The Way-Back Machine Part 2 – Mole National Park

Mole was incrediby beautiful, and we met some really awesome people while we were there.

Everyone settle back into your seats. I know you’re all giddy from our last stop but this trip is just getting started! Behold as I turn the dial to November 18th, 2010, and observe the trip that Maggie and I took to Mole National Park!

Mole is Ghana’s largest national park, and the bustling hub of Ghana’s safari industry.  It should be noted that Ghana doesn’t have an especially robust safari industry, especially compared to places like the Serengeti.  The issue isn’t the wildlife– although there is much more in East Africa as well; it’s the terrain and vegetation.  The Serengeti is a grassland punctuated by solitary trees and bushes.  Just picture a giraffe eating from a tree.  What terrain could be more ideal for animal viewing?  Mole Park, however, is semi-forested.  Not only that, but the grass that grows in the park is about six or seven feet high.  In the case of the driving safari, this makes it largely impossible to see off of the road in lots of places.  Don’t take this to mean that Mole isn’t a good place to go on safari, though.  Just don’t go during the wet season.

Not only is the view beautiful, but in the dry season elephants will be clearly visible. This picture is taken from beside the hotel pool. Now that's a lazy safari.

If we had waited just a month or two more, the experience would have been entirely different.  The grass dries up, the trees drop their leaves, and the whole landscape burns.  Every year.  This has a couple of handy results for tourism.  For one,  it is much easier to see the animals from the road, or from the walking safari.  In general the terrain is much more open.  Secondly, thanks to the craftiness of the park organizers, the animals of the park spend their time much closer to the park lodging during the winter.  There is a man-made watering hole that becomes the talk of the town as far as the elephants and other animals are concerned.

We went on both a walking and driving safari, and my preference was the walking one.  I just love walking!  The terrain was beautiful, and though we didn’t see that many animals, it was a lot of fun.  Our guide, DK, was knowledgeable and hilarious, which is the most you can ask in a guide.  He also had a very large gun, apparently large enough to stop an elephant.  Good to know.

The baboons and warthogs are pretty shameless about rooting around and playing in the yards of the park staff members.

From the hotels, which are situated on a bluff, we traipsed down the hill towards the watering hole in single file.  Maggie and I joined a group of German tourists and our new friend from Ireland, Christopher Ryan.  More on him in a minute.  We wandered more or less aimlessly through the brush, listening for animals and receiving lessons in the local flora and fauna from DK.  We took the afternoon safari, so we started back to the lodge as the sun was setting.  Although the wildlife experience was a little lacking, the good company more than made up for it and I need to make some shout-outs to the people we met during our stay.

Heading home after our nature walk. Christopher is in this picture but you can't see him. Beans!

We met the aforementioned Christoper Ryan on our first afternoon in the park.  I was aimlessly wandering around the restaurant area and wound up taking a seat next to a fairly burly, fairly tan fellow.  At first I mistook him for another traveler that was a part of a group, but he quickly let me know that he was flying solo.  Christopher, or Christian, as DK called him, had been cycling across West Africa.  At this point in his journey he had ridden from Dakar, in Senegal, through Mali, Burkina Faso, and into Ghana.  If you don’t have a map on you, that’s about 1550 miles.  Some of which, like on the day he crossed the Ghanaian border, were ridden in 105+ degree heat.  He had definitely earned his tan.  He made great conversation during our trip to the park and I hope to catch him in his home city of Dublin sometime.  When we parted ways he still had hundreds of miles left on his trip, which he planned to wrap up with a well-deserved week of relaxation on the Ghanaian beaches.

Aside: This is the oldest Mosque in Ghana. It is in an all-Muslim town called Larabanga just outside the park and was built in the 1400s.

We also chatted with a cool Australian girl who was “gap-yearing” and some American students and volunteers.  We ended up making a large part of the return trip with an Tony Lipari, an American volunteering near Accra.  He’ll be in Ghana for a bit longer so hopefully he can come visit us at our humble abode and enjoy the village life.

Probably the most bizarre thing about going to Mole was that we were just there to relax.  We had pretty much spent the whole time up until our trip working on Lumana, so it was a very strange adjustment to sit and chat with other travelers or swim in the pool on a lazy afternoon.  It was a welcome bit of variety.

And now, because eventually I’ll run out of them, a gratuitous shot of Maggie a the park!  She probably wouldn’t want me to post this one but I like it because it isn’t posed and is telling of our interactions.  She’s exasperated with my ridiculousness, but just can’t help but love me.  Love you too Mag!