Walking the Tight Rope

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On day two of our CIEE excursion, we visited the Kakum National Park. Kakum is a small rainforest containing many different kinds of trees, monkeys, birds, insects, and my favorite, the forest elephants (unfortunately, we didn’t get a chance to see any monkeys or elephants, but the giant millipedes made up for it). At Kakum, they have a high ropes course through the trees, which consists of seven “bridges” or hanging planks of wood with netting and ropes. They were a little scary and rickety, but overall, a fantastic view and great experience to add to our adventures in Ghana. We found out afterwards that the bridges had been constructed via bow and arrow. Pretty sweet… (and perhaps a little sketchy, but I’m still alive!)

After bouncing along the bridges, a few of us decided to go on the nature walk with a tour guide. We mostly learned about different trees in the forest and spotted some cool insects and fungi. The guide pointed out the “Viagra” tree (apparently, you take a chunk of the dry wood, crush it up, then mix it with alcohol and drink it. Our guide said that it will make the weak men “strong” again, whatever that means…), Ebony (of which piano keys are often made), cocoa, “sugar plum,” as well as this gigantic tree that was probably the width of my dorm room and as tall as a small skyscraper. The guide told us that those trees (I forgot their name…sorry) were used in making toothpicks… I was quite saddened to hear that. Overall, the whole day at Kakum was fantastic and I recommend it to anyone who isn’t too afraid of heights.

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