Flashback - January

My days in Ghana are almost numbered ...

... and I still haven’t really reported on my trip around the Northern, Western, Volta region in January. So here’s my fast forward through January:

After my sister Paula arrived one day late –delayed by a storm in Europe– and her luggage two days later – commonly happens on the way to Ghana– the first thing I did was take her on a four and a half day trip to the Northern Region, thas is, 660km far Tamale and then Mole National Park. My sister is surely one of the coolest travel buddies, she learnt how to buy food from the bus window straight away and tried everything from bofrot (I’d call them Ghanaian donuts) to giant pawpaws and even my beloved kenkey! 

With her new friend Frimpong, 
who loves Bananas

Tamale

She made friends with almost everyone whose way she crossed and stayed calm even after the 20-hour ride back from Mole via Tamale to Accra with minimal space in trotros playing the most annoying radio stations on maximum volume.

Mole National Park was dry, dry, dusty, dry and hot, yet at night it got so cold that I saw myself freezing for the first time in Ghana. The baboons stole our dry biscuits, poolboy Jerri then chased them away with his slingshot and the elephants appeared at the waterhole right after we arrived at the Mole Hotel. On our bike/jogging trip to nearby Larabanga, a small village hosting the 

apparently oldest mosque in Ghana, we got to know the locals and later on a lot of strange looks as we biked/ran back to Mole, past a lot of women and their children who were carrying water or firewood on their heads and probably wondered who could be so stupid as to voluntarily run in this heat.

After two relaxing days at Big Milly’s in Kokrobite –after 5 months in Accra I had finally made it there and found the best coffee in Ghana– my Australian sister Erica arrived in Ghana and on went the travelling. 

We spend one night at the Hideoutlodge in Butre (Western Region), and the next one at the Green Turtle Lodge, which is somehow unbeatable, even though the beach in Butre was magnificent.

Boat tour on Butre river

Then came the Volta Region – 
Mt Afadja, the highest mountain (900-something m) in Ghana was awaiting us.

Rootsyard, Peki. The bar, kitchen and house.

A sidestreet in Peki

The best thing about the Volta Region, apart from the nature (mountains, green, waterfalls, ...) and people, was our accommodation. We stayed at Rootsyard in Peki, an ecofriendly-vegan-rasta accommodation run by a lovely family, Jaqueline, Bob and their adorable kids. We felt so much at home that it was hard to leave and we took the good food as an excuse to stay a few extra hours– Accra could wait. Anyone reading this and planning to go the Volta Region should stop in Peki! I have never tasted vegan food before but what we had at Rootsyard was just delicious. Chocolate cake, sorbets, hummus, red red, samosas (they’re the best!), coffee, juices, I don’t know where to stop. If anyone needs further reference: The chief of Peki here who lives next door comes over for a beer every now and then...

Samosas prepared by Jaqueline

The Rootsyard family with their obviously delighted guests

Here* is ghana // Hier* ist ghana

in the centre of the world

on a roof-terrace in achimota, in the shade of corrugated iron: i am listening to the rustling of the surrounding palmtrees and feeling the warm breeze on my body. in germany a single day like this  - it would be an early summer’s day -  would fill me with endless happiness. right Here* and now, i have this very same feeling in my tummy (ever increasing by the jollof with spicy shito).

and even though Here*, unlike today, i don’t always deliberately praise the sunrays in my face, the constant warmth wrapping around my body and the un-necessity of a warm jacket…

…i carry this happiness within me every day, ready to smile it into someone’s face, to snap it throught my fingers with a handshake, ready to stir it into my stew or to transform it into a love-infused kiss.

every day counts!

or, how long till germany is part of supra-sahara and summer the only season?

auf einer dachterrasse in achimota, im schatten des wellblechdachs, lausche ich dem rauschen der palmen und fühle den warmen luftzug auf dem körper. in deutschland würde mich ein einziger solcher tag - dort waere es wohl ein langersehnter  frühsommertag - endlos glücklich machen. jetzt spüre ich auch Hier* dieses gefühl im bauch (was aber auch am jollof mit reichlich shito liegen könnte).

und obwohl ich mir Hier* nicht jeden tag wie heute bewusst mache, wie gut die sonnenstrahlen im gesicht, die konstante wärme um meinen körper und der überfluss einer warmen jacke mir tun...

...ich trage diese freude in mir, tag für tag, bereit sie jedem ins gesicht zu lächeln, mit einem handshake in die finger zu schnipsen, mit hingabe in mein stew zu rühren oder voll liebe in einen kuss zu verwandeln.

jeder tag zählt!

oder, wie lange noch, bis deutschland zur supra-sahara zählt, die den sommer zur einzigen jahreszeit macht?

P.S.: In case someone is wondering about my taste: shito is a sauce made of black pepper and shrimps. I know this is pretty lame, but here the wikipedia link: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shito 

and a recipe:

 http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/food/sauce.html 

Volta Region

Mountains,Waterfalls & Lakes – The wanderlust got me even in Ghana

As I have experienced it before, especially in New Zealand, once 

you think you have seen the most inspiring, peaceful, amazing place, you go around the corner and think This is it!

I felt similarly on our way to and through the Volta Region - one week after Kumasi and Bosumtwi. As soon as we'd crossed the Volta River near Atimpoku in a car and taken a quick glance at the glistening water, and as soon as the peaks of the Togo mountain range appeared, a slight feeling of home crept in. Mountains and water always give me this feeling, be it that they remind me of Bavaria or the fact that my parents used to 'drag' me accross every mountain they could find when I was little (for which I am very grateful now:).

Gladly, the four of us, Julia, Lilith and Jojo, were so full of wanderlust that after our first night in Hohoe, we didn't hesitate once at walking, or rather hiking, to the Upper Wli Falls, close to the Togolese border. Our Ghanaian guide Anthony was wearing pink flipflops, hello, it couldn't be that hard! 

Anthony, our guide, and me  (looking huge)

Never underestimate a guide half your size, wearing 0,50€-flipflops but even more so, never underestimate the beauty of this country that will be your reward. 

Wli Falls

After almost two sweaty hours of hiking up a steep path through the thick forest (somewhere referred to as a semi-traitorous walk), gorgeous views onto the Volta Region and Wli waterfall, we had finally reached the upper Wli falls. 

If we'd thought, we had also reached the highest level of wetness without actually jumping into the water, we were wrong, we reached it after standing in the cool spray of the waterfalls for 2 mins. We rested a bit, dried a bit and fed our starving guide with some of our cookies and water (he had finished his own earlier on) and walked or slided back down the mountain. Our search for a rewarding meal at night ended up in the dark due to a major blackout. We saw nothing in the streets, so to avoid falling into the open gutter, we went for another maccaroni cheese at our Grand Hotel.

The following day we made our way up to the promising Mountainparadise Lodge, near Mt Gemi, 2^nd highest mountain in Ghana. It started with an interesting trotro-ride: The car was packed with obronis, who, not knowing how they could get to where they thought they were going, had just followed the four of us. Please, if I ever have to sit in a car with such naive German volunteers again, I will either get a Schreikrampf or I'll have to get off immediately. I have no idea how people with so little clue of anything and lack ofindependence get sent to Ghana to volunteer. Rather more exciting was the fact that our driver had no license and looked underaged (plus he was driving around 11 Oburonis) so the car was bound to be halted at the next police barrier. The police man seemed really fussy, too. However, just as the driver had gotten out of the car and followed the police man, he came back and drove on. The price: Probably 1 Ghana Cedi (0,50€). I call it pseudo-corruption...

The 4 ½ km walk from Fume up to Mountainparadise Lodge was a little harder than expected. We should have known that a mountainparadise cannot be accessed on a straight road...Luckily some guys on their motorbikes came past halfway, so in all our exhaustion we once again we forgot this thing called 'safety' and got on somebody's bike with our backpacks, shorts and no helmets...

As my Spanish teacher put it: This is Ghana, you have to improvise!

on my way to the bar ;)

The Lodge didn't have its name for no reason (another paradise :)), they served coffee, the best groundnutsoup (NamE: peanutnut) in Ghana so far; we had the nicest mountain-panorama from the bar where we hung out eating snickers and drinking Club beer after our hikes, and, nice for a change, we could wear a jumper and socks in the evening without sweating the least bit (Which shouldn't mean that I'm complaining about the heat, though...).

 Jojo's and my disappoinment at the crappy mountainbikes, which did not have brakes or gears and were therefore unsuitable for going up Mt Gemi, was soon gone after we'd decided to follow the girls hiking up Mt Gemi (840m) via Amedzofe, a former German mission. From the -also German- Gipfelkreuz or cross, we could see as far as Lake Volta.

Amedzofe in the background, Mt. Gemi ahead of us

Biakpa village on the left, Mountainparadise on the right

Lake Volta as seen from the dam

On the fourth day, on our way back from the Volta Region to Accra, we had to get on and off an amazing 7 different vehicles to get back to Accra (in between lay a short sightseeing tour on the huge Akosombo dam in between the lake and river Volta). After our past trips, this one was probably the nicest and most pleasant one, not at last because of the local people, the Ewe, who greeted us with a friendly „You're welcome“ everywhere we went. It has also been the only place so far, where I could walk along the mainstreet by myself without dealing with a marriage proposal, friend request or missionaries - sometimes it's nice to be out of the focus of attention. Once again, I said to myself, I'll be back.

Kumasi and Lake Bosumtwi

It has been a while since I've written anything since I was just going with the flow and enjoying life in Ghana. After the previously mentioned trips to the Eastern Region (Koforidua) and Cape Coast, is was time to spend a weekend in Accra. However, in the following week the next trip was already on: Kumasi in the Ashanti Region. This time we were wise enough to leave on Thursday to avoid the insane Friday traffic. VIP busses -which are as comfy as they sound :)- serve the Accra-Kumasi road regularly, i.e. whenever the coach is full. Interestingly though, the road linking the two biggest cities of Ghana was partly untared and left me with the feeling of sitting on horseback rather than in a bus, which was nice anyway since I haven't done that in a while. After the first night at mouldy Guestline Lodge, out of health reasons we moved to the very clean Presby Guesthouse and then hit Keyetia Market, the biggest open market in West Africa. I guess all four of us, experienced shoppers that we are, had their imaginary shopping lists in mind while we stumbled accross the market. We went from the mobile phone section to the clothes, to the shoes, to the slipper-makers, to the fabrics, to the clothes, to the anything-you-could-ever-need section, to the ...abbatoir. We had not fully realized it until a guy came past us carrying a huge severed cattle head on his shoulders. Careful not to bump into any of the pigfeet, cow- and horseheads, trying to avoid the women carrying fish and meat on big plates on their heads and eager not to breathe we finally managed to find our way out again. In the end, this huge market was not a huge success when it comes to shopping but it was worth the experience. Now Makola market in Accra doesn't seem so big after all and now that we've made quite a few market visits, we've come to understand the system behind Ghanaian markets and most importantly, bargaining.

Just found our way out of the market...Sorry I  didn't take any photos in the abbatoir :P

Somehow, despite being the second biggest city after Accra, Kumasi seemed more relaxed, less packed with traffic and not at all like a 1,5 mio city. Nevertheless, we left Kumasi for Lake Bosumtwi the next day already. It took us 2,5 trotro- and one taxi-ride, plus a nice 4,5 km walk along the lake to reach Rainbowgarden Village. The short but sudorific walk with our trekking backpacks made me reminiscent of of my last hiking trips. (Hello to my hiking buddies, especially Karin and Lina and thanks for sharing some of the most wonderful experiences with me!) Anyway, the location where we stayed looked like paradise (that is, my imagination of paradise). 

Lake Bosumtwi

It was right at Lake Bosumtwi and probably the only place we'd been to so far where there were no cars, no (plastic) waste, no pollution (which invariably comes with cars here as they have no exhaust filters), where it was peaceful, quiet and nature as far as once could see. Certainly, until then, it was one of the most beautiful spots in Ghana I'd seen. By the looks of it and from what I've read, the lake is a meteorite crater, it is round and fringed by green hills.

Fishermen

Rainbowgardenvillage

I told myself I'd go back there a second time but by now I have seen parts of the Volta Region and once again decided it was even nicer than what I have seen before...To be continued...