 |
| Royal Basin Hotel & our bus, Kumasi |
 |
| Birding Opro Forest |
Breakfast at 6 AM - what
luxury! We had the usual breakfast and Jenny found that she had
inadvertently grabbed Bob’s list last night when she took hers back to her room
- so Bob’s worries are relieved.
We took off at 6:30 and
wound our way through Kumasi, the second largest city in Ghana. It is a
good center of crafts and local fabrics - Kente Cloth - woven and Akindro cloth
which has a stamped decoration….maybe I’ll see some on the way south at the end
of the trip?
We drove north thorough
agriculture and small towns which seem somewhat more substantial than those of
the south - more two-story buildings and more houses than adobe huts. We
pulled onto a dirt road and walked along through the Opro Forest with its new
teak plantation spotting a few birds until 10:30.
 |
| Piac-Piac |
 |
| Pied Crow |
We continued driving
north stopping at 11 at a fruit market. James jumped out was instantly
surrounded by a group of beautifully dressed women carrying various fruits on
their heads. He was trying to buy bananas for us and finally managed to
select one vendor and buy her fruit. It was, he said, like fighting off
Sweat Bees! We all got a couple of the sweetest bananas that exist!
 |
| Banana vendor |
A little after noon our
driver pulled off into the Kintampo Truck Stop and we piled out. Andrew
had to accompany us to the rest room as it required a fee - and, of course, it
was the shabbiest we have encountered. We got to our table in the A/Ced
room, there are often bottles of dish soap on the table at truck stops
and a sink right in the room which makes sense as it encourages clean hands.
We were served the usual two types of rice, chicken curry, spaghetti with a very good spicy sauce, and then out came the promised dishes of Fufu, a Ghanaian dish which was described in my guide book as a very typical local dish. It is made by mashing plantains and cassava until they form a gooey mass which is formed into a ball, boiled and served in a broth. I really liked it, mainly because the broth was an excellent goat gravy. Anyway, I can add another life food to my list!
We were served the usual two types of rice, chicken curry, spaghetti with a very good spicy sauce, and then out came the promised dishes of Fufu, a Ghanaian dish which was described in my guide book as a very typical local dish. It is made by mashing plantains and cassava until they form a gooey mass which is formed into a ball, boiled and served in a broth. I really liked it, mainly because the broth was an excellent goat gravy. Anyway, I can add another life food to my list!
 |
| Fufu |
We left at 1:30 having
learned that it would take us five hours more to reach Mole Park. Our van
continued north, crossing a branch of the Black Volta River, and we started
noticing that the climate here is much drier than down south and the villages
tend to have mosques and fewer churches. We dozed and chatted until we
turned West on the Fufulsu-Damongo Road. The road turned to dirt and is
in the midst of being converted from a country road to a highway. We
drove for a couple of hours over the worst washboard surface ever. The
whole van shook and our driver pulled off on to a frontage road whenever
he could and we paralleled the new road under construction! Later on we
finally got to a more advanced section of the road and things smoothed out but
it was real torture for a while.
Along this road we saw
lovely traditional small settlements of round adobe thatched huts with
large bags of charcoal lined up on the road near them. The women mostly wore
long voluminous dresses and the men often had lose pajama-type clothes of all
colors and patterns. Unfortunately with the road construction I’m sure
their lives are filled with dust. They waved cheerfully as usual.
 |
| Huts with bags of charcoal and bundles of sticks |
At 6:30 we turned off
onto the Mole National Park road, passed through the entry way, and found
ourselves at the famous Mole Motel! It is rather basic but very charming
nevertheless. It consists of 40 or so cabins scattered along the edge of
an escarpment overlooking a large waterhole. One can see elephants and
other animals coming to drink water which should be very
exciting! We moved into cabin D3 which is spacious, has a
balcony and A/C. We have two large, clean buckets of water in the
bathroom with a dipper which is to serve as our washing and showering.
After just washing my hands, I was amazed how much water it took to rinse them
in the soft rain water.
 |
| Our room at Mole |
We met for dinner on the
terrace overlooking the pool which was surrounded by tourists, Ghanaian and
European - we haven't seen any tourists this entire trip! Ghana doesn't
have a very good tourist infrastructure and most motels and hotels cater to
business people; there are quite a few interesting sites and crafts,
particularly fabrics, which would be great to visit some other time.
Everyone went out for a
night drive, except me who needed some time to write this all up. They
saw a family of wonderful Standard-winged Nightjars, nocturnal birds often seen
sitting on roads. The male has long tipped streamers coming off the
middle of his wings - really exciting!
No comments:
Post a Comment