal deck, wrapped in a sheet to try and keep out the cold while soldiers stepped over and around, and occasionally on, us. The lack of comfort though, was made up for by the sight of the full moon in a cloudless sky, turning the dark waters of the lake to burnished silver, while the milky way wheeled over our heads. There wasn't a single man-made light to dim the view, and it was the clearest and brightest moon I've ever seen in my life. I could almost understand how staring at it for too long might turn you mad.
It was a relief to get back onto dry land, and we spent several days in the Volta Region, before heading back to Accra. We visited the Wli falls; the highest waterfall in Ghana, which fell for some sixty feet off a sheer rock face, while a colony of bats wheeled overhead.
Now, I'm not sure whose clever idea it was to climb the highest mountain in Ghana. I also have a sneaking suspicion that whoever had such a clever idea was not masochist enough to put the idea into practice. I am not terribly clever; so I decided to go on and do it, with a few other hardcore travellers. That is, we thought we were hardcore. Until we got about a fifth of the way up the practically vertical incline. Oh no, then we were simply dying. We didn't start the hike until about ten in the morning- at which point it is already hot enough to be uncomfortable simply walking along a flat road. Our guide- who was clearly some sort of invincible man- practically strolled up the mountain in full length trousers and flip flops. The rest of us were practically crawling for the rest of it. I was so drenched in sweat that all the dye from my (bright pink) bra ran through and stained two large patches on my (white) vest top. An excellent look for wandering the streets of Achiase. After a highly painful hour and a half of climbing, we managed to stagger to the top. The views were pretty incredible- stretching around us were huge mountains covered in rainforest, and we could see for miles. Someone produced ipod speakers, and played 'Rule the World' by Take That- the best imitation of Comic Relief scaling Kilimanjaro that we could come up with. Producing a permanent marker, I wrote 'Lattitude, Ghana 2010' on one of the rocks. Something to inspire any future volunteers insane enough to attempt that climb.
All too soon we were back in Accra, and on our way to placement. And now I'm back home. How funny it is, that now Home is here in Achiase, and London is just some strange fantasy-city with constant electricity, running water, and hugely tall buildings a million miles away. Even thinking about such a place feels alien to me.
I have been travelling. I have done half my time here. I am rather sleepy. In fact, I think it's time for a good, long nap.
