Mole National Park

Quickly returned to the house to collect my backpack and went straight to the bus station where after 3 hours of waiting took a bus to Tamale. This Metro Mass bus was so uncomfortable!

Kumasi bus station

After about 6 hours of continuous bumpy roads completely squashed in my seat, we arrived in Tamale at about 9pm at night. There were some other UK students on the bus to who I tagged along to. I was actually planning on staying in Tamale for the night and head to Mole early the next morning. However they wanted to go the Mole or Larabanga (village near Mole) straight away just to get there and make most of the next day. It was a hassle to find a taxi for the 5 of us since the road was very bad and quite far. Agreeing to pay 125 cedis (25 cedis each) we headed off on what was to become a crazy journey.

We kept on breaking down. First of all, the front right tyre punctured and completely deflated because of one of the many many potholes so we had to stop in the middle of the bush in the pitch black surrounded by lions and elephants. Then the battery started to keep dying, so therefore the engine was very weak and about to stop every time and the head lights kept switching off, so therefore the driver had to use a handtorch through the window to see the road and mind the potholes. We also had to often get out of the car, push and then quickly jump back in while it was driving which was quite fun. What made things worse was all the police checks and also later on the heavy rain which made the road very difficult to see.

We almost had to stay the night in a little hut with the locals where we stopped for half an hour where the driver was trying to fix the engine.

Finally after 5-6 hours we arrived at Larabanga and very kind that one of the Salia brothers waited for us to arrive. But, while we were stopped with these local people for a while, another taxi came past with Western people and they arrived before us to the guesthouse of course and told the brothers that we had car problems and that we wouldn't make it to come so then they got our rooms! Very rude people! Also for just leaving us there stranded with no lights while they were perfectly fine and quickly headed off into the darkness.

Our hut at Salia brothers lodge

When we arrived in the rain and thunderstorm at 4AM, one of the brothers brought us to another guesthouse they have, called Savannah lodge (which sounds very luxury I though, actually a lodge, a big thing, but no this wasn't the case). They kindly put down matrasses in the kitchen for us and helped us with our mosquito nets. They especially waited for us so this was very nice.

Sleeping on kitchen floor

We were only to sleep for a couple of hours through the thunderstorm though since we wanted to go on the morning safari walk, but because of the rain this wasn't possible. So we slowly had breakfast (peanut butter breads and tea) and moved to two round huts where we could stay the night next. These were the real houses where the local people lived in, with mud walls and thatched roofs. So I stayed with the other girl, Susy, in one of them and the guys (Ben, Sam and Jacob) stayed in another hut. It only cost 6 cedis per night which they claim to be the cheapest in Ghana. These costs are used to run a school (set up by the brothers along with other projects such as watering systems and other schools in the area) right next to the guesthouse where the local kids can attend for free, so they use the accomodation costs to pay for the teachers which is 60 cedis per month per teacher.

The UK students on the way to park entrance

We walked an hour to the entrance of the Mole park right when the rain stopped and organised to go on a 2 hour walk with a ranger. Here we met some other travellers who were all doing volunteering here as well. The walk was nice but didn't see any big animals. The usual kobs, bushbucks and waterbucks, crocodiles (from the viewing platform), monkeys, baboons, birds and that's about it. The nature was more nice to see though than the animals, all the greenery and fresh air.

We then had lunch (which we already ordered in the morning so that it would be ready by the afternoon). I had macaroni cheese which was allright for saying it was Ghana. And it was nice to sit overlooking the big water hole and the panorama of all the greenery of the park.

Warthog

Croc

Later I joined a jeep safari with 4 other girls (Italian, German and Australian) and a couple from NY. This was 21 cedis per person for 2 hours. It was fun to sit on the roof of the jeep.

 

And....we saw elephants!

3 big ones. We got out of the jeep and walked towards them. This was very nice.

But one of the girls in our group kept on walking closer to them to get better pictures, so then one of the elephants starting flapping its ears and started charging at us so we rapidly had to run away. This was a bit scary if it actually would've charged into us but luckily after we backed away the elephant kept back as well and they all walked away.

The only way to get back to Tamale from Larabanga was to catch the 4am Metro Mass bus and since I really needed to back that day I could not take the risk of waiting for a later one which might never even come. The Americans staying with us at the Salia brothers lodge were also leaving and when we arrived at Tamale they asked if I wanted to join their bus to Kumasi. Also 3 random dutch girls tagged along, students from Maastricht, they were very friendly and happy that they came along as well because we were brought to a friend of one of the Americans house to sit, play cards and wait until the bus left. But after sitting there for 4 hours or so, the dutch girls and I really wondered what we were doing here. One of the girls from the group also had malaria and was very sick, this is because she had been given the wrong tablets for which the mosquitos are resistant here.

I realised my money went faster than I expected and was left with only 11 cedis to get back to Kumasi. The trip turned out to be more expensive than I thought it would be. The sleeping was very cheap at 6 cedis a night but the food and drinks at Mole Motel were quite expensive, but it was so hot that I was quite thirsty and hungry so couldn't really do without. The trip cost me in total about 133 cedis, not that bad.

One of the American girls, Erinn, was very kind and gave me 10 cedis so that I could join their bus costing 20 cedis (which wasn't worth it btw since we were all squashed on eachother and other local people were just put on stools in between the aisles of the minibus). Of course I would return the money to her the next day since they would be here in Kumasi for 2 nights and their hotel was sort of near the hospital so no problem.

The squashed minibus to Kumasi