Mole

This weekend we went to Mole (pronounced Moe – Lay) National Park. It was really cool. We left on Friday morning at about 6 am and didn’t arrive until about 9 pm. It was a LONG bus ride. The park is way up north, almost to the top of the country. It was beautiful. When we arrived and were all heading to our rooms, 2 of the girls found 3 warthogs right outside their door blocking the way in. We were all a little bit scared, so we went and got someone to help us. He came with a handful of rocks and just started throwing the rocks at the warthogs until they ran away. It was fun to see right as we arrived.

The next morning we went on a walking safari. We left for the safari on Saturday morning at about 7 am. We walked through a small village and saw our first elephants! There were about three of them just eating the grass right outside the village. Nobody in the village seemed to really care about the elephants, but they all followed us around. It was so fun to see them. We went on a 2 hour hike through the jungle and saw many antelope, warthogs, some more elephants and baboons. It was so cool. The jungle was beautiful.
After we were done with our hike, we had breakfast and were greeted by a little monkey who wanted to share with us. He just jumped up right on our table, took some drinks of our juice, and tried to snatch some food. It was startling when it first happened, but it was really cool to see. Something that will probably never happen again! After breakfast, we headed out to a small remote village to learn a little bit more about the culture and how they live. We were greeted by a large group of children who could hear the bus coming. When I stepped off the bus, I was immediately swarmed by small children who were grabbing my hands and wanting to hold on to me. One little girl looked up at me and said, “You are my best friend.” Our guide along with the kids lead us into the village where we began our tour. It was really cool. The kids were holding onto us the whole time and we walked through the little mud hut village. We went to a couple of huts and saw the people making a variety of different things including: Shea butter, spinning cotton into thread, and the medicine man. It was really cool to see how they live, and I was amazed to see all the different abilities they are capable of in order to survive. The village was sad. There were flies everywhere and the kids just dealt with it. They were filthy from head to toe and many had sores on their heads, probably from the flies practically living there. It was really sad to see, but also really eye opening to see how they survive. The kids asked us for everything. They wanted us to give them our clothes, our cameras, and anything else we had on. I felt selfish saying no, but that is what we were told to do.
After we left the village, we went on another walking safari. We didn’t really see any more animals on the 2nd one, but it was nice to just walk around and enjoy the beauty of the jungle. When we got back we were heading to our rooms to get changed so we could swim and cool down, and there was an elephant right in front of my door! It was crazy. We just stood there and watched it until it had eaten pretty much our whole bush and then it left. It was really cool to see it so close to us.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing by the pool and playing games. We left early again on Sunday morning to return but made a stop to hike a waterfall. The water fall was beautiful. It was a very short walk, but it was totally worth it. We did, however, have to hike down 152 stairs. The way down wasn’t bad, but the way up was a little bit tiresome! After that, we headed back on our 14 hour journey to Accra. It was a really fun weekend, and a lot of bus riding!