I am not a morning person. In Korea, I seldom get up before noon without a lot of incentive, but in Ghana I found myself waking incredibly early - so early that I requested Ortencia not tell me what exactly was the time was, so all I can tell you about the day we went to Kakum is that I woke up at a time that was not seven. I started off the day a bit ill - after that morning, I would not have an unaided solid shit - perhaps that is too much information, but this was a topic of conversation that in Ghana and Togo is discussed to a fairly large amount of hilarity, actually.
By this point, Cape Coast had started to feel familiar, as we walked up and down the same four or five streets several times a day. Off we went to the market to find a trou-trou to make the trip to Kakum. About an hour later we were walking down a muddy lane with two other tourists to the museum at the entrance to the park. After a quick intro to the history of the park and the rain forest environment and animals - which really only consists of forest elephants so hard to track or glimpse that even scientists have a hard time seeing. We went on a canopy walk first - the view was fairly incredible, but I have to say, it wasn't a terribly enjoyable experience. I have a rather big fear of heights and every time the net bit didn't come up at least to my waist, I have to say it was a bit... well, less than fun.
Do you know what I forgot to take to the RAIN forest? My rain jacket. Turns out that it rains in the rain forest... Anyway, after the scary up-high hiking bit was the nature hike - we went along the trails, learning about the trees and plants. I felt rather bad for some of the people on the hike - they seemed to think we were actually going to see incredible animals. The only wildlife we encountered was ants, but they were pretty cool ants. Hundreds of them were walking together across a path, over and around each other. Unfortunately, Ortencia and one of the other girls on walk got them up their pants. And I thought that was just a figure of speech.
After a trou-trou ride home, we wandered around looking for information on the resort at Dixcove at tourist information and the castle with no love. I grabbed chocolate and water in order to go home and nap - I had a fever and the chills and just generally felt shitty. The napping was interrupted by the incredibly, indescribably loud music playing just outside the hotel. A bunch of young kids were out dancing to that music in the evening as we ate the not-great-as-always dinner on the hotel roof, because I totally lacked the will to walk anywhere. After a cold shower, I went back to bed.
Taking cold showers, and all my showers on vacation up until I returned to Accra were cold showers, always make me think of swimming lessons as a kid and what they tell you about hypothermia and the parts of the body that they always advised that you try and cover up by curling into a ball and floating because they let so much heat out. Cold showers weren't that bad in Ghana, actually, since it was so warm, but I still dreaded the moment I had to stand under that water and get my head wet.
1 comment:
Those rain forest pics are awesome! That must have been so much fun. Not the ants in part though. *ick*
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