Blogs from Mole National Park, Northern, Ghana, Africa

(by guest blogger Kit Rawson) Besides spending time at Mole Park and hanging at the Savannah Lodge, we found several other interesting things to do around Larabanga. Ten km from town, on a dirt road bordering the park, is the Mognori "Eco-village". Some years after the park was set aside and the elephant population started to grow and expand its range, the agricultural areas around this village were devastated by foraging elephants. Rather than move away, the villagers obtained some funds to make Mognori a place for ecotourism as an alternative economic activity. We visited one morning and had a nice tour of the village, learning a lot about the culture and the old ways. We also noted that the town has installed solar panels that provide public outdoor lighting and a little power for other ... read more

I hope all of you have enjoyed my dad as a guest blogger. It’s been amazing to see my parents again. I have been having a lot of fun showing them Ghana and having them meet the children who I’ve been working with. I could tell that both my parents and the children enjoyed spending time at the beach. It’s also the first time I’ve seen them in a grandparent mode. Anyways, we have been having fun traveling together. I went back to Cape Coast, where my dad loved the beach. It was overwhelming shopping for fabric in the Kejetia Market (the largest open air market in Western Africa) with my mom. We found some beautiful prints. We spent a night in the Bobiri Butterfly Sanctuary, where we saw some incredible butterflies and really cool trees ... read more

November 10, 2014 Back from Larabanga. The traffic was terrible when I took Laura to the airport. It’s nice to have a cool taxi driver as a neighbor. Phil took me to the bus on my way up north, and he gave me a good price going to and from the airport. It was so great to see the children at the orphanage, especially to see how excited they were to see me again. Ema of course was glued to me, and I was so happy to hold my baby boy again. Erica was all smiles. Hiswell read a book, which he did very well, and after I told him I missed my Mr. Dimples he looked at me and said he missed Mrs. Dimples. Children kept climbing all over me, and Grandma and Andrews were ... read more

Hey, sorry it has been a while I've been off traveling up north, and haven't had any access to the internet for some time thus this will be a long one! Sorry! I think, for the first time, I'm not going to be chronological and start off with the north. On Wednesday me, Louise and Bret all went up to the Northern region to see an orphanage in a place called Yendi, look around Tamale (3rd largest city) and of course go to the Mole National Park - the largest National Park in Ghana. We quite optimistically got up at 5am to try and catch the 8am bus. Fatal error. Despite getting to the bus station at 7am (after waiting quite a long time for a tro from Achiase), we didn't manage to get on a ... read more

Accra - Kumasi - Bole - Larabanga - Mole National Park - Tamale My plan is to do a round trip from Accra, the main destination being Mole National Park. The park is normally accessed from the town of Tamale (to the East of Mole) as there is a bus from there direct to the park, but as that would entail doing that stretch of road twice, I decided to try and approach from the West instead, and go to Tamale afterwards. Monday 2nd August Had a lie in because there are plenty of buses from Accra to Kumasi. I packed and caught to tro-tro to the centre of Accra then walked to the bus station buying some food for the journey on the way. As luck would have it a Kumasi bus was just leaving. ... read more