Seasoned Travellers

At the weekends, My Roomie and I pack up bags with gay abandon and go tearing off round the country. Not having the advantages of of most of the other volunteers, who all live close to each other in a big city called Takoradi, we have to travel when we can.. The Scientist often comes with us, and we almost always join two other volunteers placed away from Takoradi; Bryan and The Savage.

First we went to Kakum National Park, a dense rainforest with a canopy walkway, made up of numerous rope bridges which are strung between the trees, forty feet off the ground. Although they are well reinforced, the bridges felt suspiciously wobbly, and Bryan in particular crept across them, quavering that she wasn't terribly happy with the way they swayed gently in the breeze. My Roomie announced to the entire forest with every new bridge that she stepped on that "Honest, I'm not joking here, this is much scarier than a bungee jump...."

Personally, I found it serene. The forest was full of huge, brightly-coloured butterflies, which flapped lazily past me with a kind of heyyy... this is the easy life.... attitude. Once you got into the rhythm of the swinging rope bridges, you could look around and say "Wow... this is really high." Aside from the cries of cicadas, and the incessant creaking of the many insects in the dense foliage, it was blissfully quiet. We had arrived at the perfect time, before the park really opened up to the public. As we left, three huge coachloads of tourists rolled up, and the day really began.

The Takoradi Volunteers joined us in Cape Coast later that day, and we spent the afternoon on the local beach... I've never seen pigs on the beach before. That was a new one. Some of us did a fantastic, slow motion Baywatch run into the surf- then we were dragged under the surface of the water and nearly drowned by the force of the waves and the cross-currents. The tides in Ghana are dangerously strong, and the waves huge. Several times during my brave attempts at swimming, I was tugged fiercely beneath the waves, and pulled along by the currents, so strong I couldn't surface for slightly longer than was comfortable. So... this is what drowning feels like.

Last weekend, My Roomie and I repacked our bags and headed in the direction of Accra; going to visit a famously popular beach among the Lattitude volunteers. We stopped off for a night with Bryan and The Savage first; their placement immediately gained huge kudos, because it contained a Demon Monkey, tied to a tree. As we stared warily at it, Bryan explained that the family had owned the monkey since birth, but that it had inexplicably gone mad a couple of years ago. It now routinely escapes and terrorises the host family, Bryan and the Savage. I could see the crazed look in it's eyes, and hear it's (oddly Mexican-sounding voice) in my head. Ah yes, hombres... You laugh now, but soon I escapes, and then I KEELS YOU ALL!!!

On second thoughts, could probably do without a Demon Monkey living in my house.

The next morning the four of us took off to the budget resort Big Milly's Backyard, where we were going to be staying. To our western-starved eyes, it was the most beautiful place we had ever seen. Slack jawed, we were shown around the outdoor bar, the restaurant, the rooms with an actual running shower!!! and a flushing toilet!!!

even without all these sheer luxuries, there was one thing that cemented my love of this resort until the end of time...

"I don't believe it..." I whimpered, staring at a small wooden kiosk, "They.... They have MARS BARS!"

I have really, really missed Mars Bars.

We spent a fabulous day on the beach, tanning- (well actually I just went my usual charming shade of Lobster Red, but a girl can dream) and ordering drinks from the bar. I had a Barracuda steak in the evening. As it was laid in front of me I could see the huge, ugly fish that ate Nemo's mother, and all his brothers and sisters, leaving him with only his anally-retentive father for company. Har har har. Justice.

In the evening, there was live reggae playing, and when that ended at around one, we were still wide awake enough to go along the beach to another hotel owned by a crazy Swedish man. I met a lot of Ghanaian Rastafarian's, who all spent a lot of time hugging me and explaining that I had to be nice to them because they were nice to me, ergo, if I wasn't nice I would be upsetting the delicate balance of the universe. Then they brought the drums out.
I sat on the sand with a guy called 'Friction', (real name, honest), and bashed a drum in a manner which at the time I thought showed great skill. The beach was flooded with moonlight, and a carpet of stars stretched to the sea. It was incredibly beautiful.

My Roomie and I staggered back to Big Milly's in the early hours of the morning, exhausted and giggly enough to find it absolutely hilarious when the tide came in and completely soaked our shoes. I slept for about two hours and felt incredible when I got up. It must be some quality in the air out here, back home I would have been unable to stand upright for the next three to four days.

Back at the Ranch, things are still going very well. There are frequent power cuts, and the rain is starting to roll in now, but I still love it. The schoolchildren are the most energetic and entertaining kids I have ever met in my life. Today I caused a small riot simply by smearing blue suncream onto their noses. Had never been so popular before in my whole life. My choir is powering along- this evening we sang 'Don't Stop Believing'; (Glee fever reached me a matter of weeks before I left the UK), and danced a lot. Come the end of March, the real travelling will begin- more or less a month on the road, trekking around the country. It's going to be amazing.