9/18/11- Ghana part 2

I don’t believe that I talked about this a lot in my last blog so I will mention it briefly; Ghana is a really impoverished country. I know you all are thinking “um…duh CJ its Africa….” Whatever. I believe we were told that it had the lowest income per capita than all of our countries on this trip. They are trying to build their country up more but they lack the money. It’s a very dirty country, garbage everywhere, I think I saw a total of three buildings over four stories, most of them were only one or two. Most of the greenery in the cities is non existent; there are potholes everywhere, traffic is awful and apparently tourism is at an all time low this year, which contributed to the crazy amount of heckling I was subjected to on my second day in Ghana.

On the third day, I had signed up for a SAS trip that took us to the Wli Waterfall and to the Kafi Atome monkey sanctuary. We got up bright and early to catch our bus at 7 (way too early for college students) and luckily two of my friends were also on the trip so we chatted for part of the bus ride and I’m sure we irritated some of the people around us but whatever. It was about a four hour bus ride to the waterfall. Most people tried to sleep, I only got maybe 20 minutes of sleep because of the roads. For about an hour of the ride we were subjected to extreme turbulence. It was similar to what you experience on a plane when there is BAD turbulence but about 10 times worse. We were thrown every which was and it was funny to see everyone’s heads swaying back and forth. What was cool about the bus ride though was that we got to see more of the interior of Ghana. Eventually the greenery emerged and it was incredible. It wasn’t the savannah style Africa you picture but lots of palm trees and bushes. We also drove through a lot of villages that, I’m assuming, were not accustomed to seeing tourists because while we looked out the window at them they stared right back with rather confused looks on their faces. The villages were very similar to what we all picture when you say “African village”. There were water pumps with women pumping water into buckets. The houses were usually made of concrete or brick or some sort of solid material with tin roofs. They had extra hut type structures made from what looked like bamboo strapped together and grass tops. A couple of the villages had electricity but it was very, I hate to say the word primitive but its all I can think of. It was different than morocco because all the Moroccan mud type houses all have big satellite dishes attached to their roofs. These houses were very simple, kids were running around and they ALL HAD LITTLE BABY GOATS RUNNING AROUND. OH MY GOSH THEY WERE SO CUTE. I have no idea what they did with the goats but I saw at least a hundred baby goats, no joke. Every village had a ton and they were so freaking precious. We really wanted to steal some and bring them home but we figured our cabin stewards would probs rat us out if we kept goats in our room….rude.

So after 4 long, bumpy hours we got to the waterfall, well, sort of….we then had about a half hour hike to get to the waterfall. It was more of a walk….and for some reason we had to stop like every ten minutes to point out some random species of plant or something ridiculous, but it was fun walking through the forest and crossing the river (nine times I think). I’m sure this walk was how I got the 6 mosquito bites that have been plaguing my life since then. Mosquitos and I do not mix. As we rounded the last corner the waterfall came into view and it was pretty freaking cool. I mean, I’ve seen waterfalls I guess…..but never this close. I had packed my swim suit but we all kind of stood around and took pictures until about three guys jumped in and we all decided that we had to go for it. We waded in and tried to avoid rocks and walked towards the falls. As we got closer it was almost impossible to see because of all the spray, I tried to look up but failed, so we turned around and backed towards it. We weren’t directly under it but were still getting a good amount of spray. Then the three guys led us through the waterfall to the back. It was incredible how heavy the force is. It makes it hard to breathe and all you can feel are the gallons being thrust upon you. We made it to the back and to my dismay there was no secret cave like in the movies but just a rock wall. We caught our breath and walked back through, fighting the water. After my friend and I got through we backed up so we could look up at it and just kind of stood in awe of how cool that feeling was. I think its pretty neat to be able to say that I stood under a waterfall in the middle of Ghana. I’ve never stood under a real waterfall and it was pretty amazing. We made our way back to attempt to put our clothes back on (a feat in itself, we didn’t bring towels so that was fun), the whole time praying I wouldn’t get some awful parasite because I was in the water. After we walked back to the bus we picked up our lunches and waited to drive off. But apparently we were missing some lunches because they were locked in this one guys car so we watched them as about 10 of the tour leaders or people crowded around this car and tried to jimmy the door open because some fool locked his keys in the car. I think someone eventually broke the window….it was all very dramatic lol. All for our stupid lunches. Way to perpetuate the American stereotype SAS.

Another two hours later, we arrived at the monkey sanctuary and were led into the forest to feed the monkeys. Our tour guide made a noise to attract the monkeys which sounded like an amplified kissing noise. Eventually one big monkey (they aren’t the crazy chimpanzee from the zoo, they were pretty small, furry and kind of lemur-y looking) made his way over. Our tour guide held out a banana and then the monkey started making this….thumping noise from his chest to call the other monkeys. He took the banana, peeled and ate it while we watched about six monkeys appear on the tree next to us. They were so cute!! I’m not sure where I would have chosen a baby goat or monkey to bring home….it was definitely a toss up, but a monkey could sit on my shoulder….hm….anyways so most people in our group had to spilt their banana with someone else but everyone rushed over to try to feed the monkeys, some of which jumped on people’s arms to get the banana. I was finally able to attract a monkey after many kissing noises and it just grabbed the banana, didn’t jump on my arm ☹ I think they got full eventually because they were much harder to coax down. Apparently the monkeys only like sweet things, like bananas and you can’t peel the banana and hand it to them because they won’t take it because of the salt on our hands, they won’t eat it.

After visiting with the monkeys we got back on the bus (so much driving!) and started back towards the ship. We started betting on what time we would get home because we were supposed to be back by 8 but they said we left late and there was traffic and we had to stop twice because they had to fix the other bus. However, we did manage to get back by 8. We grabbed dinner and decided to shower and then head out to the bars in Tema since we hadn’t gone out since we’d been in Ghana (and never really in Morocco). I got back to my room and Allison was on her way out to Accra where a bunch of people were heading but I was smelly and waterfall-y so I had to pass. Plus I’d just spent roughly eight hours on a bus and I was not enthused at the idea of spending another four on one.  She ended up having a much more eventful night than I did; the bar wasn’t super interesting so I came back with people after about an hour. What was interesting was the amount of liquor in a “shot”. In the US its usually about 1.5 oz I believe. These shots are TINY but you are still paying the same amount which was annoying. So we peaced and came back to the ship and went to bed. I know, I know, I am the LIFE of the party. I was disappointed but I figure South Africa will be bomb so…..I’ll save it all for then :P I’m sure Mom will be happy to hear about that haha.

Anyways, I would briefly like to talk about the time Allison had since her couple of days were WAY more eventful than mine were. First off, she went on an independent trip with people to the Kakum National Park (because she’s from Oregon DUH. She’s been itching to go hiking…..gross lol) so she was supposed to come back on the second night…..but didn’t get back until about an hour before I did from my monkey and waterfall trip (day 3) because their bus driver stole stuff from the bus, one item being a bottle of rum, drank it all and was too drunk to drive them home! So they had to stay an extra night! Ridiculous. Then when she went out to Accra (where I kind of wish I had gone just to see this) she did not get back until 4 because of the craziness. Apparently, at this hotel bar where this big SAS party thing was going on, people were going HAM. It sounded crazy. She say like six people get carried out because they were passed out. People were passing out standing up, in the bathroom, in corners. There was puke EVERYWHERE. The highlight of her night was watching a girl in line for the bar who then turned puked all over the floor then continued to wait for her drink. So embarrassing. I personally, am shocked that people would get so retarded. Like, HELLO you are in the middle of AFRICA. I feel like that is not the smartest place to get BLACK OUT DRUNK. I mean, no where is a smart place to get that drunk but umm….Africa? I don’t think so. I am all for having a good time but I mean really? There is no need to get that trashed ESPCECIALLY in a foreign country ESPECIALLY when you are two hour away from the ship! So later she tried to get a cab home with people but after they paid the driver, he got out and another (the real driver) got in and was like you need to pay me! So then the locals around them were getting mad and stared rowdy because they thought our people were trying to rip them off and she said it was like “Dawn of the Dead”, people were reaching in the van. Some of the drunk guys were trying to fight or whatever (because stupid drunk guys do that) and eventually a couple of girls power handled the situation and they all made it home ok. Thank goodness.
But the next morning it was pretty funny to see all the hungover people getting up for their FDPs.

On the last day, Allison and I got up for breakfast and took the 10 am shuttle to Accra and went to the Art Center, where they were supposed to have more crafts and fabric etc. We were immediately greeted by some guys who wanted to lead us to their shop. We made our way into the narrow aisles of stalls with every shopkeeper pulling us into their own stall. It was crazy. But we told them all we would come back and we just wanted to see everything first and eventually the guys led us to their stall where they had a bunch of wood carvings. They also led us around that day to an ATM and played the drums for us and it was nice because it was like having protection because no one really bothered us because it was one of their own leading us around. They were actually really nice and they got our emails and put us in a cab to head back to Accra. We stopped at an internet café where we were sorely disappointed that we were unable to Skype our families but I got to check facebook and my gmail which was nice. We stocked up on soda and a couple snacks and got on the bus to head back to the ship.

It was definitely an interesting port, it opened my eyes to “Africa” since Morocco was more Middle Eastern/European than African and it just makes me more excited to get to South Africa! 3 days til Cape Town!