Mole National Park and the adventure to get there...

Day 5-7:Thursday morning, we woke up and left the village at 4:30AM to start our adventure through the countryside. We were driving up to Mole National Park, which is almost the length of the whole country away. We loaded into a bus that was very nice. It looked like a Gray Hound Bus. It was a BIG surprise to us, as we were expecting a tro-tro, or a run down van with no AC. We head from Tema to Accra, very nice! Once in Accra, that is a WHOLE different story. The roads are under construction. Let's just say I will NEVER complain about MI roads again. The pot holes with CRAZY big. You could lose a car or something in there. And there are a lot of broken down cars everywhere! Some of these cars have been left there for years..there are trees and bushes growing inside them and they are completely rusted out. After we got through the construction, which was some time...maybe 2 hours. We got onto a two lane road. The drivers here are crazy, but very good. All the drivers seem to know what the other driver is doing. In our bus, we were passing a few cars at a time or semi or other buses as we were going up hill AND around a corner. It was intense! We drove through a lot of poor areas. Many people living in huts with no electricity or running water, but everyone seems to have a cell phone. The people really live off the land. That amazes me. As we were driving up to Mole, we would go through many towns and villages, and in the towns, there would be so many people, men, women, and children, walking in between the traffic trying to sell stuff. It was very weird. We stopped in Kumasi for lunch. We sat down and decided we would try a beer from Ghana. They said small or large. We thought 12oz or 22 oz...we order 22oz. We were wrong. A large beer in 36 or so oz. We slept very well after lunch, which was again very good. We continued on our travels through many villages and towns, most of which had stands selling stuff on the road. For bathroom breaks, we stopped at various locations, most of which you had to pay for the toilets that were sick. I cannot believe how dirty some places I peed in where. Also, while waiting for the bathroom, I had a guy tell me he wanted to marry me, which I was trying to ignore, but my professor heard and then said, he wants to marry you and laughed. I am getting mixed reviews from the culture...We had to take the long way because the other way had a bad road. So, we turn our bus onto this dirt road. Boy, were we in for a treat. This road was HORRIBLE, I would really hate to see the bad road. There were so many pot holes and just areas where the road was like washed away. At some parts, we were driving in the ditch in a bus. The bus driver kept getting calls from the village we are living at and the park wondering where we were. He started to get pretty frustrated I think. We heard he say, "We are in a bus! Not a 4X4, a BUS!" That was a good laugh! In fact, we got there at 9:30 at night and all headed to bed. In the morning, the bus driver told us he had to go get the muffler strapped back up. Very interesting. At Mole, it was beautiful view, but the motel was a different story. I thought I had a cock-roach in my room, but I was wrong! Whatever I had in my room was a little grasshopper or something nice! We had one in the motel. It was HUGE and ugly! It was on it's back and I learned that if a bug is on it's back it will die. We let him die and then had one of the guys come in and remove it! After our "nice" sleep, we got up and went outside to find a warthog. We were all taking pictures of the warthog, who was eating and could not careless we were there, or so we thought. One girl sat down by the warthog so we could get a picture of how close we were. Mr. Warthog was NOT having that. He let this big snort out and we screamed and ran like little girls. Then we went to shower...NO water! Water is only on for a few hours a day, all hours we were not there.  I washed my hair with bottled water and my body with baby wipes.The walking safari was cool. We walked passed elephant tracks that were only a few hours old. We seen lots of antelope, baboons, monkeys, birds, warthogs. No elephant. :( After the walking safari, we went back to the motel which had a look outpoint. We were able to see elephants that were VERY far away, but with binoculars, we could see them, although some people think they were just warthogs. I seen trunks, so I seen elephants. Later in the day, we went on riding safari in a Land Rover. There were three of us in the back sitting sideways with no seat belts, we just hung on. We were did some off roading, but the trails in the park were nicer than the road to get to the actual park. At one point, we had to do a running start to get back on the trail and another part we had to do a like 10 point turn around. A few times, I thought we were going to go in the ditch that we would not to driving out off if we went in! We did not see any new animals from the walking safari, but still a great adventure. Then we went back had dinner, tried another beer and headed to bed. In the morning, we loaded back into the bus to head down the crazy road to Kumasi, which is the complete opposite. Kumasi is a big city. We went from rural to big city. I am running out of time, so I will have to talk about Kumasi later..hopefully later today!