Lions and tigers and bears oh my !

Ok it was more like elephants, crocodiles and baboons but you get the idea.
So decided to make the long and arduous journey to Mole national park swinging
past Paga 'on the way.' What a fucking nightmare!!! The transport in the country has
a lot to be desired although it makes a good story after the fact.

First of all lets start leaving Hohoe to make our way to Kumasi which is meant to take
7 hours 'theoretically'. So the bus is meant to leave at 3 a.m. but we get there at 1:30 AM
since we needed to secure our seat as sometimes the bus gets sold out. So we sit outside the bus station waiting for the ticket seller to get there and let us on the bus. Make it on the bus and the bus leaves at around 4 a.m. not on time what's new? This is referred to as Ghana time. So try and get in an as comfy position as possible on a pretty uncomfortable bus when they decide that 4 a.m. is the perfect time to blast the radio on the We love Jesus channel which is a mixture of religious songs mixed in with some guy preaching at the top of his lungs and in a pretty angry voice which is how people pray to Jesus over here for some reason. Then on my row of 3 seats there were 5 of us...

There was no sleeping.

So got into Kumasi at around 1ish. Kumasi is pretty full on city. There is people and stuff and people selling stuff everywhere you look which was kinda full on especially in my sleep deprived state. Headed to get some street food which cost $.50 and tasted really good (it's so cheap coz you take a gamble on whether it will make you sick or not) but stuck to rice and sauce so it's a pretty safe bet. And got some pure water another thing we were warned against but it's fine. It's basically filtered water in little bags that cost $0.05 each. We then headed to an Internet cafe where I could write some whinging emails to make myself feel better. Then on another bus at 6:30pm to Bolgatonga. This bus took about 8hrs. We got there at 5:00pm to get seats
and it was meant to leave at 6. The station is absolute mayhem where everyone is calling Obruni or white woman and expecting some kind of response so walked around for a whole 2 minutes on my own before I gave up in my sleep deprived state. So the bus finally left (there were bags of yams and people in the aisles as they try and cram as many people on the bus as humanly possible) Then some guy decided to stand on a bag of yams right next to me and spent the next 30 minutes preaching ... not fucking impressed mate!!! I was extremely tempted to push him off the yams but being one of the three white people on the bus I thought I might be a bit conspicuous and then the rest of the 8hr bus ride might be a little uncomfortable. After the preaching he then spent the next 20 minutes trying to sell medicine to the whole bus ... I should of pushed him when I had the chance. So after he finished I breathed a sigh of relief hoping that I might be able to get some sleep, yeah right. This particular bus had a tv at the front which in Ghana I would usually find a luxury but when I've had no sleep and it's bed time even on a bus I don't appreciate Ghanaian films being screen on maximum volume for the entire bus ride. But that's just me since no one else had any complaints. Even though most of the plots entail 2 people wanting to get married finding out they're related and can't then that's the end of the movie. Luckily Becky had sleeping tablets so down that went and I managed a couple hours sleep.

So we arrived in Bolgatonga at about 3am and managed to find a 'hotel' there was no running water but there was a bed so it was great. Woke up and found our way to the tro tro station to find a shared taxi to Paga to see the crocodiles. It's about 30 minutes away and we went to one of the crocodile ponds in which we proceeded to sit on the crocodile and see a guy feed a couple of them chickens that we bought for $3 a pop. (Amber, I refused to buy a chicken but Becky and
Victoria did I couldn't help but film them eating the chickens, i'll send you the footage). Then we went to Paga palace, what a waste of time there wasn't much there but a couple of mud buildings.

Bolgatonga to Tamale, the best bus we got the whole trip. Took about 3 hrs and although the radio was pumping it was the middle of the day. Got into the 'hotel' (these places are dives) and shown to our room which was so hot and again no water so we tried to get a room with air con, nope, on the bottom floor since it's cooler, nope, fine give us our money back, nope. He wanted to wait until some guy came until he gave us a refund even though we'd been there all of 15 minutes BUT he didn't know how long he was going to be and didn't have a way to contact him. The other girls were ready to sit back and wait, I wasn't. So after some 'discussion' between me and him and me standing at the desk staring at him for about 5 minutes he realized that he had a room on the ground floor which we moved into. As most people know i'm pretty chilled but don't piss me off when i'm tired or hungry for that matter. So we had to get up at 6am to buy tickets for the Mole bus that leaves at 2pm to make sure we got a seat. Done. Went back to the station at 1ish to make sure we found the bus etc no need since it didn't get there until 2pm and didn't leave until 2:30pm again with people in the aisle's. The bus was so bumpy (bumpy being a huge understatement) that we had to stop every so often to check that none of the tires had blown out. FINALLY got to Mole which was a relief and settled in for the night. We woke up bright and early the next morning at 5am to sit on the balcony overlooking the waterhole to see if we could see any wildlife. There were a couple of antelope nothing exciting but very relaxing after being constantly crowded for the past few days. The we went on the morning safari walk were we saw elephants, warthogs, baboons and antelopes. Seeing elephants up close was amazing and we managed to walk down to the watering hole just as about 10 elephants decided to have a bath and were play fighting. Very surreal experience and one that HAS to the make the whole hellish bus trips worth it. So left Mole that morning at 4am (along with the dodgy buses they choose really crappy times to leave) managed to get maybe an hour into the trip when we picked up some more people which of course took 15 minutes then went 2 minutes down the road and all hell broke loose. Apparently some people were on the bus that didn't have a ticket but the system of getting tickets is crap since there is one guy that wanders the bus getting your money. A cop came onto the bus shouted a little bit and fucked off. Then a whole bunch of people were shouting and shoving which while entertaining was annoying since all I wanted to do was get to tamale so we could get to Kumasi. So managed to get to Tamale and hopped on a tro tro. Big mistake. This car was on the brink of falling to pieces beneath our arses. The driver had to stop every 15 to bang something back onto the bus the stop it from falling apart. This mixed with the burning smell coming from the engine for the whole 8hr trip (it was meant to take 5), i'm pretty sure i'm lucky to be alive or at least not stranded on the side of a pretty deserted rode.

Then stayed overnight in Kumasi at a cheap, cleanish 'hotel'. So went to get on a bus to get back to Hohoe. BUT of course we went to the wrong station so we had to get a tro tro to just outside Akosumbo then from there to Hohoe.. easy right? Got the tro tro to Akosumbo which took ages because it went on the back roads, approx time 6 hours (should of taken about 4) then we got to the tro tro station and some guy was trying to get us onto his tro tro but he wasn't going to Hohoe so we said were waiting until one goes there and suddenly he changed his tune saying he would take us to Hohoe. So we got on and off we went. Again back roads for some of the way so was taking a while to get there then all of a sudden we stop about 30 minutes from Hohoe ... end of the line. Apparently he wasn't going to Hohoe after all and we had to catch a cab the rest of the way but OH they wanted us to pay the full fare ... fat chance !! So we stood in the rain while I argued with them for 10 minutes about how I was paying the fare minus the cost of the cab pretty standard well according to me anyway. So after that all 7 of us jump into a 'car' made for 5 and off we go. The roads in Ghana are notorious for there pot holes so our cab driver decided to drive on the very edge of the road to avoid one that wasn't even near him which resulted in us getting stuck in a ditch and ending up on at least a 45 degree angle all squashed together. So out of the cab we hop in the rain and of course the cab can't get out of the hole so we wait until enough cars come past so the people can literally drag the car out of the hole and continue on our merry little way... OH GHANA!

Finally got into Hohoe 3 and a half hours after we set off (usually a 2 hr journey) and made it back to the homebase by 9:30pm in which time I collapsed into bed after stuffing my face full of food since I'd been living off crackers and digestives for the most part of the 6 day journey.
Was it worth it? I'm not sure, but seeing elephants in the wild is a once in a life time experience and now I feel I can handle any kind of traveling after that bullshit. I even managed to crack up laughing when the cab went in the ditch, granted it was more a deranged, delirious
laugh to stop myself from crying laugh but it was a laugh none the less. I'm just happy it's over and I can say that I did it and saw a large portion of Ghana because I know I would of regretted it if I didn't.

As per usual photos will have to wait since the internet is being reliably slow.