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After a rather late breakfast, it was set for 6am but the staff didn't appear until nearer 6.10am and then they didn't have any porridge so we had to have the more normal offering of omelette and toast. Indeed the locals often make it into a toast sandwich often with jam on the toast! I must say we never tried that combination. Due to the heat butter is non existent, the normal milk is evaporated and margarine comes in little plastic sachets and you have to push it out!
We were on the road by 7am and heading to the river bridge by the Mognori village which we went to the other evening looking for some early birds - we had good sightings of wire tailed swallows - I actually saw the wire in the tail - a plantain eater and a new bird a western banded snake eagle.
After a warm early morning walk we set off for Techiman a large town in the Brong-Ahafo region of Ghana where we checked into our hotel before setting off for the villages of Boebeng and Fiema. These two villages are nestled closely together have been protecting the black and white colobus and mona monkeys which are found in the surrounding forests for years. The locals perceive the monkeys to be sacred and offer them traditional burials we even saw their cemetery - the only two humans buried there are the equivalent of priests. Once signed in we went with our guide, a very pleasant and informative elder, he told us about the monkeys and their culture. As we walked the trails we saw a family of colobus - these are usually very skittish and did move off when they saw us. When we got close to the more self assured and braver Mona monkeys (today's photograph) there was another group of black and white colobus who just sat there eating flowers and allowing me to take photos even though the twigs had to be manoeuvered around. The guide told us we were lucky because it was unusual to see them so low down - a big thanks to the flowering trees!
The Mona monkeys were very different and took bananas from your hand - well John's and Williams - I was more intent on taking photographs. We had 4 very overripe bananas but William also bought some more from one of the ladies who passed - the monkeys weren't too happy when he ate one instead of giving it to them. The young ones were captivating as ever especially a 2 week old baby colobus who was finding his feet and being very adventurous(see tomorrow's photograph).
We made our way back to Techiman after visiting the craft shop and buying two things made in the village - a bowl and a unique tripod to stand it on which was carved out of one piece of cedar - we had never seen anything like it before.
Dinner which we ordered before leaving was ready for us at 7pm but because we were in the new annex it arrived in polystyrene containers and the soup was in polythene bags. They forgot John's beef stew so he was presented with soup and rice and was very unimpressed. I had vegetable soup - and thanks to the bag was able to extract all the vegetables and leave the spicy liquid, I had a tuna salad to follow but it was too hot to eat so I couldn't eat it all. We finished with pineapple william had bought - Pres warned us they would be different from the luscious ones in the south - he was right the sweet bits were great but there were more sharp pieces and the texture was far more fibrous.
An eventful dinner over I caught up with all my emails as the hotel had wifi - I had to sit in reception though while John headed up to bed.
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