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Jennifer's Trip
A TALE OF 5 VOLUNTEERS, A GERMAN PRESBYTERIAN MINISTER, SOME ELEPHANTS AND A BABOON........
Last week, along with the other volunteers, I went to Mole National Park in the north of Ghana. The host families and yeachers are quite keen for us to see as much of Ghana as possible, so they actually encourage us to take time off. So we decided that as we are in Africa we should see some African wildlife, the best place to do this being Mole National Park. As it is quite complicated to get thee using public transport, we decided to hire a taxi for the four days to take us there and back, costing 12pounds each. We expected it to take us around six hours to get there so we planned to leave around 8am on thursday morning, before it got too hot. The taxi driver slpet in, and once we had all been picked up and got a couple of things from the supermarket it was around 12 before we left (we also found a Nandos, apparently they have tem everywhere except the UK, it is sort of like KFC, but much better).
As there are five os us, someone had to sit in the boot, and that person was Michelle, I ened up in the front. It was very very hot, with altogether 6 people in the car plus various bags. We were warned that perhaps the [police would stop us because it is illegal to have more than 5 in the car, but the police that saw us tried to chat us up and get us to marry them (I think the police are totally corrupt, apparently if you get stopped for speeding, you bargain with the police about how much of a bribe to give hem so you don't get a ticket!).
Now unless you are on a main road (what we would call a dual carriageway, but in no way as good a road) the road it literally a dirt track with potholes everywhere, so much so that you bumo up and down in the seat and hit your head repeatedly. This means that the cars have to go very very slowly, now here comes the first in a list if situations that we found ourselves in this weekend.......
When we were still a good hour and a half away from Mole, on of the girls noticed that one of the hubcaps had just come off, Hughes (the driver) decided that he would turn round and go back for it. As he turned round the car stopped. Completely. And would not start, at all. We all got out of the car and Hughes had a look at it, under the bonnet and under the car. He told us it would take around 30mins to fix. So we found that all quite amusing and preceded to take lots of funny 'we've broken down pictures' and eat the rest of the biscuits that we had bought in Kumasi. After about half an hour, the car still wasn't working at all. The road we were on was the middle of nowehere and up until this point we had not seen any other cras. By this time it was 5pm and it starts to get dark at 5.30, and we were starting to panic ever so slightly. Then, a car came along and stopped.A woman got out of the car and asked what was going on. She had a car full of people but she offered to go and drop them off, then return with a mechanic. We were so happy! About 15mins later she came back, but without a mechanic. It was then she offerd to take us and our bags to her house and then come back for Hughes with a mechanic. We were so happy, and relieved! Off we went to her house which was in a town called Damongo, around 30mins away. She dropped us off and we sat and waited while she went to find a mechanic (s we weren't too sure what she was doing, but we assumed it involved getting a mechanic). We waited for around 5hours, drank lots of warm water and what exactly we would do if the car couldm't be fixed, how wold we get to Mole to see the elephants?
We found out that this woman was a presbyterian minister who was in Ghana for three years, and it seemed to be the case that whenever she saw someone walking she would give them a lift! It would have been so bad for us if she had not driven past for us.
At about 11 she came back with Hughes, the car could not be fixed until the morning. It was then that she said she would drive us the rest of the way to Mole! She insisted on taking us, o we all piled into her car and continued our journey. We got to the park at around midnight, so happy and absolutely exhausted. We collapsed into bed as soon as we got there, totally relieved to be there at last!
The next morning we all woke quite early (it was already quite hot), and around 815 there was a knock on the door. It was one of the motel workers telling us to come outside. There was an elephants walking past our dormitory block, through the motel grounds! It was only around 20feet away, and it was totally crazy, I don't know how else to describe it (cue the start of A LOT of elephant photos). It didn't seem to care that we were there, and just seemed to be enjoying a morning walk! We watched it for a while, then we realised that we were wandering around in pyjamas and realised it was maybe time to get dressed.
Later on that morning we went on a walk of the park, our guide was called David and was the least talkative tour guide ever. He took us to the waterhole where elephants hang out and I got lits of 'me and an elephant photos'. I think the elephants are quite used to people so they just ignore them and carry on what they're doing, they don't walk away. We also saw lots of antelopes, crocodiles, monkeys, waterhog, waterbuck and loads of birds. The elephants were the most exciting part!
After that we decided to have some lunch, in the insanely overpriced restaurant with the worst service. I had macaroni cheese (it was edible, but didn't taste good). Later on in the afternoon we decided that mayube it was time for a glass of wine (we took a few bottles with us) so we decided to buy water from the bar (to get some glasses) and sit on the viewing platform above the waterhole. As we were going to get the glasses, a couple of baboons cames along, and one of them stole a bottle from one of the tables. On our guard, we sat down and kept the Pringles we had taken with us in a bag so they (the baboons) couldn't see them. We were aware that there was a baboon a few feet away, but felt safe becaue our Pringles were out of view. How wrong can you be. The baboon, which was HUGE, came running towards us and swiped Cecilia's bag. The, of course, made us burst out laughing, well everyone esxcept Cecilia because this thieving baboon had swiped the plastic bag that contained her purse and phone. Nevertheless, once the baboon had sat down and realised that he didn't like the pink sequined purse, nor the mobile phone, he dumped them and we were able to recover them. For the rest of our day there were lots of baboon jokes such as and random bouts of laughter as remembered hearing 'No, don't laugh, that's my purse!'.
Next, we had a dilema, should we startve or eat in the crappy restaurant. We chose the latter, although we decided to sgare 2 plates of food. After waiting approx 2 hours to be served (every time we stood us, we were told someone would take our order soon) we were told the only thing there was on the menu was rice. We literally begged for chicken. After 3 hours of wating we were served undercooked rice and overcooked chicken. Yum.
The next morning (Sat) we got up and decided to go for a morning walk at 7am, our guide had assured us that we would see more animals. Absolute rubbish. We didn't see anything except a couple of Kob (antelope) until 2 hours later when some elephants came to the waterhole. The 5 of us spent the entire time making fun of an American guy who had the most annoying accent ever 'Hi, I am Jonny from Tennessee' is not something you need to hear at 7am. The elephants made up for it though, we managed to get within ten feet of them ad watch them at the water hole, which was pretty good.
It wasn't until later on Sat that we saw Hughes again. It turned out that he had had to get his mechanic from Kumasi to come and fix his car. He said that now it was fixed, which was not ctricly true. Every time the car needed to start it had to be hotwired or something. It now became clear that there would be seven of us in the car going back on Sunday.
On Saturday evening we had a mini celebration for Birte (from Germany) birthday. She is now the grand old age pf 20. We decided to go to the restauant for about 5 so that we would at least get food. We did get food, but about 2 hours after ordering (we gave up feeling annoyed and came to find the whole situation quite amusing). We finished off the wine we had brought with us and made a dent in the vodka the bar sold (at 30p a shot, we thouth we deserved it after sch a bizarre weekend). Little did we know that our (bad) luck had not run out yet...........
On Sunday we got up at 7.30 to get on the road early before it got too hot. Since there was now one extra person, there was going to have to be 2 people in the boot (it was an estate, so there was room, sort of). Things were going well, until 3 1/2 hours into the journey, the cars breaks down. Again. Luckily we have a mechanic wih us who pinpoints the problem quite quickly, this time it was the pump, and luckily he had a spare one with him. We had another hour long wait as we waited for this problem to be fixed.
By this point the five of us, Michelle, Jess, Cecilia, Birte and me were very tired, very hot, very dusty, very sweaty and very very thirsty. The only water we had was very very very hot. This is not a good combination of factors to have when there is still have the journey to go. Luckily, the car got fixed and we all, once again, crammed into the car.
Eventually we got to Kumasi, and made Hughes take us to Nandos. When we were quite happily eating our food he came inside and told us we would need to get another taxi back to our various houses as the fan in his car was nbow totally knackered and it was not safe to take us. Geat stuff. He found us taxis to take us. The fun hasn't ended yet........
The way taxis work here is that you agree the price before you get in the car. The taxi driver decided that while on the way to drop off me and Jess, that th agreed prices was not enough (he still had to drop Michelle). Big mistake. We were tired and not in the mood to be messed around by another driver, Michelle snapped and started shouting very loudly; there was no way he was going to win this arguement and get more money. I got out of the car and took out mine and Jess' bags and asked him if he was going to drop Michelle, after a few minutes he agreed to.
The weekend was over, and I was never so glad to have a shoer and wash all the orange dust out of my hair, even if the shower is a glorifed tap that comes out of the wall. All my clothes from the weekend are piled in the bag, thick with orange dust, and sweat....the fun never ends!
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