the great northern adventure, part 3

finally, you've reached part 3 ... below lies your conclusion to these tales of wacky, wild travels...

SUNDAY -- lots of driving & kintampo falls

We left Mole just as we'd arrived: in Mr. Fatal's tro-tro. Thankfully, we had no grand breakdowns or other hiccups on the trek back. We did take a small break to deposit a small gift in the small hands of our small friends at the mango tree as one final, emphatic thank-you, but then continued down the road and actually reached Damongo Junction and our beloved, actual bus less than two hours after leaving the park. Again, we were hassled by the villagers, but I think we were too relieved to have survived the morning and too busy sinking into plush seats to have it phase us. After Leslie finished yet another argument with Fatal regarding his moneygrubbing ways (he tried to sneak extra compensation from our group with a medley of tactics, from demanding that we cover his room and board to insisting that his fuel costs were higher than they actually were), we bid good riddance to our ironically named driver and got back on the road with wonderful Isaac. We were quickly comfortable and content again, and took up our usual bus activities with books, iPods and pillows.

Because we were running ahead of schedule, Leslie informed us that we had time to stop by a waterfall enroute and enjoy the scenery for a half-hour or so, if we wanted. Always eager to break up a long drive with a little trip somewhere other than a gas station or bathroom, we jumped at this offer. So, at some point (the exact timing is a little hazy here because of excessive napping) between Damongo and Kumasi, we pulled off the road and found ourselves at the entrance gate to Kintampo Falls. Leslie paid a small admissions fee, and we hopped off the bus. The base of the waterfall is only accessible by one of those very steep, million-step flights of stairs, so we gingerly forced our atrophying bus legs down the steps. The view from the bottom was well worth it. It's currently the wet season in West Africa, and our sub-Saharan locale gets a reputable amount of rainfall, so we saw the waterfall in peak form, with massive quantities of water dumping powerfully over dark, slick rocks. The pool below was calm and placid, and there were many flat rocks leading from the riverbank to the middle of the water that we hopped across and turned into our own makeshift lilypads -- sitting, photographing and simply being on them. I watched some local children, dressed in makeshift bathing suits, scramble up the rocks closest to the bottom of the falls, fighting gravity and spray, and once reaching a safe-haven inlet, scoot to their bottoms and slide down the smooth stone surface into the pool below, shrieking with excitement and pleasure. We only got to stay about half an hour, but it was time well spent. And, just as we'd all made it back up that treacherous staircase, monsoon rains started to fall from the skies. We hurried back to the bus, but were all sopping wet and muddy by the time we had reached our Chinese shelter. For a moment, it was refreshing to be cooled and slightly cleaned, but the bus felt more humid with 15 damp bodies sitting inside it, and we were ecstatic five minutes later when the rains subsided and we could open our windows for fresh air. We resumed our tiresome travels and returned to Kumasi and the Royal Basin just before nightfall.

We checked into new hotel rooms, and I very soon thereafter had the most wonderful shower of my life. It wasn't even entirely hot, because the hotel's water heater was still warming up, but I was SO DIRTY -- covered in two day's accumulation of red dust, sweat and whatever other dirt the African bush and entire northern half of Ghana had deposited on me -- and finally rinsing clean had never felt so invigorating. We squeezed our entire, hungry group into the hotel's small restaurant for a lively dinner (somehow, after all those hours of traveling and our earlier, elephant-induced anxiety attacks, we were in wonderful spirits), and I completely passed out for the night, book in hand, at the embarrassingly early hour of 9 p.m. But you can bet I was well-rested to enjoy our last day of vacation...

MONDAY -- the bead village

We'd done our tour of the Ashanti-region craft villages on Friday, but hadn't had enough time to sneak the bead village into that day's line-up. So, we "slept in" on Monday morning, awaking at the luxurious hour of 7 a.m. (although my early-to-bed self actually started stirring at 5:30), ate our last ketchup-and-omelet breakfast, and completed the familiar routine of boarding the bus and driving somewhere. This time, our destination took only an hour to reach, and we found ourselves in the bead-making village. This village has been making clay beads for about 200 years, and the beads manufactured in their factory are sold all over Ghana. Another thing this village makes is babies -- Leslie informed us that they have a "fertility problem," which carries the exact opposite meaning from how we use the term in the states. So as soon as we started stepping off the bus, we were almost tripping on the small bodies that had clamored to see our group. They were the sweetest children; as we walked, they would insert their tiny hands into our big ones, and walk along together, no one person really leading the other, towards our destination. First, it was the bead factory, where our new hoard of friends also got to learn about and watch the bead-making process; then, it was over to the small courtyard market where villagers were selling necklaces and bracelets (made, of course, with the village's own beads, which the ladies in our group all vigorously purchased); finally, it was back to the bus, where we took some last pictures with our new friends and sadly bid them farewell as we made our way southward, back to Accra.

By now you've probably figured out that nothing really exciting happens on these drives, so I'll not even try to wax nostalgic on that final part of our trip. However, I will mention that during a midafternoon rest stop, several of us purchased some suspect-looking food from some vendors there that may or may not have been a big-time mistake. In our defense, it was way past lunchtime, and our empty, travelling bellies were desperate ... and, you could get chicken and rice for 3.30 cedi, which is a fabulous deal, so we delved in. I first started to be skeptical of this "meal" when I saw the lady with whom I'd ordered take my chicken not from the chafing dish displayed in front of me, but from a tupperware sitting behind her. That was at room temperature, which in Ghana is a million degrees. I took just a few bites, to placate my stomach ... leading to some oh-so-fun indigestion about an hour later. As soon as we were back in Legon, I purchased a mango from Amina, the lady whose fruit stand sits a block from our house, and devoured it for dinner. Thankfully, I think some good fruit nutrients (and FIBER) flushed whatever would-be problem from my system, and I escaped without episode. I've been SO lucky thus far to have skirted any big digestive ailments, and knock on wood, I plan to keep it that way.

So, thus concludes the story of our Great Northern Adventure. Obviously, a week later, we're safe, sound and back to the grind in Accra. However, there's still lots of excitement (most of which takes nowhere near as long to document), so more great blog posts are coming your way very soon!

THE END