Mole National Game Reserve (+ epic bus ride)

It’s been a while since my last entry, so it’s time for another…

This weekend, I and 3 friends took a crazy trip to Mole (pronounced Mol-ay) National Game Reserve with the Computer Science Department here at the University of Ghana. This was our first trip with a student-organized group, and I’ll just say that “organized” is a flexible term.

The itinerary is as follows:

Meet Thursday at 3:30pm so the bus can depart at 4:30.

Drive 12-14 hours and arrive at Mole early Friday morning.

Tour the park, see elephants, relax for a bit.

Drive back later Friday and get back to the university early Saturday.

So, this means 2 nights on an air-conditioned bus for a few hours at the park. But it was only 35 cedis for the trip and snacks and a meal.

Well, knowing that Ghanaians are typically running late anyway, we arrived at the meeting spot at 4 (instead of 3:30). THE BUS LEFT AT 8:30pm. So, we waited for over 4 hours for that bus to go. The bus was there on time, but the student “organization” had to send someone out to get food for our meal the next day, and it took so so long thanks to Accra’s notorious traffic. There were a handful of us “oburonis” who had been there since 4, and we were all very angry, especially since many of the African students didn’t show up until 6:30pm. Obviously, no one had gotten the message out to us that we were leaving significantly later than originally planned.

So, we ranted that if the food didn’t get here by 8, we were going to demand our money back. (They say the best time to see elephants and other animals is very early in the morning, and at this rate, we wouldn’t get there until at least late morning, and we were not about to take a 14 hour bus ride and then NOT see any elephants.)

The food got there at 7:55 (no lie) and we piled on the bus and pulled out shortly thereafter.

The ride was a fiasco… it was the middle of the night, and the TVs were blasting these epic Ghanaian 4-part soap opera films at top volume and students were standing in the aisles and shouting to talk to each other. It was crazy. My friends and I were so confused why all these people were not trying to get some sleep. The “bathroom stops” were generally just on the side of the road, or one memorable time at a gas station with a “female urinal.” That is not something I’d like to repeat.

The last two hours of the ride were on the bumpiest road I have ever been on in my life. Looking around, you could see everyone’s faces shaking and the windows sounded like they would break because they were shaking so much. Needless to say, there was no sleeping on that portion of the trip.

When we finally got to Mole, it was great. The food they gave us (that we waited 4 hours for) was too spicy for me, but we had brought some bread, so I was ok. We hung out for a bit, and then took a tour of the park. We saw some monkeys in a tree… but only at a distance because our group of 50 could not seem to stay quiet, so we didn’t see as many animals as I think we could have. We saw some kind of antelope and warthogs. Then, finally, we saw elephants! (The picture isn't a very good one of me... but there's an elephant!) They were behind some trees most of the time, so they weren’t right in front of us, but they were at a water hole, bathing themselves and just being elephants. It was so cool. I would love to go back there with significantly fewer people.

The ride back was better, but with a few unplanned stops. One stop at Larabanga (which was on the way), to see the “natural-built mosque.” It is said that one day, the villagers woke up and this mosque was just there. The village was like nothing I’ve ever seen. It was mostly mud huts with grass-thatch roofs. When we got out of the bus, the children swarmed the oburonis (of course) and we all went to take pictures of the mosque.

Our second stop was at Kintampo Falls. The falls were very scenic, but since Friday was Ghana’s Independence Day, it was so crowded.

Overall, it was a pretty cool trip, even though the “organization” was not exactly what I’m used to, and the bus ride was very long. If we try to make it back to Mole – there is a hippo sanctuary near there – we will be spending much more time there, so that hopefully, we have more time in Mole than on the bus.