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| Baby Warthogs |
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| Adult Warthog feeding |
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| View of the Waterhole |
We all met at 6 AM to
bird the motel grounds and watched as the view of the beautiful large
waterhole grew lighter and we could see groups of Kob feeding on the grass
below. The motel resident family of warthogs, a mother and three young,
came by munching greens and walked by the pool and our rooms, completely
oblivious to us! We watched a lovely group of Cordon Bleu, tiny turquoise
finches with red bills and markings and a monkey feeding in a tree.
After breakfast we loaded on the bus and took off sadly leaving this lovely
park behind.
Just before we returned
to the washboard highway we stopped in the village of Larabanga for a rare
culture break! Larabanga is the proud
location of an ancient adobe mosque which
the locals claim was built in 1421, and, while it may be the oldest
building in Ghana, it was probably constructed in the mid 1600’s.
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| Larabanga Mosque |
We returned to the
washboard road and bumped along for a few hours until we reached the small city
of Tamale where we stopped at the Gariba Lodge for lunch. We dined in an
undecorated room for once and had the usual selection of foods, followed by dishes
of vanilla ice cream - a real treat in this heat! Outside the dining room
we saw a group of small fruit bats hanging in a tree - with very cute faces
staring back at us.
We drove on stopping at
the Nasia Bridge where everyone but Jenny and I scrambled down a very steep
embankment to bird in the marshy area below. It was very dry, but the
temperature was 104 degrees! We saw brilliant red Carmine Bee Eaters,
hawks and herons.
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| Northern Carmine Bee Eater |
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| Spur-wWinged Plover |
We passed through more
villages with some prosperous adobe compounds of a series of huts and connecting
walls surrounding a courtyard. We
noticed that some thatch is being replaced with shiny metal roofs which must
make the house an unbelievable oven in this heat, but last longer and avoid the
insect and rodent infestations that thatch must bring.
Some signs: “God’s
Miracle Restaurant & Bar” and the “No Limit Drinking Spot”. And some
encouraging posters: “Your friend with AIDS is still your friend!” and “Real
Men Plan Their Families!” The police checkpoints are sponsored by Latex Foam
Honeymoon Mattresses!
At 5 we pulled off the
highway and drove a short ways into the Tongo Hills, an area of stony hills
with balancing rocks and baobab trees. Quite lovely - not very birdy, but
well worth exploring.
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| Tongo Hills Baobab Tree |
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| "Chobe Chickens"- Helmeted Guineafowl |
We pulled into Bolgatanga,
the largest city on the north border with Burkina Faso and parked at the Sira
Guesthouse. The people running it are extremely nice, as are the vast
majority of Ghanaians, but the motel leaves a bit to be desired! The A/C
is pretty weak, we’re right on the street and the shower doesn’t work…and the
bucket in the shower stall was empty! As it was late we had to pile into
the bus right away and go for dinner as the hotel doesn’t have a
restaurant. We drove for 10 minutes to the Comme Çi, Comme Ça , a nice
restaurant with raised pavilions within a large courtyard. If I remember
my French correctly, it seems like a very strange name for a restaurant, but
maybe they just liked the sound of it! It was pretty dark but,
according to Phil when he was there three weeks ago on the previous tour, the
wobbling ceiling fan hit the light bulb shattering glass all over the table, so
we decided not to turn the fan on and we did the list warmly with head lights!
The food was standard but good and we got back to the hotel at 8. I got
the staff to bring us a couple of buckets of water and convinced Bob to try a
bucket “shower” which at least cools you off even if it doesn’t do a very good
job of cleaning you.
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