Paul is away with us at the moment and is sending us regular updates.
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This week, with the schools having no lessons due to the end of term exams, we went traveling to explore the Volta region. Francis originally quoted us a price of 320 cedi each for the trip, but eventually decided it would be cheaper if we went without him. In the end it cost us less than 100 cedi each, so our decision was justified. Even so, it was the first time we have been for more than a day trip and meant that I now had to do a lot more of the planning, rather than leaving it up to him as I had done before.
So last Thursday we caught a bus to Hohoe from Kumasi. On the way there we went without crossing Lake Volta, so had to go the long way around which ended up taking over 8 hours. When we got there we found that Hohoe is much quieter than Kumasi. It was a real struggle to find food on the streets, which is in complete contrast to Kumasi, where it is difficult to move for different people trying to sell you all kinds of different food. The Matvin Hotel, where we stayed, was also very quiet. It was supposed to have a bar and a restaurant, but the restaurant was not open in the three days that we were there and the bar only sold Guiness. The rooms were reasonably cheap at 10 cedi a night, which when Chris and I were sharing a room meant that the cost was less than 3 pound a night each. Whilst there was no electricity, at that price we felt we could hardly complain.
The next morning we decided to visit the Wii falls, which according to the guide book was the most popular tourist destination in the Volta region. We paid for a guide to take us for the 45 minute trek through the forest area to the waterfall itself. Although we had not seen anyone on route, I was still surprised to see that there was no one else there. The waterfalls are the highest in West Africa, standing at approximately 50 metres above the ground. However officially they are not the “largest” in Ghana because more water comes down at Kintampo than Wii. The water actually looked more like a fine mist coming down, but as you got closer there was still quite a lot of water coming down at once. The pool at the bottom was not very deep, so it was more of a case of wading out towards the waterfall than swimming. The water from the fall felt very similar to that of hail stones as it hit the back of my neck. As I waded closer the volume of water made it very difficult to stand up. We have some videos of us being pushed around while trying to stand under the waterfall which looks quite funny-if you have ever seen pictures of people being hit by water cannons the waterfall had a very similar effect.
Unfortunately the sky clouded over so we did not stay long. I cannot moan too much about that because it was probably about 30 degrees still and I’ve heard it has got down to 2 degrees C in the UK. The guide had abandoned us by this stage, so we had to find our way back through the forest on our own. We had to cross 9 streams on the way through and with so much greenery the forest could easily have been somewhere in the UK. What you would find less of at home where the large spiders in the middle of the pathway. Chris and Kirsty are scared of spiders so our journey back took a lot longer due to their attempts to avoid them. To be honest had they not mentioned them I probably would not have seen any of the spiders. Admittedly, when I did see them they were rather large, but as long as they were not poisonous I did not know what all the fuss was about.
On Saturday we set out to go to climb Mount Afadjato. It took a one hour taxi journey along some very rough roads to get there. We paid the taxi driver 20 cedi between us to take us to the mountain, wait for us to climb it and get back down again, and then take us back to Hohoe. Can you imagine a British taxi driver doing all that for just over 10 pounds?!! Arasjato is the highest mountain in Ghana at just over 800 meters high. I’m told that that is not very tall for a mountain and that it could be climbed in 45 minutes. I think that was a rather low estimate considering how unfit I really am.
The climb up was incredibly physically demanding. It was fairly steep and the terrain was quite rough, but the worst problem was that the temperature was about 35 degrees Celsius and the forested area made the air extremely humid. It reminded me of the tropical biome at the Eden Project-the difference being that there were a few steps to climb, rather than an entire mountain. The heat made it very difficult and I had to stop to rest after every few steps. I don’t think I have ever sweated that much and within a few minutes I was soaked with sweat. At one point I lost my footing and slipped. Luckily I landed on my backside not too far from where I slipped. Even so it was fairly painful. Chris and Kirsty play football and hockey every week so they are much fitter than I am and were waiting at the top for a long time for me to catch up. The views at the top were really good. As it was not too high there was no cloud cover in the way, as was the problem at the top of Snowdon. We were so far east that the next mountain range along was in Togo, rather than Ghana.
Whilst going down the mountain was not as physically demanding, it was a lot more treacherous. My mild fear of heights and my uneasiness after slipping earlier meant that my journey down was very slow. I was glad that the guide stayed at the back with me, although he did look very bored trying to go as slowly as I was going. I also found that my 1.5 litre bottle of water was going too quickly, so I was forced to ration myself to one swig every 20 minutes. That did give me a slight incentive to keep moving as if I was too slow the water would run out. In the end it took 3 hours to climb up and down, double the predicted 90 minutes that the taxi driver had told us. But he was not too upset that he had spent 5 hours on only getting 20 cedi.
On Sunday we started our return journey that would involve two ferries to complete the round trip. The first ferry was at Kpando (pronounced with a silent K) which was about an hour from the hotel. We arrived at 10 o clock, but were told the next ferry was not until 1.30. We were offered the option of traveling in a local’s boat instead. That also did not leave until 1.30, but took 45 minutes to get across, rather than 2 hours. The boat was basically a large rowing boat with a speed boat engine on the back, but even if it left at the same time as the ferry, it certainly looked more fun. After a very long wait we boarded the boat at 1 o clock. The actual ferry never did arrive, so we were glad that we had chosen to go on this boat. A slightly concerning feature of the voyage was the sight of a man bailing out water from just under my feet. Apart from that the voyage was rather boringly safe. It was reasonably quick, only taking 15 more minutes than the man had estimated (which is quite efficient by Ghanaian standards!!!) We arrived at a beach on the other side of the lake and took a tro to Donkorkrom. There we stayed the night for 5 cedi a room which was extremely reasonable. Having said that the noise of the goat outside would have made it unreasonable for them to charge much more!!!
The next morning we took a very crowded tro to get to the next ferry. Part way along the journey one of the passengers got off, rounded up some goats from a nearby field and lifted them on to the roof of the tro. By the fact that no one else seemed surprised I’m assuming they must have been his goats and this was normal in this area. We arrived an hour late for when the ferry was due to leave, but it was still in the port waiting for us. For once we had used Ghanaian efficiency to our advantage. The ferry was about the slowest I have ever been on. If I could not hear them, I would have assumed the engines were not switched on. The lake could not have been more than a mile across and yet it too half an hour to cross it. When we finally got off we took a tro back to Kumasi. Unfortunately the driver obviously thought it was more fun to stay in 1st gear for as much of the journey as possible, even when going down hill!! On a reasonably quiet road, I looked back at one point to see a line of 10 vehicles, including large lorries, waiting for a point to overtake. Eventually, though, we did arrive back in Kumasi.
Have a look at my profile, I have added some photos of Ghana. Please note that they are Kirstys photos, not mine. So any comments will go to her as well as me.
Have a good Christmas
From Paul
