Apparently I’ve been sick forever. My parents deserve a good retelling of their visit, so we’ve got places to go! For those of you that were worried: I’m more or less fine. There are still some residual issues that have been plaguing me, mostly aches and stiffness, but I’m surviving. As for my absence from the bloggin scene, well what is there to blog about when you’re sick?
Let’s pick up where we left off with our story: we had just enjoyed a visit with Felicia in Ho, and my parents had learned to appreciate AC. By the way–I’m having trouble with the Internet so please check out the photos on flickr if you want the whole story.
Our next stop was Mole Park, which is in the Northern Region of Ghana. Now, Ghana may be about the size of Oregon, but it feels much larger. It’s because of the roads. Except for the main East-West road, every road in Ghana seems to be in a state of revolution. Technically I think it’s called road work, but that implies that there’s a road to work on. Revolution seems more fitting because it implies you destroy the whole system and start over. That’s the approach to road work I see here. It looks like you’re driving on a non-road. It’s the right shape, there are cars on it, it connects two cities, but someone came by and swiped all the materials that make a road drivable. There are places where you can see the treasure trove of road materials–stone, gravel, sand–sitting in huge piles on the side of the road, sometimes in the middle of the road, mocking you as your bus passes.
Oh yeah, we took the bus to the north. Due mostly to the roads, it takes about 16 hours of drive time to get to the North. I had this brilliant idea that we’d take the overnight bus so we could get some sleep on the way up. I may not have been clear about this before, so let me remind you: I’m an idiot. The buses are a kind of luxury transportation, so they have a couple perks. They have more room than a tro-tro, are air-conditioned, and have TV screens that show Nigerian Soap Operas.
Nigerian Soaps are about the foulest form of entertainment on earth. They are generally one very melodramatic story that could be told in 45 minutes, stretched to 6 hours. I can say this without much exaggeration. The production quality is often so bad that the volume jumps between inaudible to ear-piercing. The solution to the audio issue is to turn the volume up so you can hear the quietest parts, and rely on the resilience of Ghanaian ears when the loud parts come around. The soundtrack usually includes about 60 seconds of music: two thirty second clips from two different songs, one sounding happy, the other sad or ominous. These will be played in alternation once every three minutes. Most importantly, having access to Nigerian Soaps is a real treat for a bus ride, so they’ll be playing the entire time. That means all night. The bus ride was a very long, very bad dream.
We got to Tamale at 4am or something, and started haggling for a car out to Mole Park. Someone figured they could hook us up with a 4×4 for hire, and we bit. We had to wait around in a gas-station parking lot for awhile, which was quite a sight. My parents, Mandy, and myself, just sitting on a bench in the dark. Our man showed up with a really nice rig and a deadline. He had to be back in town for some other job in the morning. It sounded good to us so we piled in and took off. The ride was pretty hilarious, but I find dangerous situations somehow funny. The guy was driving like a bat out of hell down one of the worst non-roads in Ghana, racing to drop us off at the park, apparently really concerned about getting back to town for his appointment. There were a few close calls and I think I saw Mandy’s life flash before her eyes, but we made it.
We got jerked around a bit at the Mole Park Hotel, the concierge pretending they didn’t have any rooms. Eventually we sorted it out. The Hotel is kind of an afterthought to the Mole Park experience. People come for the wildlife, so they need to stay somewhere. That somewhere is a half-assed “luxury” resort with some really poor service. The non-management people are really great though.
I’ll let my pictures do most of the talking for the rest of our time at the park. We went on both walking and driving safaris, and we saw an elephant but I blew it. My camera battery was dead. Sorry. Next up: Kumasi!
Welcome back Chad! Let the adventures continue….
The true beauty of the overnight bus ride to Mole (besides the soap operas at full volume ALL night) was after this Ghanaian experience – the 12 hour trans Atlantic flight was soooo lovely. We had leg room (even in the super economy section), choice of beverages, food (ok it was airline “food” but we ate it), clean flush toilets available at any biological urge, and movies when we wanted them. We could choose to have blessed silence if we preferred (insert contented sigh here). Although I will admit, you don’t get elephants, wild boars and monkeys at the Dulles airport upon arrival!