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Mole Weekend
Our highlight so far!!
We went to the bus station on Friday afternoon to catch a bus. It was supposed to leave at 3 o'clock, but eventually left at about 6 o'clock. We were a little bit upset as it meant most of the journey would be in the dark and we were hoping to see the scenery along the way. Kamal waited the whole time and made sure that we had seats together on the bus, even though our tickets were separate. What he didn't check though was our actual seat, it was not really attached and rocked backwards and forwards every time the bus pulled away, it made for an interesting journey. It was supposed to be a 5 hour journey to Mole; the first hour was fine as it was on a tarmaced road, but the last 4 were hideous. We had been warned about the road to Mole, but still wasn't prepared! If you imaging driving down the road to my allotment at about 40-50 miles an hours, it might give you an idea of how much we and the bus were shaken up, I had motion sickness when we stopped. We also made the whole journey in 4 hours, so I think he was taking it a bit too fast, which made sense as at the back of the bus there was a split all the way down the middle of the floor. Jenna & I thought that at any moment the bus would just fall into two!
We eventually arrived at Mole at 11ish. We were greeted by three guys who worked there. They told us that the hotel was fully booked… I am so glad that we booked in advance. The next day we found out that those people that didn't have a reservation ended up staying on a floor altogether in one room and paid the same each as we did for a chalet!
We were shown to our chalet. It had a huge double (triple really) bed, a real bath, sink and toilet… We were so happy! Although we soon discovered there was no running water, it was just provided in big tubs! We also had a balcony that overlooked the watering hole, but we couldn't see anything in the dark, so we went straight to sleep ready to get up for the Safari, which the guide on the bus had told us would be at 7:30, when he was trying to tout for business.
The next morning I woke up at 6, well before the alarm, and bounced around the room in excitement, unfortunately Jenna is harder to wake up than Glenn! From our balcony we could see a large dip with two large pools of water in them, a great view!
We got ready & just as we were about to leave, a guy came to check our minibar. He asked why we weren't on the Safari and told us that it actually left at 6:30, we were gutted. Although there was another in the afternoon, the best time to see everything is in the morning. We decided to have some breakfast then go to the information office to book on the next safari. On the way to breakfast I spotted 3 elephants bathing in the water. It was such an amazing sight, they looked like they were really chilled, squirting each other and mucking about. We watched them for a while and then got some breakfast. An omelette and toast with a cup of tea, brilliant! (we overlooked the fact that they milk in the tea was condensed milk).
We couldn't resist a sneaky peak at the elephants before we went to book the Safari, and found that there was not only 3 in the water, but 4, and another 4 wandering further away towards the other water hole.
We tore ourselves away to book a safari, just by the information centre was lots of monkeys. We felt like we had already seen loads… great photos before we even set off. Our Safari was booked for 11:00 so we spent the rest of the morning sat on a walk watching the elephants. Jenna took some great video shots!
It was us and 4 Americans for the jeep tour. We saw something almost instantly; a Kob which is a type of antelope. Then we saw another Kob and another and another… We started to get a bit worried that we wouldn't see anything but Kob! Thankfully we saw loads. We saw Warthogs, Waterbuck, Crocodiles, Baboons, Velvet Green Monkeys, another type of antelope and elephants. We got great picture of them all apart from the Baboons, they were too quick! We were about 20metres away from the elephants, it was so amazing, Jenna said her heart was pounding! I didn't know that they were the second fastest land animal (after the cheetah). I'm not sure it was the best time to tell us as we were stood directly in front of one. It is hard to imagine what looks like such a gentle giant charging at anyone, but we didn't chance it, we stayed right behind our guide and his huge gun!
We spent 3 hours on our tour and saw everything that we wanted to we were very lucky. I didn't enjoy the last ½ hour as much as I should have done though as I was feeling a bit ill… the first (and hopefully last) upset stomach. Jenna enjoyed saying 'I told you so' after I tried a traditional beef pastie! We raced back to our chalet and chilled for a while.
It was only about 2 o'clock so we decided to go and visit Larabanga; a nearby village with an ancient mosque. We asked the man behind the bar how to do it and he called a friend to come and get us and give us a tour.
His friend (I think he was called Eric) picked us up in a taxi. Just after we left the hotel, he asked if we could drive and said that we should drive a Ghanaian taxi! So Jenna drove all of the way from Mole Motel to Larabanga (5km) it was funny being driven by her here!
Our tour of Larabanga was a fantastic experience, and showed us what the traditional village looks like. They have a good attitude to tourism too, rather than every person trying to take money from you if you take their photo, you can take as many as you like then they take a contribution (whatever you are willing to give) at the end of the tour and give you information about how the money will be spent. We saw women making Shea butter, cooking their meals and sitting around with their children and their animals. We looked inside a typical mud hut. It was about the size of our spare room and only had one small bed, but our guide told us that 15 people slept inside! The children just rushed at us all the time saying hello and wanting their picture taken. They loved Jenna's video camera as it could be turned around and they could see themselves. It was also amazing how clean the village was, in comparison to the towns. Eric explained that through the community working together they looked after their own waster disposal.
After our tour it was my turn to drive home. It was quite an experience, the clutch was really stiff and the brake was practically non-existent! I said to Eric that I hoped no Kob or Baboons ran in front of the car. However he hoped they did as it would be meat!
Back at the motel we went swimming and then watched the sunset go down. We ordered some chicken and chips, which took 2 hours to arrive and finally got an early night ready for our bus journey at 3:30am.
- comments
Bill Read Hi. Great to hear from you both again and about your latest adventure. Great news about getting your mobile back. Although times of buses etc. leave a bit to be desired, I'm sure you both made the most of it and enjoyed all the wildlife you saw. The Hotel you stayed in doesn't quite sound 5 star. Had the boys yesterday and they were great. Suzie is coming to stay with us on Friday and Saturday, and as we had planned to got to the allotment on Friday, she would like to see it as well. Carry on enjoying the rest of your African experience, and we look forward to hearing all about it when you come home. Love to you both. Mum & Dad/Grandad