 |
| Kintampo Falls |
Kintampo Falls is a waterfall as you might have guessed. I have no idea how tall it was but I'd guess that it was at least um... taller than me. Who needs stats when you have pictures, and you can see how pretty the falls were courtesy of my handi-dandy camera machine. Aside from being beautiful, it was quite an experience to sit under the falls. It felt like I imagine a power washer or maybe a truckload of marbles would feel falling on you. It was intense to say the least but certainly refreshing.
After driving for the rest of the day on dirt roads and hitting my head on the ceiling about half a million times due to the potholes and road erosion, we arrived at Mole National Park! ... Just in time to do nothing. Well, I did get to hum the Jurassic Park theme as we passed under the gate, but I'm not sure that counts as an activity. The evening was uneventful, we needed to wake up bright and early for our 7am safari walk.
In the morning, there was a family of warthog congregating around my hotel door. I found this to be most exciting since I've always wanted to meet Pumbaa. Then I passed swarms more warthog on the way to the information center. Apparently, they're pretty common.
 |
| Pumbaa, I presume |
Our group was assigned a guide named Eesa (no idea how it's actually spelled. long 'e' sound followed by 'sah' sound). He had been working at Mole since 1973 so I was quite sure he would be able to track down an elephant for us. We set off, making our way down the ridge and into the plains below. On our way down we passed several baboons hiding in the trees or running along the ground. We left the path completely and walked through the vegetation, which wasn't very dense.
Once in the bush, we hiked for over two hours but found no traces of elephants. Disappointingly, we turned around giving up hope on seeing elephants. On our way back we were fortunate enough to see some crocodilian chillin' in the watering hole. No one was eaten.
During our safari, a joint decision was made to spend the night on a tree top platform which we had seen on our hike. It was positioned next to a salt lick, where animals congregate to enjoy the ground's natural saltiness. We booked the treehouse and rented some bedrolls and mosquito nets, abandoning our motel rooms for the night.
Eesa was again assigned to us as it was necessary to have an armed guide with us to prevent death by animal encounter, specifically the nocturnal predators such as lion, leopard and hyena. We set out just before sun set and luckily enough, snagged some breathtaking views as we hiked down into the bush.
 |
| Saturday's Sunset over Mole |
The tree stand was about 3 km from the motel, or any other building, so once we arrived and the sun set, return was not an option. Not a problem, I couldn't imagine a place I would rather be than a tree house in the African wilderness.
 |
| Home for the night |
 |
| View from the treehouse at dusk |
We ate our dinner, which we had packed before leaving, and talked as the night settled in. There was no moon but the stars were brilliant, the last place I saw so many stars shine so brightly was at Zion Canyon in Utah. It was a phenomenal sight to lay on the wooden planks of the tree platform and watch the stars twinkle through the branches of the tree. Meanwhile, the animals were becoming more active as the night went on.
There was a group of baboons in the trees not even 50 meters away which caused quite a ruckus. Eesa said that they knew we were nearby and the males were growling and howling in an attempt to scare us off.
Around 3AM I awoke to Eesa informing us that the current set of sounds was coming from a pack of hyenas who were hunting below.
Eventually dawn came, and I made certain to be awake for the sunrise. It was hazy and overcast, so the sunrise itself wasn't spectacular but it was certainly worth being awake for since at dawn, the group of baboons came out into the clearing below our tree platform. I recorded a short video of them moving into the clearing...
Not too long thereafter, we cleaned up, packed and started hiking back. On the route back, Eesa stopped then bent down to examine some disturbed vegetation. He informed us that an elephant had feeding there recently. Not five minutes later, we ran into that Elephant standing in some tall grass, feeding on the branches of a tree. It was across a marshy area so getting close wasn't possible, but it was still an elephant sighting and it still made my day.
The rest of the hike back was fairly uneventful but I think everyone was quite satisfied with our night and morning in the wild... I can officially say it was an awesome weekend.
0 comments:
Post a Comment