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Published: July 22nd 2008
Back in the city after a long weekend up north that centered around visiting Mole National Park. So how was it? To be honest, the park underwhelmed pretty spectacularly. Ghana is not a country with lots of capital-letter ATTRACTIONS, and Mole is really one of only two must-visits for travelers (Cape Coast and the slave forts being the other). This meant that the place was overflowing with summer volunteers, travelers and all kinds of other foreigners this weekend, trying to check it off the list before we head home at some point in August. Our morning guided walk in the park had about 30 people, and we were one of three groups that morning--nearly 100 foreigners in all. So there were probably more people than elephants roaming the savannah that day. But most importantly, Mole failed because it didn't meet my 3-mile rule.
Having spent a lot of time traveling, I find that almost all parks and natural sights' enjoyment for me depends on if it takes more or less than 3 miles to reach the thing you want to see. Less than 3 miles and anyone can go, and anyone usually does, leading to large crowds and no thrill of isolation or adventure. More than 3 miles and you weed some people out, when you get above 5 miles, that's when it really gets good, in an "I have this Patagonian glacier virtually to myself" kind of way. This played out in Mole in several ways, but the most emblematic is that about fifteen minutes into the hike we came across a pack of elephants, a group of baboons, and some so-ugly-they're-cute warthogs. Sounds like a dream come true, right? Except the location for this sighting was a make-shift trash dump beside the concrete block apartments where the park rangers and families live. "On your right you will see a male elephant, and to your left a woman scrubbing her underwear." Really the highlight of the park was when we went out on a jeep trip that afternoon, and I stepped off the roof of the car to use the facilities, and a lone elephant came storming across the forest, tearing down trees with his trunk and scaring off a family of baboons. As I filmed this display of rage and power, he turned towards the camera, and I thought, "this is great stuff I'm getting," until he made a bee-line straight for our jeep, intent on smashing us along with the trees. We scrambled into the car and took off just in time.
Other than that, the best part of the trip was my time in Larabanga, a small town outside the park where we stayed, and spent an entire afternoon playing some very competitive, high-quality volleyball with a bunch of teenagers in the town. They were so intense they almost didn't let us play at first, asking incredulously "but are you any good?" By the end of the matches we had earned their respect by not being the best but not being the worst players on the court. Hopefully Cape Coast this weekend will be a better experience than Mole.
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Buko
non-member comment
how to avoid said crisis in the future
I have read somewhere that elephants are actually scared of white asses. So when faced with crazed and charging devil beast, drop trou and hope for the best.