Aventure Grande - Partie Une

I awoke to the sound of flapping wings. It was far from dawn, what could possibly be flying around my hotel room in the middle of the night? I repeatedly blinked my eyelids struggling to get a clear picture. Directly in front of my face, with only a mosquito net between us a 2 inch long cockroach crawled, then took flight again leaving my field of vision for the dark abyss of the far side of the room… I hate cockroaches. I shivered and hoped that I had tucked the mosquito net in. I had known it was going to be a long night ever since we returned from dinner and were surprised by an enormous mouse and a cockroach in plain sight. We were able to shoo the mouse out of the room but the roach evaded us. It was clear that no one was going to be able to sleep on the floor.

I don’t know if I conquered my fear of cockroaches that night but I certainly made progress since every time I awoke there was at least one crawling above me on the netting. Mercifully, dawn eventually came. I walked past the monkeys in the courtyard to the shower. There was running water at Chez Alice which was appreciated after that night, though I think the only shower in the hotel was for staff only I used it anyway.

Our adventure was about to begin, all we needed to do was take care of some business in Lomé and head out. If we were travel to Mali, we would first pass through Burkina Faso and being that they did not issue visas on the border and had no embassy in Togo, we made our way for the French Embassy. France sometimes issues visas on behalf of their former colonies and we were lucky enough that the embassy in Lomé could issue Burkina visas. What was less lucky, however, was the requirements, cost and hours of operation. At the French Embassy we learned that we would need hotel reservations, passport photos, copies of our passports and 40,000CFA ($80). This was difficult but not impossible. We could go to an internet café, book a hotel, find a passport photographer and make copies. The time constraint was the challenging part. The embassy’s hours were 8:00am through 9:30am and it was already 8:30. Leave it to the French to only be open 90 minutes a day. I was optimistic that we could make it in time. Corbett rounded up some motorcycle taxis, I hopped on one and the race was on.

We weaved through the streets of Lomé on the back of our motorcycles, dodging traffic, pedestrians and potholes. It was utterly terrifying at first but soon the terror faded and it became a thrill (no mom, I do not plan on buying a motorcycle... don't worry) The scenery rushed by as we meandered through an incomprehensible maze of paved and unpaved streets until we finally arrived at the internet café. It didn’t open until 10:00am and it was already 8:50. I accepted failure. I think Corbett and Hannah had realized that we were on an impossible mission long before I. We wouldn’t be able to enter Burkina and therefore the only way into Mali would be routing through Benin and Niger… If only I had a month to kill.

Over a breakfast of chocolate croissants we pondered the implications of our failure and came up with a new plan: no plan. We would wander aimlessly around Togo for a week never looking ahead more than a few hours. We had no guide book so our trip would be controlled by a small amount of previous reading and a large amount of guesswork.

Lomé was on the coast so we went north. Corbett had read about Kpalimé (pronounced Pa – lah – may) so we went to the station and bought tro-tro tickets to Kpalimé. It was a couple hours north in a cramped van with an old lady who fell asleep on my shoulder. The flat plains turned into forest and then a huge mountain grew on the horizon directly ahead of us. It was Mount Agou, the tallest mountain in Togo. Our van followed the road around the mountain and into Kpalimé, which is situated just behind the mountain. More mountains dominated the landscape to the north and naturally, they drew us in.

Corbett asked around for hotels atop a mountain and eventually the existence of such a hotel was confirmed. All that was left was getting there. This was Togo so we chose the most common type of transport in the country: moto-taxi. We each hopped on a moto and took off for the mountains. We climbed through kilometers of switchbacks into the mountains, flying by forests and waterfalls. The trees broke way every now and then allowing for me to take in the amazing mountain vista with forest covered mountains and Kpalimé sitting far below on the valley floor. It was an amazing ride.

Moto-taxi thru the mountains (Hannah directly ahead, Corbett ahead of her)

Eventually we arrived at a hotel, which was in the mountains but had no view sadly. The people who ran the hotel also operated a hiking tour business and offered to take us on a 6 hour hike through the mountains the next day for a price which we negotiated down to 5000CFA each ($10) kinda expensive but probably worth it as we would need a guide to do any hiking. Still, I was leery of getting ripped off.

A little bit down the road was a place called Chez Paul where we had our dinner. All the tables were completely empty so we chose one. Paul was shocked as if we had clearly chosen an inferior table and insisted that we change to a better table. This was quite confusing to me and I still have no answer to why one table was superior. I ate my couscous, which was pretty good and eventually, Hannah, Corbett and I all headed back to the hotel excited for the morning’s hike, which we were to embark upon at 7:00am.

TO BE CONTINUED… 

To Go To Togo

Dozens of people swarmed the narrow doorway pushing those in front of them up the stairs, some getting pinned against the folded glass door. The night air was thick with panic and diesel fumes. There was only one option, hold my bag tightly and hope I could stay on my feet to avoid trampling.

After I boarded the Metro-mass bus to Tema Station it was much less stressful. This was the first leg of our journey to Togo. Our group consisted of Tim, Hannah, Corbett, Catherine and her sister Megan whose flight had just landed a few hours earlier. We had originally planned to catch a tro-tro from Madina to Aflao, a city on the Ghanaian side of the border, but the last tro of the night left before we arrived so we were left with finding transport via Tema Station in Accra instead. Apparently, there were a lot of people wanting to get from Madina to Accra last Friday night so when the metro-mass bus arrived it was popular enough to nearly cause trampling.

After crisscrossing the city for a couple hours we finally found a tro to Aflao and were on our way. Unfortunately, we hadn’t left soon enough to cross the border that night and when we arrived in Aflao three hours later we had to find a hotel and wait for Saturday to enter Togo at the capitol and border city of Lomé.

Lome skyline from our hotel in Aflao

This was the largest border crossing between Ghana and Togo but it was still fairly unofficial looking. It was merely a dirt road with brick buildings on either side with immigrations officials for Ghana on one side, Togo on the other. Oh, and a beautiful beach not even 20 meters away... how those people can work with that out their window, I have no idea. Anyways, goodbye Ghana. One visa later I was in Togo and on my way to breakfast.

There are definitely some advantages to being in a former French colony, not least of which is the amazing food. We went to a delightful café slash ice cream shop where I ordered banana and honey crepes with a glass of fresh orange juice. This instantly elevated the status of my day to nothing short of awesometastic.

After breakfast we made our way to Coco Beach where we planned to stay the night. It was only about 10km outside of Lomé but that was enough to reduce the price of a beach side room, er.. hut, to 6,000CFA ($12). And what a beach it was. The water was brilliantly blue, the beach was empty and the waves crashed furiously. On the horizon loomed a chain of cargo ships waiting for a place to dock at the Port of Lomé.

One of the huts on Coco Beach

We booked our hotel, dropped off our bags and made our way back to Lomé to visit the Voodoo Market, leaving behind Corbett who had been there before and claimed it was too touristy. She was right.

Tables and tables of animal skulls sat before us as we walked into the open marketplace. It was mostly deserted except for a few people waiting to greet us and charge an entry fee… Then a camera fee. I smelt tourist trap and opted out of using my camera.

Our guide explained that everything in the market was actually from Benin, Togo’s neighbor to the east. Disappointing. He also assured us that all the animals died of natural causes. A lie, later exposed by a kid working for one of the vendors whose response to “How do you get these skulls?” was an enthusiastic “We kill!”. There were monkey, hyena, buffalo, hippo and elephant skulls among others all rotting in the direct sunlight. It smelled delightful.

Eventually our guide took us inside a nearby shelter where he had his friend, a son of a voodoo priest or something along those lines, sit us down, show us an array of charms and explain their uses. Good luck, safe travels, love whatever you could ask for. He then placed overturned turtle shells before us and told us to place whatever we wished to purchase inside. “Don’t worry about the price. The spirits will give you a good price!” he said. I smirked and handed back everything having no intention to waste money on this fool. Megan also had the same opinion and chose not to buy anything. We were told to leave since the ritual to activate the charm and ask the spirits for the price was for the eyes of paying customers only. Haha, I wanted to see that so badly…

Megan and I walked out. I chuckled as I left mostly because this whole place was hilarious but also because I was thinking about how badly “the spirits” were going to rip my friends off.

As I waited, I thought about how cool this place could have been if it was a legitimate voodoo market instead of a tourist trap. Too bad.

Everyone emerged with their hugely expensive trinkets in hand and we headed out. As we left, another batch of white tourists, cameras in hand walked in. As ridiculous as that guy was, you know he has to be making bank.

Back at Coco Beach I enjoyed the tremendous surf. I of course can’t surf but it was still fun to let the enormous waves break over me as I waded in the water. Later, We had dinner and I boldly chose a beverage called “Lion Killer” … it was pretty much just Sprite, still good though.

I woke up early on Sunday so I could watch the sunrise. An added benefit was the ability to watch the Togolese ritual of Sunday morning runs which I had heard about. Every Sunday morning around sunrise, nearly everyone just gets up and goes for a run. Coco Beach was fairly remote so only a few dozen people ran by but it was still interesting considering back in Ghana, running recreationally is almost unheard of.

At breakfast Megan's West Africa travel guide was sitting on the table and it led to the discussion of possible trips. I made the mistake of saying that there really wasn't anything to see in Mali based on nothing but ignorance. Corbett quickly corrected me and showed me the section on Dogon Country, where villages were built into cliff faces. It looked amazing and my opinion of Mali as a travel destination was completely reversed. I said that I wanted to go to Mali right now. Corbett agreed. I said that I was completely serious and as it turned out, Corbett was as well. Hannah jumped in and added her willingness to go to Mali immediately. Everyone else had unavoidable obligations in the coming week so it was just the three of us. We would hang out in Togo as a group then in the morning we would depart for Mali and the Sahara Desert, a thousand mile excursion that would last over a week.

With our minds turned back to the present we decided to visit Lake Togo on Sunday before heading back to Lome. We squeezed into a cab and were off to the lake, which coincidentally is actually a lagoon.

As we disembarked from the taxi we were greeted by a man who said he was willing to take us across the lake on his boat for  modest price. I don't know if I mentioned this before, but in Togo they speak French so during this whole trip I was dependent on the few French speakers in the group... just a side note.

Our destination across the lake was Togoville, a small community which well, none of us knew anything about nor did we have any desire to go there if it weren't for the fact that we wanted to ride on a boat and the prospects of finding lunch there seemed good. We climbed aboard, they unfurled the sail and began to punt across gondolier style. We floated between fishermen wading in the lagoon, tending to their nets and the tree lined shore.

Corbett and Catherine in the row ahead on our boat trip to Togoville

Once we arrived in Togoville there was a tour association who wanted to charge us a fee for a tour guide. We expressed that we had no knowledge of any such requirement when we boarded the boat and they agreed to let us wander without paying a guide. Nevertheless, a guide followed us and gave us background on the village as well as assisting in our quest for lunch. The main attraction of Togoville is the cathedral and shrine to the Virgin Mary who appeared on the lake nearly forty years ago. Pope John Paul II subsequently visited to confirm the miracle… Strange that we accidentally stumbled upon something so interesting.

Where The Pope sat (inside the Cathedral) 

We ate some lunch and headed back across the lake, then to Lomé and the Gran Marché. I had only packed for two days so an extended desert adventure was beyond my current means. I purchased some new (used) shirts for about 80 cents each and a backpack to hold the extra clothes. The backpack was quite a find. It is heavily used but is an enormous hiking backpack with a lot of character. I have a feeling it will be one of my most cherished souvenirs from Africa.

My new (very old) backpack!

Tim, Catherine and Megan departed for the Ghanaian Frontier and Corbett, Hannah and I began our search for a hotel so that we could begin our adventure in the morning. Prices in Lomé were discouraging so we ended up back near Coco Beach at a hotel named Chez Alice. Alice's house was pretty nice, there was a courtyard with a really playful monkey who enjoyed climbing arms and jumping from tree branches to my face. But what was more exciting was the fact that they served home made iced tea at the hotel bar! It was the first iced tea I had since arriving in africa and the best I've had in my life. It was a very strong assortment of berries and tea which ended up being deep purple in color. With iced tea in hand and the sun setting, I finally comprehended that I was about to go on a grand adventure... I was utterly content.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Here's a preview of the coming posts:

Independence Day!... Oh, No One Cares?

Today, I got up early and went down to Independence Square with Tim, Hannah and Catherine to watch the independence day festivities. Being conveniently located in Accra, the capitol of Ghana, we were lucky enough to have the biggest event of the day close by.

Google was on the ball like usual today... Even on a local level (google.com.gh)

As we arrived it seemed as though this wasn't a very exciting holiday for most Ghanaians. There was far less excitement, decoration and fanfare than typically seen back home on the 4th of July. There was only a small crowd filtering into the assembly grounds and contrary to expectation, traffic was fairly light. It was very strange. I expected Ghana to be more excited about their independence day since it's a smaller country and they only gained independence from Britain in 1957. But I was completely wrong.

As the morning went on the crowd grew to fill capacity of the square but I still wouldn't be so bold as to say excitement had reached fever pitch. Basically, this was just a crowd of thousands of very mellow people observing their holiday out of what seemed like obligation. This is of course only my experience, I'm sure some people celebrated with the utmost jubilance. Unfortunately, I failed to see these people.

When the president arrived there was some applause but that was to be expected. He then gave a speech which was completely inaudible due to poor acoustics. The ceremony ended with some cannon fire and a fly over. I captured the most exciting moment on film for everyone to enjoy (possibly more than the Ghanaians)

Anyhow, it was a lovely morning despite the lack of excitement. I still had a good time despite the Ghanaian sitting next to me who slept through the entire two hour ceremony. As a result, I inherited the task of pushing him back into his seat with my elbow when he started encroaching on my space in a incapacitated slouch. I asked myself at least a dozen times: "Why did he even come here if he was just going to sleep? Isn't a bed more comfortable?"... Then I felt like Dr. Hefzy, one of my professors who routinely made that argument to drowsy students.

The President leaves

This coming weekend I shall embark on an international excursion to the small Francophone country of Togo. It will make for good times, I'm sure.

Green Ghana

I recently started a project with Volunteer Partnerships for West Africa (VPWA) and Green Ghana Volunteers to reclaim degraded lands previously used for mining minerals in a village near Accra. The plan is to start 3000 Moringa oleifera from seed and by late April we will have them available to transplant onto the degraded land which we will repair with the addition of new soil. We will plant the trees in their permanent site on Earth Day as a celebration of The Earth Day Network's "Billion Acts of Green".


Once the trees are planted, they will enrich the soil and provide a new fertile patch of land for the village to farm as well as contributing directly to the sustained livelihood of the community by sale of their seeds, which are used in the production of Bio-Diesel, food and medicine. They will also provide funds for development of the village through sale of carbon offset credits since the Moringa oleifera tree's leaves are highly absorbent of carbon.

Myself, along with another girl from UG were the first people to get involved with the project and therefore, Hayford Siaw, the director of VPWA, put us in charge of recruiting further volunteers. I wrangled some up and today we went out to the Green Ghana Project site in the Eastern Region to plant some seeds. 


Our first challenge was creating the bags to hold the seedlings and their soil. We took used water sachets, which had been collected from their previous state as litter, and cut open the top to fill with soil. Then we placed seeds in and watered them. Over the course of the day, less than a dozen of us managed to plant 1000 seeds.

1000 baby trees

We took a mid day break for lunch and afterword we partook in some of the fruit growing on the site. First we ate this berry which is small, red and oblong in shape... some may know it as the "miracle berry" others may not know it at all. It increases the perceived sweetness of foods by altering your taste buds. After that we ate some fresh oranges and well, it was amazing. Just plain euphoric.

Miracle Berries

All in all it was a great and productive day. I'll be going back with some constituents this tuesday to continue planting as we prepare for earth day and the revitalization of degraded lands.

2 month old Moringa Oleifera saplings
(how old our transplanted trees will be on earthday)

The view from the Green Ghana Site

If you want to learn more go to: http://www.greenghanavolunteers.org/earth-day-2011
or simply: http://www.greenghanavolunteers.org/


If you feel compelled to donate to VPWA I commend your generosity and you may do so by visiting here. But don't feel pressured to do so, if I was in your shoes I would likely not donate... ('cause I generally don't do that sort of thing... but it is indeed a good cause.)

Ghana Independence Day is tomorrow! I get to experience two of those this year... I'll post my thoughts on the occasion. 

Mole National Park

I went northward this weekend. We started driving on Thursday morning and spent most of the day making the 250km trip to Kumasi, where we spent the night at Kwame Nkruhma University of Science and Technology. From Kumasi we left for Mole National Park, stopping at Kintampo Falls for lunch.

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.