Sun, April 21 - Off to Bolgatanga

Baby Warthogs

Adult Warthog feeding

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.

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.

 

Northern Carmine Bee Eater

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.

Tongo Hills Baobab Tree

"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.

Sat, April 20 - Exploring Mole National Park

Breakfast at 5:40 and off in our bus on the Somole Loop in the Park, accompanied by Moses, our rifle-bearing guide.  We saw Grivet Monkeys right away on the road and continued on to some grassland where we walked a ways.  Three weeks ago when Phil was conducting his March tour of Ghana, he said everything was very dry, but now all the water holes are full…this means the elephants are going to be dispersed rather than gathering at the large waterhole in front of the motel, so we may not see them which would be a big disappointment!

We saw a flock of Rose-ringed Parakeets and Red-throated Bee-eaters.  We climbed a hide overlooking a waterhole and sat on a bench watching some Kob antelope feeding and two males butting heads, along with a large Nile Crocodile and many wading birds.  I was so tired that I occasionally nodded off, my dreams all mixing up with the reality of sitting looking at an African wilderness!
 

Kob antelope

Finally we returned to the Motel and I chose to nap rather than eat lunch.  Bob brought me a Coke and a plate of pineapple, and I managed to get about an hour’s nap before we joined the others on the bus at 3 PM.  I was considering taking the afternoon off to sit by the pool and relax, but that seemed pretty foolish when African birds and mammals might well appear.  And the pool was full of screaming 20-something Europeans…

 

An Alert Baby Elephant

We took off with Moses again and right outside the motel grounds we suddenly saw four elephants - three mature females and a half-grown offspring!  What a thrill!  They were just off the road and ignored us completely, munching weeds while waving their ears to cool themselves off.  We continued on the Brugbani Loop and immediately encountered a group of Patas Monkeys. 

Patas Monkeys

 We took several walks through grassy open areas.  The African flies, almost the equivalent of Australia’s, were starting to buzz around our ears, noses, and eyes.  Bob and I had brought our Aussie fly nets and quickly put them on and relaxed while the other vainly tried to swat the flies away.  We saw many new birds including the Forbes Plover, which Bob thinks must have something to do with the Boston Forbes family!  I gave my net to Moses on the way back to the motel; he seemed rather thrilled as he said the fly season doesn't even peak until September when it must be really bad!

A Termite Mound

Stanley's Bustard

The group returned to the motel at 6:30 for bucket showers and got together for dinner overlooking the pool.  A table of boisterous young’uns next to us drove us out to the pool in order to do the list in peace.

Fri, April 19 - Driving to Mole National Park

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!

 

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!

Thus, April 18 - In Search of Picathartes

Wildlife of Aboabo

  

 We got up at 3:30, packed with bags outside the door by 4:30 and left at 5 AM.  We drove to the north side of Kakum National Park to Aboabo and birded there until 11 and then continued on to Asso Faso for lunch at a roadside restaurant.  We entered their A/C room and found a table surrounded by enormous upholstered chairs in an almost La-Z-Boy position!  I felt like a little kid as I couldn’t put my feet on the ground.  The walls were decorated with wild curlicues of tinsel and shiny ribbons.  We had the standard buffet of rices, curries and French fries, and then got a plate of Kenkey, a Ghanaian dish of fermented corn (I think the entire cob) mashed smooth and then baked in a banana leaf and sliced.  I can’t say I really enjoyed it as it has an acidic taste, but managed some sprinkled with sugar - Not the traditional way of eating it!

 

Kenkey

Well-decorated lunch room!

After lunch we drove to the village of Bonkro, a rather remote village of huts, but filled with very friendly people who greeted us warmly.  They receive some income from fees people pay in order to access the nesting sight of the Picathartes, a quail-size forest bird with a bare yellow head, black back and white undersides.  It nests on rocky cliffs and is extremely shy and wary.  We started on the trail at 3 PM just as it started to rain.  We had to hike with umbrellas through dense woods ending in a steep climb of a rocky and muddy slope 500’ high.  I found it really rough going and got to the top after most of the others.  Two benches had been set up at the base of a large rock under which the birds nest.  The idea is to arrive in the late afternoon and sit very quietly, hoping to catch a glimpse of the birds.  It had stopped raining by then and shortly some of us got a glimpse.  As we were all spread out on the bench it was very difficult to give directions as to where the birds were.  Finally one stepped out on the ledge and we all got a great view of this weird and beautiful bird!

Waiting for Picathartes

Jenny and I decided that that was enough and we started down very slowly with the assistance of James and Andrew.  It was slipping and sliding but we made it without a spill!  The others caught up with us at the bottom which was a relief as I was afraid that they would have to come down that dangerous trail in the dark! The little kids of the village came running over to us and insisted on giving us “high fives” which was really cute!

 

Football game

Local butcher shop

Just as we left it started to pour once again and we drove north for another two hours before we got to the Royal Basin Hotel, just south of the city of Kumasi, for the night.  We were all still really soaked and had to spread out all our gear in our rooms and  shower, thankfully with hot water(!), in order to get ready for a late dinner.  We did the list, ate and just before collapsing into our rooms, Bob couldn’t find his bird list - some panic as that is his record of the trip!

Wed, April 17 - Birding Our Way Back to the Rainforest Lodge

We met for breakfast at 5 AM; I had bread and jam as I couldn’t face yet another omelet.   We set off with our luggage back to the park and stopped at the Tall Tree Trail.  We entered a very dense forest and hiked up and down slopes and worked very hard to see several dark, skulking birds in the thick underbrush.  It was just incredibly hot as no breeze could reach us and we drank as much water as poured off us.  We saw the lovely Forest Robin, a small round bird with brilliant orange breast, brown back and white underneath.

We finally left the claustrophobic jungle and started the long drive back to the Rainforest Lodge.  We dozed and bumped along; our guides, James and Andrew, stopped and bought a pile of roasted plantains from a woman carrying them on top of her head along the side of the highway which were delicious, hot right off someone’s griddle! They are always stopping to pick up water and snacks to keep us in good humor!

 

Orange Weaver

 We stopping for lunch at the same hotel that we has stopped at two days ago for good cream of veg and chicken soup, plus chicken and pasta.

Our guides stopped and bought some pineapples from some women as they know we love them so much, for us to have for dessert tonight.  There were also two women walking along with sewing machines on top of their heads, I guess offering quick sewing jobs!

Fruit Vendors

 Ghana is home of thousands of tiny businesses.  Every town is lined with little stores, workshops or wooden stands selling everything imaginable.  There are work shops making coffins, bed frames, upholsterers manufacturing one set of furniture at a time, all lined up in front of their stall! Tiny hardware stores, dress shops, racks of used shoes and, of course, pots of food everywhere - it would be fascinating to wander among these - if we had a little time!

 

Beach Shacks

Adobe Mosque

We pulled off on a side road to Brenu Beach and stopped along the way to look at Pipits, a Harrier hawk and two kinds of waxbills.  It was beginning to get dark so we drove to another location, off in the countryside, passing medical area with a nursing college, a planned parenthood center and an area with high wire fencing with the improbable name of the “Communicable Disease Prison”!

Brenu Beach Area

We pulled off the road and walked a short ways to a stream and started playing a tape of Fraser’s Eagle Owl, and low and behold, it hooted and we were able to shine a spotlight on it to ID it.  We started driving finally to the Rainforest Hotel and stopped to watch a Long-tailed Nightjar, a dark dove-sized bird with a long tail and distinctive white markings sitting on the road.

We finally arrived at the good old Rainforest at 7:30 and got our same #107 room and dashed around to meet for dinner at 8!  Good soup, spaghetti, and our pineapple!    To bed as we’re getting up for breakfast at 4:30 tomorrow!  Sigh!

Tue, April 16 - Birding Ankasa park

Tue, April 16 - Birding Ankasa Park

We got up at 3:40 AM and gathered for breakfast at 4:30 AM for omelets, bread and jam.  Off on the bus at 5 and we drove in the dark north for 1.5 hours reaching cut over and burned hillsides just outside the entry to Ankasa National Park, arriving at 6:15 at the entry kiosk.  We picked up a ranger and drove into the park and a couple of miles more until the road had a muddy wallow and the bus had to stop.  We were supposed to have 4-wheel drive vehicles to transport us but for some reason the local agent, Ashanti Tours, couldn’t supply them. 

So we took off on foot, hiking on the road and passing muddy spots by balancing on the edges.  At one spot I suddenly flipped and landed on my right hip square in the red mud. (Got up OK but am pretty stiff this evening with a grapefruit-sized bruise

Clearing the road

!) 

There were many piles of round hay-bale shaped piles of dung of the rare and very shy Forest Elephants. We also saw Bush Buck on the road, small deer-like animals with vertical white strips.  We continued on finally arriving at a research station where we were originally to have parked.  We walked over to Pond 1 and saw a pair of lovely purple-blue Shining Blue Kingfishers. Unfortunately these have displaced the rarer pale blue Blue-breasted Kingfishers. 

 

Forest Elephant dung

At noon it started to rain and we retired to the station to relax and eat the lunch the hotel had prepared for us: three slices of bread and two segments of Laughing Cow cheese each!!

Between showers we walked down a path from the station into a lovely and magical forest of mature bamboo arranged in large clumps like giant bunch grass called the Bamboo Cathedral, appropriately enough`.  A little stream ran through the grove and we sat and enjoyed the view, although no birds appeared.  We hiked some more until it rained again; Glenda and I took some time off and relaxed while the others forged on!

 

The Bamboo Cathedral

We finally started back to the bus at 4 reaching it at 5 and birded at a bridge with beautiful views of the hills and reflections of the clouds in the stream.
We got back to the Gracia Hotel at 7:10.  I taught RR how to take a shower here:  A light stream comes out of the shower head, enough to soap yourself up and then there is a lower faucet with much better water pressure and a plastic mug with which you can use to rinse yourself off!  A strange but effective system!

We met at 8 for a delicious dinner of avocado salad, fried chicken, palava, a spicy bean dish, and rice.  More of the incredibly sweet pineapple for dessert.

Mon, April 15 - Birding Our Way West to the Ivory Coast

Scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast and then we set off from the Rainforest Lodge and turned off on the “Stingless Bee” track near an institute investigating this matter.  We drove through Andrew’s village and saw women stirring large cauldrons of porridge over fires in their front yards and birded along the way.  Overhead in the early morning light we got great views of the Rosy Bee Eater, a hummingbird-like bird with a deep rosy breast, easily visible in the dawn light!

Vieillot's Black Weaver on nest

We drove to the Abrafo Forest Preserve nearby and walked into the woods and saw several new birds including the Naked Faced Barbet, one of a family of stocky forest birds with very large bills.  The naked faced one has a very cute goatee hanging off his bill!

We finally took off west towards the Ivory Coast border and drove and drove and drove!  We went through palm oil plantations, messy little towns, fields and rubber tree plantations.  We hit the coastal town of Sekondi which has a large Dutch fort (which we didn’t see) and many two- and three- story wooden buildings dating back to the British era, late 1800s, with shutter-covered windows- unique in the country as far as I can see. There we stopped at a fancy hotel for a good lunch buffet: fish/squash/corn soup, and then the usual chicken and fish dishes.

Fishing Boats taking off

Our stalwart driver took us off again for several hours more of driving.  We stopped occasionally to check out birds; in one pond we saw some lovely Little Grebes, small diving birds with chestnut heads.  At 5:30 we finally arrived at the town of Half Assini which is at the tip of a peninsula of land that goes into the Ivory Coast at the ocean’s edge.  We checked into the Gracia Hotel which is supposed to be pretty basic, and it is, but it’s also a pleasant enough place.  Our room has a king-size bed, two desks, a full bath, although you have to use a bucket of water to flush the john, and you have to switch on the hot water ahead of time to get any!

We arrived at the dining room at 7 and Bob and I each got our usual 21 oz. Club Beers and went into the small dining room which consists of a buffet table and a table for us.  Around the top of the room was festooned white cloth streamers with pink plastic flowers and ribbons entwined!  All ready for a fancy wedding!  We had a good dinner of fish and manioc stew, fried chicken, rice and beans and then a platter of the sweetest pineapple I’ve ever eaten!    To bed as tomorrow promises to be a long and arduous day.  Breakfast at 4

Kids playing in a river

Festively decorated dining room!!

Dinner!

Sun, Apr 14 - Birding the Antikwa section of the Park

Today being Sunday, we got pancakes with jam for breakfast!  We set off at 5:30 AM and saw a lovely sun streaked with clouds rising over the jungle.   We drove around the park and through several tiny villages of thatched houses made of adobe brick and finally stopped at a little clearing where we took off on foot.  It was slightly cooler today which was very nice.

 We could hear chain saws in the distance and then women walked by carrying huge piles of small logs on their heads!  They pleasantly greeted us as if they were carrying only a small bundles of laundry. We walked about one mile (which took three hours - standard birding speed!), ducking into a small clearing with a pool of water where we stood for 15 minutes while Phil and James called in a rare Fluff Tail, a little reddish rail, that walked briefly by.

We came upon a palm wine production area - a small clearing in the woods that contained a still, buckets of palm wine and  pools of wine brandy.  Andrew, our other guide and butterfly expert, poured some wine from a rather grubby pail into a plastic mug and passed it around!  Bob didn’t take any, and so can act as our control if we all get sick!  It was rather pleasant and sweetish.  Nearby was a palm oil palm tree that had been felled and several outer layers of the trunk peeled back to reveal a little trough that someone had cut into it.  The sap collects in the trough and that is made into the wine.  It looked like a primitive illegal still of Prohibition, but Andrew says it is a legal, and taxed, distillery.

Palm wine production

 We proceeded on to a river crossing and walked by a very smoky small palm oil
business.  Mounds of palm fruits were on the ground and workers were grinding some up and extracting oil and burning the remaining vegetation.  As Glenda pointed out, that material could be used as heating or cooking fuel and save a few trees, but oh, well.   We saw lovely, azure White-throated Blue Swallows flying over the sand-colored water and watched men paddling small dugout canoes.

Palm Oil production

We started driving back to the hotel for lunch and passed many church parishioners going home after services.  Many of the women and quite a few men were wearing clothes made of brilliantly colored, wildly patterned material!
I hope to find where they obtain it and how it is made.  The women wear elaborately designed dresses and the men’s’ is generally fashioned into pajama-like garment.  The kids often wear matching outfits. You can see this everyday, but on Sunday it is quite a show!

We got back at 12:30 (seven hours of birding!) and had a restorative lunch of hard boiled eggs in a veggie stew and a beef stew with boiled manioc slices.
We had a break until 3:30 and then were to go out again, walking along a park road and into the evening to see some owls.

 At 3:30 I decided that after going up and down the stone staircase yesterday which left my knees not happy, and not sleeping well last night that I needed an afternoon off!   And as this is probably the nicest hotel we will stay in, it only made sense to stay home, which I did, happily.  It’s now past 7 PM and they are all still out, hot and sweaty, exhausted, and bouncing around in the bus!   I took a shower, washed my hair and spend a couple of hours getting a blog post out with two measly photos and organized our gear for leaving early tomorrow.  Then I went over to the bar and now am happily drinking a large “Stone Strong Lager” which actually is rather weak, but does the trick awaiting the brave birders.
The group arrived at 7:30 and we had a good dinner of spaghetti with spicy tomato sauce.