Vacation extraviganza

That spelling of extraviganza doesn't look quite right, but oh well. I had a great vacation travels with some pcv friends here in ghana, and now i have no money. Being a tourist is Expensive!

First, Anthony, Kyle, Brian, Matt, and Tristen came up to Bolga to visit me. I went in and met them in the bus station and took them to a nice chop bar where we ate TZ and groundnut aleefu stew. It's one of my favorites and the guys from the south (all but Tristen) had never taken TZ before. It's common in northern Ghana, but you don't really see it anywhere in the south. They liked it and you will too, because aleefu is excellent. See previous post for more about Ghanaian food.

We hung out in Bolga for the day, I showed them around, but there's not really that much to see. We sat and had a beer with Shauna, JJ, and Kirsten, my omnibus neighbors. Kyle and I increased our awesome factor by a billion (see pictures). We took a walk throught the market and then headed back to my house in Sirigu. It was fun to have visitors, and I showed them around my house and school, then we went into the village and ate some snacks and took pito at Bismarks house. They were impressed with how dry and dead everything up here is, because in southern ghana it is still all green and foresty and in the Upper East it is still brown and dusty. They also enjoyed not getting mobbed and hassled by the locals. In general, the people in the north are very laid back and relaxed. They are still curious about white people, but they don't grab us or yell at us or bother us excessively. I was proud of my village and my community and my friends were impressed with my language skills when I talked with my Sirigu people in Frafra.

The next day, we got up early and saw the sights. Transport can be a challenge up here, but we got pretty lucky. We took a tro to Paga and visited the Crocodile Pond. It was still a big mudhole with crocodiles in it, and they still wanted to charge us too much, but i bargained with them and it was ok. We sat on a crocodile and then fed it a live chicken. Pretty cool. Crocodiles are pretty cool. Also in Paga, we visited an old slave camp where slaves were brought before being sold south to other slave markets and eventually to the coast. Our guide was named Aaron and he was excellent. Sometimes tourist places in Ghana are frustrating and not worth it, but the Pikworo Slave Camp in Paga is definately a winner. We walked around the camp and learned about the way it ran and saw some rocks and stuff. Highly recommended.

We took a taxi back to Bolga. The six of us (and we aren't small guys) crammed into a normal sized sedan taxi. Along the way we negotiated with the driver to take us to a town near Bolga called Tongo to see another tourist attraction. The driver was not sure about that, so we stopped in Navrongo, he talked with is brother and we switched taxis and negotiated with the brother. We made a deal for him to take us to Tongo, wait, and then take us back to Bolga. He even stopped along the way so we could get some lunch, what a guy, the drivers name was Walkalone. Cool name.

Tongo is a little village in some foothills south of Bolga. We took a tour of some interesting rock formations and caves where the locals hid during the British invasion of the region. We also met the chief wandered through his very enormous compound house. The guide had a lot to say, but we were tired and I spend most of my time making faces at little kids. Lastly, we visited a the Tenzug shrine. We climbed up a hill after our guide got permission from the head priest. The shrine is sacred and treated like an oracle; you ask it a question or tell it a problem and then sacrifice some fowls and your problem/question will be solved/answered! In order to approach the shrine, however, we had to take off our shoes, roll up our trowsers and take off all hats and shirts. It used to be a naked only shrine, they say, but now it's just a topless shrine. The actual shrine itself was a sort of cave with an old guy sitting in it and he had all sorts of animal bones and horns and a big pile of feathers from the animal sacrifices. Our guide wanted us to ask a question, so I asked the shrine to help our schools develope and for our students to be successful. They seemed to like that, and we donated some money to buy two guinea fowls to be sacrificed to the shrine for us. We didn't see the sacrifices, they said they would do it later, there weren't any guinea fowls around. Our guide told us that the sacrificed animals are usually eaten afterwards, unless the shrine says otherwise. The shrine was also to visit us in our dreams, he said, but I haven't been visited yet.

After a long day of touristing, we returned to my house and relaxed, drank and played guitar by candlelight. The next day, we visited SWOPA, the ceramics place next door to my school. After that, we traveled back into Bolga and then to Tamale, and stayed at the TSO. Beth joined us 6 guys there, she is very patient and tolerant. We played Risk and I won. Anthony and Kyle won, too.

We left the next day for Mole National Park. The bus wasn't scheduled to leave until 12:30, and it didn't actually leave until 4:00. The ride was pretty rough at the end, and we didn't get to the park until 9:00PM or so. We stayed at the fancy Mole Hotel, but the pool was closed for the night so we had to take showers instead. The next morning, we got up early and went on a guided nature hike. We were very luck to see lots of elephants right away! there were some right up by the staff quarters and we took lots of pictures. Elephants are very big, they are like dinosaurs. We hiked down into the valley and saw elephants bathing and playing and some young small ones too. We also some antelope-like hooved mammals, cob deer and bush buck, a 4 ft. monitar lizard, lots of worthogs, and crocodiles and birds. We had breakfast, swam in the pool, and had lunch and swam in the pool. Kyle and I got delicious fufu for lunch and there were baboons all around that wanted to be our friends. They were very used to people and tried to come and take our food. One baboon wanted Brian's mango, so Brian gave it too him. That made the baboon happy and Brian was happy too.

We went with another group of 'mer'cans to Larabanga to see the famous Mosque there. I'm sure the mosque is great, but when we got there, the local guides were really annoying and aggressive, so Brian, Matt, and I decided to go to a spot instead (spot=bar). Some of the others paid and saw the mosque, but Tony said it was underwhelming, and they didn't get to enter because they weren't muslim. We gave Larabanga an unenthusiastic thumbs down.

Back at Mole, we swam in the pool, relaxed, swam in the pool, watched Baboons, and Beth did laundry. We ate supper at the staff quarters because it was cheaper and they had Ghanaian food. We played Texas hold 'em and I won. I gave my winnings to Tristen because he won the night before and I owed him money. Kyle did not win. Our only option to get back to Tamale was the Mass Metro bus that left Mole at 4:00am, so that's what we did. We got back to Tamale early and had a relaxing afternoon. We played risk and Kyle won. I did not win.

Now I'm broke and ready to go back to site and relax for a month or three. I'm better versed in Ghana tourist attractions, so if you come and visit me, I know where the good ones are and I can show you. I hope everyone over yonder is doing well and keeping busy. I will post many new photos on facebook soon so you can see all the stuff I just wrote about.

Love,
-Toby