Fall Break Fun

Fall break began by beginning two days early. Annette, Mikey, David and I went to the STC bus station intending to buy tickets to go to Tamale early Friday morning. When those were sold out, the alternative was to take a bus to Kumasi early Thursday morning, and go from there to Tamale Thursday evening. Our plan was to stay up late Wednesday night to make the 4am bus to Kumasi. To make things interesting, the generator shut off right before dinner, so we started to pack and plan in the dark. Fortunately, generator power returned after dinner, so we were able to take a last shower before the adventure began. For some of us, it would be the last shower we’d take until our return!

The bus ride to Kumasi went relatively fast because we slept most of the way. The Miklin Hotel, where our NYU group stayed at Kumasi several weekends ago, was kind enough to let us drop off our bags there while we spent the day in Kumasi. At lunch, we ate burgers and guessed at what meat they were made of, and tried to contact the Yeji ferry office to reserve a cabin on the MV Yaqui Queen yam boat. Reservations were unattainable, but we learned that the boat would be departing a day before we had planned for it, so we made the first of many adjustments in our plans. We spent the afternoon in Kumasi, playing cards and hanging out by the Miklin Hotel pool. We tried to make reservations at several hotels/motels/guesthouses in the Bradt guide for the night in Tamale, but all the numbers were changed. The people at the front desk of the Miklin told us about the Radach Memorial Center, and we were able to call and make a reservation there, and let them know that would be arriving around 3am Friday morning.

Our bus was scheduled to leave Kumasi at 5pm, but we didn’t embark until around 6:30pm or so. We met a little boy and passed the time kicking a ball back and forth with him, and spinning him in circles.



We had paid for an air-conditioned bus, but it turned out not to be so, and our fellow passengers were outraged. We witnessed a mini-riot in the station, which was followed by luxury ticket refunds. We stocked up on Snappy snacks, Pringles and juice boxes to tide us over the long bus ride.

We all thought we were going to die on the bus to Tamale. The road was dark and unpaved at points, and it was raining very hard, but none of this slowed our bus driver down in the slightest. We fishtailed at one point, and caught air going over a small hill. The bus also transformed into a canoe when the rain leaked in so much that the people sitting next to the windows were soaked, as well as all of our bags that were at our feet. There was no bathroom on the bus, so at one point, the bus stopped for a bathroom break. We were directed to a small row of stalls, with piles of trash surrounding the holes in the ground we were meant to pee in. Instead, Annette and I resorted to squatting in a corner and peeing down a wooden plank. There were empty hair product containers at the exit that we filled with water to wash all the urine and whatnot we’d stepped in along the way.

Finally, we arrived in Tamale around 2:30am, and were swarmed by taxi drivers before we’d even had a chance to get our bags. We asked one guy to take us to the “Radik Memorial Center.” After pretending to know where it was and then asking a few fellow taxi drivers, he realized we meant “Radauch Memorial Center,” which sounded almost identical to us, but I guess not to the Ghanaians. When we arrived at the Radach, the guy at the front desk was sleeping. It took him about ten minutes to wake up and get his bearings before he would listen to anything we tried to say. We took two rooms, girls in one, guys in the other. There were two sets of bunk beds in each. The rooms were private in the sense that the doors locked, but the windows did not. There were community bathrooms and showers at either end of the hall. Around 3am we laid down to sleep for the first time in two days.

Sleep was short-lived. Five hours later, we were up and heading to town to visit the Ghana Tourism Board in Tamale. After confirming some information about catching the yam boat in Yeji, we stopped for breakfast. Eating in Tamale was weird because Tamale is largely Muslim, and the community was still observing Ramadan, so we were the only people eating.

We arranged with the management of the Radach Memorial Center for this guy, Antoine, to drive us to Mole National Park. It’s only a two hour drive, and as you can probably imagine, we were kind of over the idea of taking STC buses at this point. Antoine drives a pick-up truck, so David, Lulu and I sat inside while Mikey and Annette rode in back. We passed lots of mud-hut villages along the way, crossed a river, and slowed down for goats and cows crossing the red dirt road.







We arrived at the Mole Motel Friday afternoon and checked into two private chalets, which meant private bathrooms and balconies, air conditioning and running water. Mikey and Annette were covered in red dirt from the ride and were ready for showers, but the running water wasn’t running, and the pool was being treated. After bucket baths, we walked to the lookout that, um, looked out over an elephant watering hole.





We met a Dutch family visiting their girls who were volunteering in Larabanga, a town near Mole, and an English guy who was traveling on his own. We put in our dinner order right away, because the kitchen often has to run and get the ingredients to make dinner, and takes several hours to prepare dishes. After dinner, we were dead tired, and more than ready for a full night’s sleep. We crashed early, but shared our beds with lots of bugs Friday night because the air conditioning was not working.

Saturday we woke up early to go on the walk safari that the Mole Motel offers. Decked out in galoshes, we trekked up and down grassy hills, saw lots of antelope and warthogs, and two elephants. One of the elephants was around a nearby village, and it was walking through the village’s trash dump. The other elephant was bathing in a watering hole.









Our safari guide, James, has been working for the motel for thirty-some odd years, and was saying that while the national park is huge, the area for safari is limited. There are lots of other kinds of animals deep into the park, including lions, and James invited us to come back in April and trek 45 km into the park and camp out to see the wildlife there.

After the safari, we ate breakfast and spent the day swimming at the motel pool, playing cards and hanging out at the watering hole lookout. We met a bunch of American students who study at Calvin in Michigan, and are studying a semester at the University at Ghana-Legon. Their program is similar to NYU’s in the sense that their group takes lots of weekend trips together to the different highlights of Ghana. We stayed up a little later, and slept with air conditioning that night, which meant our first real night of sound sleep – sans bugs!

We slept in Sunday morning. The boys ordered the same breakfast we had had the day before – Spanish omelettes, toast, pineapple and coffee. We spent the morning hanging out by the pool and the watering hole lookout again. At one point, a baboon stole a loaf of bread from one of the guests, and sat in a nearby tree and ate it as we all watched in awe.



Lulu, David, Annette and I scheduled an afternoon vehicle safari, which was significantly more expensive, but we ventured much further out into the park. We had some issues getting lunch beforehand. We ordered three tuna sandwiches, potato chips and a sweet corn salad an hour before we had to leave for the safari. Our food came a little over an hour later, except for my salad, with our waitress sweetly saying, “Please, we have no more sweet corn.” This is very typical of eating out in Ghana, so it’s just something you come to expect, although I couldn’t help getting irritated at the time. If we hadn’t already learned to go with the flow before the trip, we learned quickly.

James was our guide again for our afternoon vehicle safari. We saw lots more antelope, and warthogs and baboons, and monkeys for the first time, and another elephant wandering by an old rusty car. We also saw a bird which according to James, sounded like it was called a “saw biii staw,” but turned out to be a “saddle bill stork.” James let us get out several times to take pictures by a watering hole and by the elephant close up.











The motel did not have running water again, so we took bucket baths once more. Before dinner, the motel lost electricity entirely. We sat outside by the pool and ate dinner under the stars and watched the heat lightning. We placed a lantern near enough so we could see our food but far enough away to distract the bugs away from us. After dinner, we hung out with the boys for a bit, and then Annette and Lulu and I stayed up late talking. We tried to go to bed around 11:30, but I ended up not getting a wink of sleep because no electricity meant no air conditioning, which meant lots of bugs!

On Monday morning we woke up for the same breakfast again. Annette, David, and Mikey had to negotiate the price of our bill with the management because we had paid extra for rooms with air conditioning but clearly only had it one of the three nights we stayed. Antoine picked us up in his pick-up around 11am. Lulu and I rode in the back this time. We had just gotten used to the bumps in the road when it started to rain!





Fortunately the rain did not last too long, and we were able to dry off for the most part from the combination of wind and the hot Ghanaian sun.

David works at the Body Shop in the city, and on our drive home, we just happened to pass this shea butter place that exports to the Body Shop. We stopped there, and we also stopped at an ostrich farm that Antoine was excited to show us on our way home.



When we arrived back at the Radach, Annette, David, and Mikey had to negotiate with the management there as well because they had charged us for gas when it was supposed to already be included in the negotiated price. After that was settled, we put down all of our stuff and I took a well-needed shower – the first and last I would take during the trip! Then we took a taxi to town to get tickets for the bus to Makongo the next morning, but surprise! Ramadan ended Tuesday, and no buses were going to be running during the festival, so if we wanted to go, we had to go today. The tro-tro driver told us he was taking people to Salaga and would continue to take us to Makongo for 20,000 cedis each. Mikey and I hurried back to the Radach to get our bags while the rest got food for the trip, but it turned out to be really unappetizing chicken and rice.

When we first boarded the tro-tro, all five of us were squished in the back five seats across! Thankfully, the bus didn’t fill up entirely so I scooted to a seat further up and held all of our bags. After about a two hour tro-tro ride, the tro-tro dropped all the other passengers off in Salaga, and tried to get us to pay 500,000 cedis more to take us 20 more kilometers to Makongo. We were able to get him down to 300,000 cedis, which was still a rip-off, especially when the drive ended up being far less than he said it would be. We knew we were being cheated, but we had to get to Makongo that night so there was nothing we could do but, go with the flow.



Makongo is just a small village, so there aren’t any places to stay. When we pulled up to Makongo, everyone was celebrating the end of Ramadan, and the tro-tro driver introduced us to this guy who, as he put it, “takes care of the white man when he comes to town.” The guy told us we could spend the night at the ferry station. The ferry station guard set up mats and mosquito nets for us, and we took turns sleeping and keeping watch over our stuff, while the Muslim community celebrated the end of Ramadan through the night.







We woke up early enough to watch the sunrise, and then Annette and I walked to town to try to find something to eat. There was no food, but we were greeted by groups of Ghanaian children chanting “Obruni! How are you? Thank you. Fine,” over and over and over again. We waited for the ferry to take us across the river to Yeji, and around 10am, a hollowed out wooden boat docks, so we get on it. We have to take several steps in the water to get to it – thoughts of river blindness and schistosomiasis racing through out minds! - and it even tries to leave before everyone is on! As we are traveling across the river to Yeji, we pass the actual ferry we had planned to take!





We arrive to Yeji and walk to town. The markets are open but most of the hotels and restaurants are closed for the Ramadan festivities. We find Pauline’s Restaurant & Catering, and eat our fill of egg sandwiches and fried rice. It was so delicious – we ordered seconds! We meet this kid Eric who spends the day with us as we hang out at the ferry station, taking turns sleeping and watching our bags again.





We also met Mark, who is part of the Ghana Navy. Mark and Eric taught me how to play this Ghanaian card game, that doesn’t use the 2’s, 3’s, 4’s or 5’s in the deck, and even though I played about a hundred games, I’m still not sure I understand how to play!

David and Lulu went back to Pauline’s and stocked up on egg sandwiches and fried rice for all of us for dinner. When the yam boat docked around 11pm that night, Eric walked with us to board the boat, and talked with the guy in charge of giving cabins in order to secure us one. There are only two passenger cabins on board, so we were ready to race to get at least one for us! Mikey ran ahead to get one, and the other one went to this English couple. It turned out there was no need to run though because no one else boarding the boat could afford the cabin prices. All the other passengers slept on the decks, or in the dining room or among the yam crates. Our cabin consisted of two mini bunk beds, a miniature bench and desk, two miniature storage closets and a small sink. Our cramped quarters turned out to be the most luxurious yet, with running water and air conditioning the entire time! The yam boat wasn’t scheduled to leave Yeji until 3am the following morning, but we didn’t wait to wave goodbye. Mikey and David shared the top bunk, Lulu and I shared bottom, and Annette slept on the floor with this foam mat she had bought back in Tamale, just in case. It took us a while to figure out how to work the air conditioning, and we woke up freezing in the middle of the night!







We’re not sure what time the boat left Yeji exactly, but we think it was about 4am. The boat had already docked at its first stop when we woke up around 9:30 or so. Breakfast was egg sandwiches and coffee, and then we stepped off the boat to explore the town. The boat docked for about three or four hours at every stop along the way. We had to step in the water again to get to shore. We walked through the market set up at the dock, and then through the adjacent village. A bunch of Ghanaian children joined us along the way, and we skipped along, holding hands, singing songs, and picking flowers. We got out pants soaked while re-boarding the boat. After changing, we spent a relaxing afternoon on the boat, reading, sleeping, and taking photographs.





I took a few photos with the manual camera I checked out from the NYU Academic Center, but I’m not sure about all the settings, so I hope some of the photos turn out! Dinner was yam chips, rice and plaintain.



We watched the sunset, and hung out of the room. The yam boat docked at the last port before Akosombo, and we went out for drinks with the English couple, before returning to the room for the night. It was difficult to chill on the deck at night because the boat wasn’t lighted, and there were people sleeping on the deck, so you had to be careful not to step on them!



Thursday morning, Lulu, Mikey and I woke up to watch the sunrise.



Breakfast was egg sandwiches, coffee and tea once more. Lunch was rice, beans and plaintain. Dinner was all that was left over, rice and yam chips. The yam boat didn’t stop anywhere the second day, so we spent the day reading, writing, sleeping and taking photos of the different islands we passed along the way.



We arrived back in Akosombo around 9:30pm, and boarded a tro-tro for Accra. It took about an hour to get everything packed in and everyone on board, including a baby goat strapped to Mikey’s backpack on the roof. About two hours later we arrived back in Accra, and took a short taxi ride to the compound.

It’s great to go away, but it’s always nice to come home. Our fall break was intense, but amazing. Plans changed constantly, but we were such good sports about everything. I’m really happy I went with the group that I did too. Mikey, David, Lulu and Annette are all amazing people that I had not really gotten to know before, and I’m really happy to be friends with them now. Fall break was not really vacation for us, but rather exploration. I was able to see so many places in Ghana I otherwise would not have been able to, and got to know four really great people, and for me, that makes it all worth it!