So I'm no longer going to do the whole day by day entry kind of thing because it's too much and my days after those first two weeks were uneventful. From now on, I'm basically just going to post entries whenever I feel like that entry would be significant and interesting to you all. After those two weeks, orientation was pretty much over and we were free to do whatever we wanted. And in the span of three weeks, I took three separate yet crazy trips around Ghana: Wli Falls, Mole National Park, and Cape Coast. This first post will be about the falls.
The Wli waterfalls are supposedly the highest waterfalls in Ghana and West Africa. It consists of a lower fall which is only a 40 minute hike to get to, and an upper fall, which is another two hour hike. However from the upper falls, you can get a good view of Lake Volta and Togo since its right next to the border. Anyway, it started with waking up at 5AM to get ready to leave campus by 6AM, only to end up leaving two hours later. Nothing is ever going to be "on time" here in Ghana. But we departed for the 4 hour drive which was pretty nice at first. It was cloudy and cool and the road was surrounded by greenery all over. But then the road got super bumpy and our bus slowed down to a crawl because the driver kept trying to avoid all of the potholes. To give you some sort of idea of how bumpy it was, imagine being on a road that's speed bump after speed bump after speed bump. Basically the road is an endless road of speed bumps with no flat surface. That's literally how we were for the majority of the ride, just jumping up and down in our seats.
We got there after a while (and constant stops from the driver to ask for directions) and getting off the bus woke a lot of us up. At the tour guide station, they said that if we wanted to bring in a camera they would charge us 5 cedis but I didn't want to pay so I decided to use my phone camera. Of course, I didn't stick with that either and snuck in my camera without paying the fine. I stayed towards the back of the group where the guide wouldn't see me with the camera but I don't think he really cared if I had brought it in secretly or not. Either way, I got away with it and saved about $1!
The hike wasn't tedious at all in that there weren't any inclines or declines. When we got to the falls, it was a sight to see: in front of us was the splash pool that looked calm but towering it was the waterfall, cascading down with a thunderous splash. Surrounding the fall were a bunch of slippery looking rocks covered with moss. It reminded me a lot of the waterfall I had hiked to in Costa Rica because it was the exact same setting, walking through a rainforest to see a pool of cool, clear water surrounding by green rocks. The only difference was that it didn't rain like mad while hiking back and the mud on the path didn't go up to my knees. Higher up, I could see a bunch of little brown and white dots on the cliffs, which were apparently bats that were sleeping since it was daytime.I must have been standing there admiring the falls for a while because I felt a sharp sting on my foot and I look down and see a few fat ants crawling up my leg and biting me some more. I had been standing in the middle of an ant train all this time. I was able to brush most of them off but I really had to put in a lot of effort to pull the fattest (they seriously were fat) ant away from my skin and when I did, I saw a tiny dot of blood coming out from my leg. At that point, I quickly took off my shirt, removed the things from my pockets and hopped in the water, hoping the water would ease the stings.
The water sure did help because it was pretty cold at first, but the further I waded out, the better it got. For the next hour or so, we would all be splashing around in the splash pool like children, jumping on each others shoulders and getting each other wet, laughing and screaming at the same time. The pool wasn't deep either, it went up to my chest at the most. Because of that, we were able to swim over to right underneath the falls and it was intense. It genuinely hurt a little bit when the water came splashing down and there was so much water coming down and the noise was so loud that you couldn't see or hear a thing. I was relying exclusively on touch to guide me around the area. Honestly, its hard to describe exactly what it was like standing right there because so much was going on. Half the time I just stood there tying to keep my eyes open for more than two seconds and trying to catch what the people right next to me were saying. I was able to go all the way back to where the rock wall was, and it offered some respite since the water didn't fall in that area as much, but I still couldn't see or hear any better. After a while, it became too much for me and I waded back out to the calmer portions of the pool. When you float on your back and look up, it's like seeing a river of water falling out from the sky; it was really cool. Thankfully my roommate had a waterproof camera he used to take a ton of photos so they'll come up on Facebook soon.
Once the novelty of the falls had worn off, we got out and that's when the sun came out and started heating everything up. Because the sunlight had poured out onto us, the bats above us started going crazy and kept flying and screeching around the cliffs, but they didn't swoop down to our level. I dried off and put on my clothes, careful to avoid the fat ant trails and we walked back to the bus, all feeling exhausted but in a good way. The ride back was more or less the same, only we nearly hit a lamb or sheep or something and everyone freaked out. But like when we hit that empty taxi, I calmly adjusted my earphones and increased the volume on my iPhone because I just did not care. It's one sheep, its okay. Also, the driver decided to take some random detour because there was some traffic up ahead and because it was nighttime, it looked like we were driving through space because we couldn't see a thing from the windows. We were surrounded completely by darkness with only the headlights guiding us. The road on this detour was so much worse as well, kind of like sitting in a violently vibrating chair in a way, and it became so narrow that some of the branches and bushes began scraping the windows, so it gave that part of the ride an eerie feel. We didn't pass any other cars on this route either and some of us began to question what the driver was doing, but after a while we got back on the main road in front of the traffic jam, so I guess the driver knew what he was doing for once, without asking for directions.
We got back to the city late, around 10ish, and we stopped at a complex to get some dinner to go. The restaurant I went to apparently ran out of everything on the menu, and they stuff they did have left had meat in it, so I was forced to get french fries for dinner. I was too exhausted to really care though and I ate a few more snacks in my room before falling into a deep sleep. But all in all, it was one of my best days here in Ghana so far, and it was definitely one of the best showers I've ever had: showering under a waterfall.
The Wli waterfalls are supposedly the highest waterfalls in Ghana and West Africa. It consists of a lower fall which is only a 40 minute hike to get to, and an upper fall, which is another two hour hike. However from the upper falls, you can get a good view of Lake Volta and Togo since its right next to the border. Anyway, it started with waking up at 5AM to get ready to leave campus by 6AM, only to end up leaving two hours later. Nothing is ever going to be "on time" here in Ghana. But we departed for the 4 hour drive which was pretty nice at first. It was cloudy and cool and the road was surrounded by greenery all over. But then the road got super bumpy and our bus slowed down to a crawl because the driver kept trying to avoid all of the potholes. To give you some sort of idea of how bumpy it was, imagine being on a road that's speed bump after speed bump after speed bump. Basically the road is an endless road of speed bumps with no flat surface. That's literally how we were for the majority of the ride, just jumping up and down in our seats.
We got there after a while (and constant stops from the driver to ask for directions) and getting off the bus woke a lot of us up. At the tour guide station, they said that if we wanted to bring in a camera they would charge us 5 cedis but I didn't want to pay so I decided to use my phone camera. Of course, I didn't stick with that either and snuck in my camera without paying the fine. I stayed towards the back of the group where the guide wouldn't see me with the camera but I don't think he really cared if I had brought it in secretly or not. Either way, I got away with it and saved about $1!
The hike wasn't tedious at all in that there weren't any inclines or declines. When we got to the falls, it was a sight to see: in front of us was the splash pool that looked calm but towering it was the waterfall, cascading down with a thunderous splash. Surrounding the fall were a bunch of slippery looking rocks covered with moss. It reminded me a lot of the waterfall I had hiked to in Costa Rica because it was the exact same setting, walking through a rainforest to see a pool of cool, clear water surrounding by green rocks. The only difference was that it didn't rain like mad while hiking back and the mud on the path didn't go up to my knees. Higher up, I could see a bunch of little brown and white dots on the cliffs, which were apparently bats that were sleeping since it was daytime.I must have been standing there admiring the falls for a while because I felt a sharp sting on my foot and I look down and see a few fat ants crawling up my leg and biting me some more. I had been standing in the middle of an ant train all this time. I was able to brush most of them off but I really had to put in a lot of effort to pull the fattest (they seriously were fat) ant away from my skin and when I did, I saw a tiny dot of blood coming out from my leg. At that point, I quickly took off my shirt, removed the things from my pockets and hopped in the water, hoping the water would ease the stings.
The water sure did help because it was pretty cold at first, but the further I waded out, the better it got. For the next hour or so, we would all be splashing around in the splash pool like children, jumping on each others shoulders and getting each other wet, laughing and screaming at the same time. The pool wasn't deep either, it went up to my chest at the most. Because of that, we were able to swim over to right underneath the falls and it was intense. It genuinely hurt a little bit when the water came splashing down and there was so much water coming down and the noise was so loud that you couldn't see or hear a thing. I was relying exclusively on touch to guide me around the area. Honestly, its hard to describe exactly what it was like standing right there because so much was going on. Half the time I just stood there tying to keep my eyes open for more than two seconds and trying to catch what the people right next to me were saying. I was able to go all the way back to where the rock wall was, and it offered some respite since the water didn't fall in that area as much, but I still couldn't see or hear any better. After a while, it became too much for me and I waded back out to the calmer portions of the pool. When you float on your back and look up, it's like seeing a river of water falling out from the sky; it was really cool. Thankfully my roommate had a waterproof camera he used to take a ton of photos so they'll come up on Facebook soon.
Once the novelty of the falls had worn off, we got out and that's when the sun came out and started heating everything up. Because the sunlight had poured out onto us, the bats above us started going crazy and kept flying and screeching around the cliffs, but they didn't swoop down to our level. I dried off and put on my clothes, careful to avoid the fat ant trails and we walked back to the bus, all feeling exhausted but in a good way. The ride back was more or less the same, only we nearly hit a lamb or sheep or something and everyone freaked out. But like when we hit that empty taxi, I calmly adjusted my earphones and increased the volume on my iPhone because I just did not care. It's one sheep, its okay. Also, the driver decided to take some random detour because there was some traffic up ahead and because it was nighttime, it looked like we were driving through space because we couldn't see a thing from the windows. We were surrounded completely by darkness with only the headlights guiding us. The road on this detour was so much worse as well, kind of like sitting in a violently vibrating chair in a way, and it became so narrow that some of the branches and bushes began scraping the windows, so it gave that part of the ride an eerie feel. We didn't pass any other cars on this route either and some of us began to question what the driver was doing, but after a while we got back on the main road in front of the traffic jam, so I guess the driver knew what he was doing for once, without asking for directions.
We got back to the city late, around 10ish, and we stopped at a complex to get some dinner to go. The restaurant I went to apparently ran out of everything on the menu, and they stuff they did have left had meat in it, so I was forced to get french fries for dinner. I was too exhausted to really care though and I ate a few more snacks in my room before falling into a deep sleep. But all in all, it was one of my best days here in Ghana so far, and it was definitely one of the best showers I've ever had: showering under a waterfall.
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