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Published: March 30th 2009
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Welcome to Mole!
Our view of the park from the pool...nice Plans…who needs them?! That was the moral of the story last time. The moral for this tale? Never give up.
Now where was I? Oh yeah, Mole (pronounced Mo-lay). We arrived at the park mid morning Sunday. Needless to say that after thirty hours of traveling, all we wanted to do was sit back and relax. And that was indeed all we did. The Mole Hotel sits on top of a hill overlooking a man-made watering hole; providing the perfect vantage point for viewing the abundant wildlife the park has to offer. The motel also gains high marks in my book because it has a pool. I haven’t been that excited to see a pool since I was probably ten. The remainder of the day was spent swimming and resting. We even saw a few elephants down at the waterhole as well as some warthogs and baboons…yeah, Africa rocks!!
We woke up early Monday morning for our first African safari with our guide D.K. He was awesome and the walk was awesome. We saw plenty of antelope (Kobb and Bushback) as well as crocodiles, warthogs, baboons, monkeys, various birds (heron, finches, horn bill), it was spectacular! There was just
one thing missing…Elephants!! They were gone…no problem…calm down…we can still go later. So after the Safari we got breakfast, took a nap and went swimming. One of the most entertaining parts of the day was definitely the baboons! They were everywhere and at times proved to be quite a nuisance, as they had no qualms stealing food from the guest’s dinner table. I even faced off with one overly zealous baboon. Obviously he didn’t know who he was dealing with. I love food. Food makes me happy. And when my stomach is happy, my heart is happy. Ergo, nobody steals my food. Rest assured, I properly communicated this message to the baboon ^__^
Later in the afternoon we took another hike, this time with the sole purpose of finding an elephant. We even had D.K. as our guide again…but it was to no avail. After hiking for two hours, we still couldn’t locate an elephant. We enjoyed a traditional dinner of rice balls and groundnut soup cooked by a local village woman name Janet, or Auntie Janet as we soon came to call her. She works at a local primary school at the village but moonlights as a chef
for the guests at the Mole Motel. It was tons of fun just chatting with her. We even sang songs, and danced a little… why? Honestly, I’m not really sure. She was just a really happy person I guess. Any who, we polished off the evening playing an intense game of Phase 10.
Tuesday was our last day at Mole, since we were going to check out at noon. Thus, we only had one last opportunity to locate an elephant. With D.K. in the lead and the original crew in tow we set out, hoping to track us a pachyderm. The first hour of the safari was beginning to look all too much like our last two hikes. All kobb, some warthog, no elephant. You’d think it would be easy to find the largest land animal on the planet…heck, you’d think it would leave an obvious trail of destruction and toppled trees in it’s path…but I guess that just isn’t the case.
Our perseverance however, was rewarded. D.K. spotted a few leaves on the ground, freshly stripped from the flora that had held it. Beside them we found tracks… and a ray of hope and optimism soared through
Hangin' with DK
A shot of our awesome guide, DK the group. The hunt was on! We followed the tracks a few yards to another wonderful clue, fresh poop! Yeah, we were excited to see poop… anyway, we followed some more tracks for a good eight minutes, when out of the corner of my eye I saw something in the distant brush. I looked, thought I saw something but convinced myself otherwise and turned away, I was towards the back of the group so I didn’t want to play catch up…but then I decided to take a closer look… and that’s when I saw it. To say that the satisfaction and joy that I felt at that moment was immense would be a vast understatement. Not everyday do you start your morning tracking a wild elephant through the African Savannah brush. Man, I love Ghana! We took our pictures and headed back to the motel. Thoroughly satisfied, having finally accomplished our mission. Guess the third time truly is the charm…
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Trisha
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Lion King
When I was a young Warthog! When he was a young Warthooooooooooooooooooooooooog!!!!!!!! Sorry, I feel that was very necessary. I miss you buddy! Looks like you are having an amazing time! I cant wait to see you again!