Jan. 16th Hettie~ my roommate & I headed out for an 8 day adventure throughout Western & Northern Ghana. Our path didn't go exactly they way we planned, but we managed to bump into all sorts of funny surprises along the way and had an AMAZING time :) Here are some of the highlights...(<--elephant track)
Day 1 Accra to Kumasi: Bus showed up 6 hrs late! In the evening made it to Kumasi and spent the night at an old Mercy Shipper's apartment in the city. Her roommate is a Dr. who is doing drug trials on the "Mysterious Disease" the Brueli ulcer in the nearby villages. It was interesting to learn about her work as there are only a few people in the World currently even trying to research this unknown disease that is found mostly in Africa. Got up in the morning and walked along the edge of West Africa's largest market & toured the Old Ashanti Chief's Palace~ more like a simple home with some cool tribal relics... interesting to see 3rd world royalty! Antiques sit in open outside air, instead of behind glass cages. The reigning chief has as much power if not more than the President of the Ghana! LUCKILY, they have agreed on issues so far?!
Day 2: Kumasi to Techiman: ventured to the "Monkey Sanctuary" where we were simply taken to the backyard forest of a local village and the guide pointed up to some trees, and eloquently explained and I quote, "look... monkeys!" We got to get very close to them! This tribe believes that the monkeys are their ancestors, so basically when the monkey comes in the evening to steal their food from their hut, you don't sweat it b/c you could be feeding your grandma!! ;) They even give them a human~ like burial, got to see the monkey cemetery & where the fetish priest is buried. Their was also an amazing free standing vine structure that outlines where a tree once was. The vine is a parasite that chokes the tree and takes it shape, leaving the tree to decay and disappear. That night stayed at a nice hotel where I actually had a HOT bubble bath!!! miracles of all miracles. Stayed up late that night as I had a very significant conversation with one of the young hotel guards. Its one of those conversations that you Know you were supposed to have. Hassai is a very bright man, my age who genuinley shared with me his perpetual struggle/hopelessness of his fight to get out of poverty. I just sat and listened. I have been praying for God to show me the harder side of Africa, and I am very grateful to have learned what I did from him. I pray his dreams for a higher education come true and he is able to find joy. It broke me... but in a good & necessary way if that makes sense.
Day 3: Techiman to Wenchi to Bui: After a looong tro tro ride with a psycho older man who persisted to turn around and jabber incoherent nonsense to us for 3hrs, I think I had my day's exercise just laughing at him; when your tired & trapped with 31 other people in a old Volkswagen with a big muslim woman sitting partly on you and a chicken in the back, all you can really do is just laugh, hard :) Luckily laughter is contagious and he eerily laughed with us! Got dropped off at Bui National Park a.k.a a bunch of old woodplank houses with no electricty or running water in the middle of NOWHERE. Spent the dark evenings hovering over a small kerosene lamp and learning from 12y old Joyce all the ways to cook plantain. We had to bring our own groceries.. for $4 we lived off hardboiled eggs, bread, plantians, and 
apples for 2 days. The 1st morning we were there we set out at 7am to see the Hippos. Before that could happen we had to walk an hour on foot passing all the cute kiddos in uniform on their way to school running to greet us cheerfully and say "you are MOST welcome!" When we got to the tourist center in the remote village (an open hut with goat poop in it) we were told to sit down while they hired local fisherman to canoe out to the hippos with us. Felt
like caged animals as we were just stared at, like they were waiting for Hettie & I to do some type of trick! Got 4 adorable fisherman to take us out. As we got further & further up the river, the more hippos we came across...each time my lil' fisherman turned around with a big grin on his face and excitedly proclaimed "A HIPPPPPO". They were as giddy as we were to see them! Saw 24 hippos in total, 13 at one time! This safari was the biggest highlight of my trip, I LovEd it!Day 4: Woke up at 4:30 am on my birthday to walk to the bus station (the bridge) and wait as we were commanded to "SIT down" and then left in pitch darkness! ha. Out of the dark, some without shoes...amazing local women arrived with bundles of heavy sticks or produce on their heads and babies on their back to go to the bigger villages to sell. The grandmas found it important to get up BEFORE the crack of dawn as well to "organize" and sweep their dirt outside their homes?? We just sat their and took it all in :) When the tro tro arrived we all hopped in and went down the horribly, bumpy dirt road BEEEPING loudly as we got to each village to help wake everyone up who needed to go to town. Spent 13 hrs of my 24th birthday cramped next to a bunch of people and a few goats in the trunk... needless to say I wasn't lonely!!!!
Day 5: Mole National Park!!! Morning and evening $1.50 safaris on foot with P.K. our armed tour guide, and lots of other Bruneii's (white people). Saw elephants, antelope, crocodiles, and birds ohh my! A few hours before we arrived, an elephant had come up to the swimming pool to get a drink of water!!! Families of warthogs snorted their way through breakfast eating the hotel grass. Nature up close & personal, ahh :) Just as fun as seeing the animals was sitting down after the safaris's to eat with the other guests and find out what everyone was doing in Africa; a German couple motorcycling for 2 months across West Africa, a Dutch couple here to contine a child sponsor program that helps kids work during the day to support their family and schooling in the afternoon so they can still get an education, a 32y hippy Israeli here to learn drums and dance who told me all about what it was like to live in Israel with the random suicide bombings, German man working with a Reforestration program as Ghanians like to just burn land like crazy...and many more interesting people :)
Day 6: Monday decided, hey!, lets head 5km out of Mole Park to a nearby village called Larabanga for a bike ride to see the oldest Mosque in West Africa... why not?! sounds fun... until... the guard and the cattle boy BOTH told us to go LEFT instead of right at the fork in the road so 1hr after riding down the dirt road in the middle of a HOT, savannah afternoon we came upon 2 old men on their bikes (our only piece of civilization since we left) who pointed the other way to Larabanga... i think we would have ended up in CHINA had we kept going? Needless to say, we made it, saw the amazing mosque and the volunteer teacher that was taking us around wanted to show us his school. It was another one of those moments that really made a harder reality sink in. He casually explained that he was in charge of 2 classes, each with 80 kids as they are understaffed. They don't have enough school housing or teachers for all the kids in the community so some can't go to school and 40 of the kindergardners have class under a tree, if they have enough money to buy a stool they may bring it! There are so many kids b/c having many kids (up to 10 is normal!) is their parents Life Insurance.... on the way home... the ONE big hill between this village and the Park had a huge herd of cattle crossing it.... Welllll my ancient bike didn't have any brakes. so as I tried to swerve in and out of them I came about 2 feet from crashing into one Big OnE! It was a close call, ha ;)
Day 7: Got up at 3:20am to not miss our one way bus ticket outta here! Took it to Tamale and spend our last day reading and 
relaxing. The northern region of Ghana is about 90% Muslim so not only does the landscape change to savannah with circular muds huts, compared to jungle with rectangle huts, but the structures have a Arab flare and mosques around every corner. The people are beautifully mysterious with their turbans and head wraps on, distinquished men with long white beards. The people in Tamale use motos to get around as well, so saw some many motor mamas with their babies simply wrapped onto their backs kickin it down the highway at highspeed, some even with another small child in the front. It makes a nurse cringe! From the tro tro windows also saw a lot of signs of people with Polio, Rickets, bloated bellies...hard to see.
relaxing. The northern region of Ghana is about 90% Muslim so not only does the landscape change to savannah with circular muds huts, compared to jungle with rectangle huts, but the structures have a Arab flare and mosques around every corner. The people are beautifully mysterious with their turbans and head wraps on, distinquished men with long white beards. The people in Tamale use motos to get around as well, so saw some many motor mamas with their babies simply wrapped onto their backs kickin it down the highway at highspeed, some even with another small child in the front. It makes a nurse cringe! From the tro tro windows also saw a lot of signs of people with Polio, Rickets, bloated bellies...hard to see.
Day 8: The airport didn't look too sketchy so we fly back from Tamale to Accra, no more tro tros for us! Of course even in Accra on the way home, the adventure continued... was cruising down the highway in a taxi to Tema Port when I decided to try the window button to make it go up as my hair was blowing in my face... Being a normal run down taxi, the button didn't work. The taxi driver saw my attempt and decided to help me... so he immediately pulled the car over on the side of the highway, pulled out a big 8 inch knife, flung himself over me & jabbed it 4 inches away from my right arm into the window button. fixed! he said as the window went up. Oh my. Went out with a bang! never a dull moment in this wonderful country :)So if you made it all the way through reading this.... You can tell, I had a BLAST!! It was the trip of a lifetime that I will never forget. Each day full of so many fun memories :) Trips like this are not possible in Liberia as it still has a lot of civil unrest from a recent war, so I wanted to take advantage of it all while I could. We sail in exactly one month from today. Have had a wonderful warm welcome back to the ship, it feels like i'm exactly where I should be :)
*if you want to see more pictures~ go to photo link on left, click on NW Ghana roadtrip, then view as slideshow :)
