Hungry, hungry hippo

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So… I am back safe and sound after an incredible week spent up north. After a surprisingly short 13 hour trip to Wa (Upper West), we got to our hostel room. It felt a lot like a room made for small and wide people. The beds were low to the floor the doors, really short, even the “dresser” was incredibly low, but for $14 / for 3 people, I was not complaining, just really enjoying. Got up early the next morning to explore Wa, and some of the really old mosques there. The northern part of Ghana is predominantly Muslim, and has a ton of really beautiful, old, mosques. After some wandering we found the old Grand mosque, and with a little help from a friend were able to climb to the roof, and get a bird’s eye view of Wa. Our real destination for that day was Weichau, though, so we headed off to the tro tro station, and got in what can most accurately be described as a pickup truck with a canopy luggage holder/sun blocker over it. There were wooden benches put long the sides of the truck… yeah, in total there were 27 men, women, and children in the back of it. At first I was a little upset about the extreme lack of personal space, but as we ventured off the paved road in Wa, and set out for 36 km of dirt road, I realized the less personal space, the less you move when the truck hits a hole. The ride was gorgeous, burnt red dirt road, a mixture of savannah and more treed landscape, as well as the Sudanese-style mud-brick villages the north of Ghana is known for.
Weichau is a village on the Burkina Faso border that in the last ten years set-up the hippo sanctuary as an ecotourism project. We got to the Welcome Center, rented bikes (woohoo) to take us the 38 km to the actual sanctuary, and decided to stay in a “hippo hideout” which is the fancy (and awesome) name for a platform in a tree. I was really pumped to be on a bike so I road away, enjoying my surroundings. After a while of turning back I still didn’t see our guide or Anna and Caroline, so I stopped in front of a village to wait for them. Mohammad, a 14 year old who lives in Launda, and I started to talk, and after a while, we were both surrounded by at least 30 children, most of who didn’t speak any English, but still offered me groundnuts (peanuts) and mangos. Caroline caught-up and told me Anna wasn’t feeling well, and we should continue until the car catches up to us. I said goodbye and road away, and most of the kids chased after me on my bike… It was really, really cute.
Got to the sanctuary, it was really ugly… no, that’s a huge lie, it was one the prettiest places I have ever been… the red dirt contrasting the green and the blue, the clouds that make it clear just how infinite the sky is… too much? Okay, well I liked. We hiked out to our hippo hide which over looked the Black Volta River (actual border with Burkina) and climbed up to our humble abode. We ate our groundnut paste and bread, set up our mattresses and mosquito nets, said goodnight to our guide (who informed us he would be back to take us to the river around 5), and started to play some cards before 6:30 came it was too dark. All of the sudden, an owl lands on our tree platform, no joke, about 3 feet from me. Now, I had just finished the first Harry Potter, and was quite sure, I had fallen off my rocker. But, no, no I turned away, looked back and it was still there, but then flew away. Unsure of the particular species of owl, but my Dad and I will conference over a few owl books, and get back to all you bird lovers out there.
The stars and the moon so bright, the noises from the river… blah blah blah, I slept really well, and woke excited/ scarred out of my mind to meet me some hippos. We set out in a canoe that two fisherman had just come back in catching cat fish and tilapia.
The hippos were moving down river, so we were off on a mission. I had the incredibly important job of bailing out the boat, which had a few patches that could use some repatching… Our guide Adronuasa, mocked me for bailing out the inefficient way, I personally think he was jealous of my technique, but that’s neither here nor there… While we are venturing down river, we not only see a ton of egrets and other birds, but also a couple canoes, of children in their uniforms crossing the river to go to school. After about an hour we find the hippo compound, “dock” on a rock, and keep our distance watching 4 or 5 hippos do their thang in the water. Hippos kill more humans than any other mammal, and I talked to our guide he said that is out of human stupidity (who would have thought). They only attack it you attack them first or if you get between them and the water. They are herbivores therefore, go out of the water to feed. We saw some of the banks they climb which are quite steep. I would love to see that huge animal climb them, but then again, I think I’d be getting in between them and the water… and that lovely childhood game hungry, hungry hippo was not lying. Some other hippo fun facts, they do not swim, but rather walk in the water. They also sleep in the water. Saw hippos. Check. Didn’t get eaten. Check. Mission accomplished.

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