Waterfalls, rainfall and other non-fall related news

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The weekend after Togo we agreed we’d had enough excitement for one fortnight and chose to stay in Accra. What with 11 hour trips to Takoradi and hiding from Togolese taxi drivers, I still hadn’t had my much-hoped-for day on the beach, so I decided to play things safe and spend Saturday sitting by the pool at Accra’s Novotel. At eight cedis it isn’t a bargain, but you do get a free drink and towels provided, and you’re guaranteed not to end up stuck on a tro-tro full of bush rats and child traffickers by mistake.

Instead I just had two happy days of reading and sitting in the sun. (I have, predictably, rediscovered reading since I stopped having to plough to the end of three set texts a week. I did, however, manage to leave ‘Emma’ on the bus, which I hope isn’t deeply symbolic...) Meanwhile I am beginning to regret the factor fifty-plus sun-cream. It’s fantastic at keeping out UV rays - (if UV rays were drunken idiots trying to get into the epidermal nightclub, fifty-plus would be your choice of bouncer) - but if, however, you were secretly hoping that some of the less carcinogenic drunken idiots would sneak in and give you a tan, then you’d probably be better employing the rather less efficient services of Mr. Twenty-five or Thirty. I may be mixing my metaphors here, but basically I just hope my stupid melanin-deficient skin is grateful for the sacrifices I make…

That weekend we also went pottering round Accra cultural centre - a big marketplace full of souvenir stalls and craft workshops. If you can put up with the relentless pressure put on you by every vendor you meet, and put your foot down when you’re being ripped off, then it can be a great place to try out your haggling skills and pick up things to take home. The trick is to adopt pack-behaviour with your friends and learn to sweep each other to the next stall along when things get pushy, smiling sweetly and blankly at anyone who calls you over and keeping up a purposeful stride. The trick is not, I discovered, to get split up from the group and herded by well-meaning stallholders into a hut which you can’t remember the way to, and where your only hope of exit is to buy a talking drum or an elephant. In such cases, believe me, your options are limited, and often expensive!

Driving back from the hotel that Sunday evening, we looked out of the window of our taxi and saw the sky smothered, from one side of the horizon to the other, in a thick cloud of black birds. I have never seen so many in my life - spread across the dusky sky like an omen. As the taxi drew nearer, I looked up at them from my open window and saw, with a little shock, that the silhouette of each one had the points of batwings. We were driving beneath a squall of bats, and we could hear their screeching rasping out across the skyline. It was the kind of moment which etches itself in your memory.

There was another occasion like that which stands out in oddly sharp focus when I think back to the most memorable moments so far. Waking in the night in Green Turtle Lodge, I decided that I would have to extract myself from my mosquito net and find my way to the hotel’s facilities (a special eco-toilet in an outdoor hut, in case you are wondering - Green Turtle Lodge prides itself on such environmentally friendly touches, along with showers which are really just shoulder-high booths made of rocks rigged up with a showerhead. Er, Sorry if you weren’t wondering…) Anyway, as I made my way back to our hut, I happened to look up at the sky. There, stretching away from my like spilt sugar, must have been every single star visible to the naked eye. I had never seen the sky seem so vast or so illuminated. It was one of those moments when you feel very small, and very dispensible. A night breeze, washed inland by the crashing sea, shook the palm trees dotted around me and I knew immediately why men for thousands of years have fixed their sights on the sky for answers. If it hadn’t been for fear of being out in the night air at 3am - the witching hour for the most malarial mosquitoes - I think I would have just stayed rooted to the spot, but instead I went back thinking how sad it was that if you live near a big town or city, you never have any idea of the canopy of light that you actually live under.

The tropical weather here can also be fairly awesome. I thought that being British meant having a lifelong, internationally-recognised qualification in dealing with wet weather. I packed the statutory water-proof genuinely thinking that there was nothing Africa could throw at me that would compare to 364 days a year dodging puddles in the UK - especially as the rainy season here is meant to be over. When the first big storm broke Elise and I were just getting on a tro-tro to get home from work. Within seconds the water was running in sheets down the windows of the bus, and dripping through a gap in the back door. By the time we reached Kaneshie market water was gushing along the street in a torrent, overflowing from the drains and sewers and turning the gutter into a small river which was far too wide to jump. Children had chucked stepping stones out into the current and were hopping from block to block with their schoolbags flailing, and some were wading, but looking at the filthy water spilling out of the drains, it didn’t seem like a terribly safe option. Instead we took the long way round, skirting past the back of the market, our clothes and hair plastered down as though we had literally just emerged from a swimming pool fully dressed. A Ghanaian lady gave us a look of disapproval, as though our clinging clothes were part of a deliberate plan to offend her, and I almost had a sense of humour failure. We hailed an overpriced taxi, too keen to get out of the rain to argue over a cedi, and returned to Mrs. Djan’s house to dry off.

The great thing is when a storm breaks and you happen to be home already. In the build-up the air tends to get even hotter and stickier than normal, wrapping itself round you like an unnecessary blanket, and then suddenly a draught of cool air will come pouring through the house, swirling in through the glassless netted windows. The rain outside batters the house, to the extent that worrying dark patches start to bloom on the ceiling, but for the first time in days the heat and humidity will dip to a bearable level.

Of course, like karma, a glut of water on one day often seems to ensure a day of drought somewhere else along the line. The water which is piped out to North Kaneshie occasionally just stops flowing, and we all have to shower and wash up from big buckets of water filled from Mrs. Djan’s emergency polytank (which, to be honest, is more than a lot of people have access to normally). The electricity also has a tendency to go AWOL. You can tell when there’s a power-out long before you get home because all the windows in the street will be dark. Back at home Mrs. Djan will have switched from her electric to her gas stove, and packed the butter portions she sells to big hotels into the freezer to stop them from melting. The family has two big wind-up torches to see by when the electricity fails, and I will be eternally glad that I packed my own little battery torch. You can turn it into a little table lantern which will just about illuminate a room. We’ve all got used to the contingency plans when one or the other of power and water cuts out, but every time I’m sad to see the calmness with which the family reaches for its buckets and lamps. It happens so often that everyone knows what to do, and nobody wastes time being frustrated or angry. It’s just a fact of life here that basic utilities are unreliable.

Now this talk of water supply brings me on to one of the most adventurous weekends I’ve had since coming here: our visit to Vli Falls. Not long ago Aletta, Jane, Ali, Angela, Elise, myself and a Dutch friend of Aletta’s headed out to the Volta Region. Once again we were headed deep into the lush vegetation and picture-perfect villages of one of Ghana’s richest landscapes.

All along the route we saw billboards for the main opposition candidate, Professor John Atta Mills, since the Volta Region is the most staunch stronghold of his party, the NDC. In contrast Accra is very much dominated by the propaganda of the party in power at the moment, the New Patriotic Party (NPP), but as you get further away from the capital you realise that there is a lot of support for the opposition elsewhere. The trouble is, that whilst the capital has been reaping the benefits of economic growth in Ghana under the NPP, there is a big problem that improvements often don’t have any impact on people in rural areas. It’s something the government’s working on, but at the moment there are lots of village-dwellers who haven’t seen any improvement in their daily lives in the last eight years. It’s just one of the reasons why people are expecting an extremely tight election, and one which could well bring about a transfer of power.

Consequently everyone here is praying for peace, and keeping their fingers crossed that the Ghanaian elections don’t go the way of the recent Kenyan vote. Politicians, NGOs, priests, imams and tribal leaders, not to mention councils of lawyers, teachers, doctors - just about any organisation you can think of - have all been issuing statements asking Ghanaians to avoid violence and observe the law. So many people are calling for peace that you wonder if anyone isn’t! The time you really feel the tension in the air is when you listen to radio phone-ins though. People call in to rant and rave, coming up with ridiculous accusations and slanderous insults, and the radio hosts aren’t always very good at cutting people off when they ought to. Most of the time the calls are in Twi, so you can’t work out the exact grievances, but you know when you’re listening to one because the callers always shout at the top of their voices! It was after listening to a show like that that decided I really ought to get round to registering with the British Embassy - just in case! (Don’t worry Fi, I have now done it!!)

Anyway, night fell as we travelled, and we arrived in the Volta town of Hohoe in the dark, catching a taxi to our hotel, Water Falls Lodge. The hotel was located in a small village right at the base of the waterfall. It’s no Victoria or Niagara, but with a drop of over 45 metres it’s Ghana’s highest waterfall, and well worth a photo or two. We had decided to stay two nights in the Lodge and complete the walk to the top of the falls which Mr. Bradt recommended. Arriving in the dark meant that our first glimpse of the landscape surrounding us was when we emerged for breakfast and saw it all laid out in the sunshine. The hotel was another one with a canopied outdoor dining area, and our view showed an almost unbroken surround of formidable, bulky hills, upholstered in pale green scrub and little flat-topped trees. All around the base of these monoliths was thick, colourful vegetation animated with little long-tailed birds and fidgeting butterflies. Another unforgettable sight.

After breakfast we donned our ‘sensible shoes’ and sun cream, and walked with a spring in our step to the tourism office in the village. Having acquired a guide and some seemingly excessive quantities of water, we then bounced optimistically into the undergrowth and jollied along in the shade. Only when we left the lower falls walk to embark on the more difficult path to the upper falls did we begin to realise what we had let ourselves in for. The path turned into a narrow scar of rocks snaking up the side of the hill and the incline increased rapidly. After a while we found we were sometimes hauling ourselves up to the next step by with arms and legs, grabbing at tree roots and branches to do so. Even though the path was mostly shaded by trees, the heat of the day seeped through and we found ourselves drenched in sweat and eternally grateful for the great big bottles of water. Duke of Edinburgh may have involved longer walks and heavier loads, but this expedition was by far the most taxing climb I have ever done. The situation was far worse for Aletta, however, who had previously injured her knee playing football and recently had an operation. Although clearly in pain, and finding it impossible to match the pace of our oddly impatient guide, she gritted her teeth and climbed anyway. We were all in awe of her determination.

The walk, however, was definitely worth it, even according to a rather weary Aletta. When we finally reached the top of the hill, we could see all the hills and valleys spread out before us like an advert for Africa. It was the most beautiful day, and we could look down to the village we had left behind. At last the guide brought us to a clearing on the edge the waterfall’s upper pluge-pool. Now, when the idea of swimming in a waterfall pool was mentioned, rather idyllic images of peaceful lagoons and swirling eddies had sprung to mind. We had all brought swimming costumes and were all set for a relaxing dip in fresh water before beginning our climb down. The reality was a bit of a surprise. The water fell in such a violent surge that the whole surface of the pool was scuffed into waves. The noise of water on water was deafening, and a fierce wind whipped across the surface like an angry, exfoliating scourge. We had to crouch beneath the surface to avoid the stinging sheets of wind-whipped spray, being buffeted around by the waves, and we had to shout to make ourselves heard over the noise!

It was nonetheless an incredible experience - if a little bracing, and we picked our way up the muddy bank safe in the knowledge that we would probably never do anything quite like it again. While we had been swimming, the guide had gone in search of long sticks to use on the way down, and this made the return walk somewhat easier. It was still pretty difficult picking our way down the hill - you think it will be easier to come down when you’re dragging yourself upwards, but the steep slope proved to be even more treacherous and difficult to negotiate when walking in the same direction as gravity. Thankfully there were no injuries (which was lucky, because having lugged my medical kit to the wretched Daily Graphic HQ every morning for weeks, I had somehow, typically, managed to forget it on the one occasion when it might have come in handy). By this stage Aletta looked positively white with pain, but I think she was very happy to have made it. We had heard numerous reports of groups giving up halfway through and so it was with no small sense of satisfaction that we cracked into bottles of Fanta and took some celebratory photos. Whilst posing my beloved old-man explorer’s hat blew away and landed in the lower plunge pool, but I fished it out and was relieved to see it had not sustained any major injuries either.

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