Volta Region Excursion

Hi everyone,

Well, I know it took me a few days to get around to it, but honestly after this weekend I was absolutely exhausted. ProWorld Ghana (me) planned an excursion for the volunteers from Friday through Sunday of last weekend. I went with my four volunteers, one of their sisters who is here visiting, and 2 other Swedish girls who are here studying with my students. I hired a bus for 26 because we have used the driver (Joseph) before when my group from NYU was here in January. I didn't want to take a new driver on a weekend trip without knowing them first. So we had PLENTY of space, but no air conditioning and it was quite a long drive. We left Cape Coast on Friday morning at 9am and didn't arrive in the Volta Region until about 4:30pm. It was too late for us to do anything that evening so we checked into the Waterfall Lodge where we were going to be spending the weekend and relaxed and had dinner. Five of us girls were in one room and three in another. In the chalet I was in the lizards seemed to enjoy covering our door and outside wall in the evening, when Elin opened the door one of them fell onto my chest, I of course didn't realize what it was, or that it was only a lizard and my screams could be heard down the mountain I am sure. When I realized I was going to survive the attack, I calmed down. There wasn't much to do on the mountain and I believe we were all in bed by 8pm. We woke up early to get a start on climbing the waterfalls. There are two sets, the lower falls and the upper falls. The lower falls only take 35 min to reach one way and the hike is fairly easy. The upper falls take another 1.5 hours after the lower falls to reach and it is quite a strenuous hike. I stayed with the girls who only wanted to do the lower falls and sent a guide with the 3 brave girls who wanted to reach the upper falls. The lower falls are supposed to be the highest in West Africa and there are lots of bats nesting around the falls. The water was calm enough to swim in, although it was a bit chilly. We really enjoyed the view and the relaxing area and a few of us went for a dip. We went down the mountain to the nearest village (HoHoe) for dinner that evening, just to try and find something to do.

On the way down the mountain in the bus, I noticed that there were 2 foreign boys haggling with a taxi (and since there is no place to go, they obviously needed to go down the mountain). I stopped the bus and offered them a ride since we had PLENTY of space in the bus. The taxi driver they were speaking to was EXTREMELY unhappy that we had stopped to offer a ride and began screaming at and insulting my bus driver. Joseph then got out of the car and proceeded to join the argument. While I tried to get Joseph back into the bus, I told the taxi driver he should be ashamed of himself- to which he promptly told me he was not. It was at this point I noticed that throughout this argument one of the boys was trying to give the taxi driver a booklet that read, "Is Divorce the Answer?" The boys finally got in and we resumed our bumpy ride down the mountain. They were young, 26 and 23 and turned out to be Danish. They were also Jehovah's Witnesses and that was the purpose of their stay in Ghana- to "spread the good word". The younger made a frail attempt to convert one of my volunteers and we dropped them off at the bottom of the mountain and made our way to one of the only restaurants listed in town.

I made the mistake of ordering macaroni and cheese and honestly thought that they might be able to do something similar to what we have at home (which would have been a nice treat after so long...) She brought out a huge plate of cooked pasta that as far as I could tell had no sauce on it. I was right- it didn't. She had cut up a few pieces of cream cheese and stuck those cubes on top of the pasta. I thought it was pretty gross so I picked off the 5 or so small cubes of cream cheese and asked for tomato sauce. I believe by the end of dinner and after spending a short time sitting at a "spot" (a place normally with music and drinks) we were still back up the mountain and in bed by 9pm.

Sunday morning on the way back to Cape Coast we stopped by the Tafi Atome monkey sanctuary which is a small village that is using ecotourism as a way to make money. We paid a few dollars each and were given bananas to feed the numerous monkeys that were waiting around the trees outside. I was a bit nervous at first picturing the movie "Outbreak" and thinking that all it would take is for one of these cute little monkeys that were climbing all over our arms and fighting for the small bananas to bite us and then we would have an epidemic and I would be responsible. We all fed them without incident and I think quite enjoyed the experience.

The rest of the day was spent driving back to Cape Coast and I think it was an even longer drive than on the way there. All in all, not a bad weekend, I think we could use more activities if we are going to make the trek all the way out there again. My back did not enjoy all of the time spent in the bumpy bus, but it seems to be a bit improved after a few days.

Now, I am just preparing for Kirsty's arrival, she is coming in on the 16th, so just a few more days. We start getting very very busy in May, so I will be training her, and that's really all we have going on over the next few weeks.

I hope everyone is well, my love to all.