Friday, 17 February 2012
Thursday, 16 February 2012
Kumasi, Ghana
Found wifi after a long break, at the Vodaphone 'shop' near our camping spot at the Presbyterian Guesthouse. We arrived here last night just after sunset after driving on good roads all day from our previous overnight bush camp. Our satnav brought us into Kumasi the most direct way, but it was chaos passing through West Africa's largest market. All the other traffic was taxis and buses and an overturned cart which had spilled its boxes all over the road was an added hazard and made it very slow going. It was with relief we drove through the Guesthouse gates into the calm, relaxed tree filled grounds, where we intend to stay for the next 2 or 3 days before continuing to Accra for more visas, and then stay on the coast.
We reached Mole National Park at 5pm on Friday, 10th after a long, dusty, corrugated piste from the turn off the main Tamale - Kumasi road. Beside the Motel was a campsite which we had to ourselves for 2 nights, and the 2nd night was spent parked at the end of the airstrip for Sunday morning's balloon flight. On the 4th night we shared the campsite with our previous Dragoman group and it was good to meet up with Mike, Ant and friends from Pendjari.
On the first morning at Mole we went for a 7am walking safari around the watering hole (crocodiles but very tame compared to our previous experience) and then out on to a wet area where we were very lucky to get up close with a group of 7 male elephants of varying ages and sizes who were mud bathing. We spent a long time just watching them before heading out into the forest to see bush buck and cobb antelope and lots of birds, returning past a viewing platform where there were lots of baboons and a grey headed kingfisher. In the afternoon we followed a Park vehicle and armed Ranger on a driving safari just to see if there were any possibilities of flying from within the Park. Again we were lucky to come across a mother elephant and her child in the road. She was being very protective and was quite agitated and even the Ranger, Osman, told us later he had been quite scared as if she had decided to charge there was nowhere for our 2 vehicles to go to get out of her way. Osman became a real friend and helped us greatly. When we got back to the Information Centre, he came with us to the airstrip where we met his boss Ali to consider whether to give us permission to fly. After several phone calls, Ali said we were cleared, provided a 'Guide' accompanied the first flight and he was willing to offer his services! With that, Ali and his charming wife, Joanna, left on their motorbike leaving us to set up the basket and settle for the night. At 6am Sunday, Osman and a driver with his Nissan Patrol arrived to help us inflate. The wind direction had swung through 90 degrees so we ended up draping the balloon over tall grasses and small bushes instead of along the airstrip, but all went well when Ali arrived for his flight. The lower wind took them back towards the Park but higher up it was quite fast and directly towards the village of Larabanga and the road. That should have worked well as we followed in the Nissan and were close when Chris descended. However, he was enjoying the flight so much they went up high again and finally found a small clearing to land in with no road to it. A farmer borrowed Chris's machete to hack down enough trees and bushes to deflate the balloon in and the driver did the same to reach the balloon. The farmer turned out to be very useful in helping to organise the repacking of the balloon, loading it onto the top of the Nissan and keeping the hoards of children out of the way.
My first session on the computer is rapidly approaching (it took a long time to log in to the blog), so I will have to finish the story in a following post. I will keep going for as long as I can.
The permission for a second flight was no problem, as Chris wanted me to fly too, and after meeting Ali's boss on Sunday and refuelling all 3 tanks with butane from the Motel cylinder, we were told we could fly from within the Park, even from beside the elephants' bathing area. We did another drive around a different part of the Park with another Ranger, where I was shown red-breasted bee-eaters flying in and out of their holes in a sandbank and viewed the area from a tree-top platform, and we found lots of savannah areas where it would be possible to land and be reached from a track. We went to bed that night with the arrangement to meet Osman and the driver at the Information Centre on Monday morning and decide on the best launch site having let off a little balloon for direction. To be continued .....
We reached Mole National Park at 5pm on Friday, 10th after a long, dusty, corrugated piste from the turn off the main Tamale - Kumasi road. Beside the Motel was a campsite which we had to ourselves for 2 nights, and the 2nd night was spent parked at the end of the airstrip for Sunday morning's balloon flight. On the 4th night we shared the campsite with our previous Dragoman group and it was good to meet up with Mike, Ant and friends from Pendjari.
On the first morning at Mole we went for a 7am walking safari around the watering hole (crocodiles but very tame compared to our previous experience) and then out on to a wet area where we were very lucky to get up close with a group of 7 male elephants of varying ages and sizes who were mud bathing. We spent a long time just watching them before heading out into the forest to see bush buck and cobb antelope and lots of birds, returning past a viewing platform where there were lots of baboons and a grey headed kingfisher. In the afternoon we followed a Park vehicle and armed Ranger on a driving safari just to see if there were any possibilities of flying from within the Park. Again we were lucky to come across a mother elephant and her child in the road. She was being very protective and was quite agitated and even the Ranger, Osman, told us later he had been quite scared as if she had decided to charge there was nowhere for our 2 vehicles to go to get out of her way. Osman became a real friend and helped us greatly. When we got back to the Information Centre, he came with us to the airstrip where we met his boss Ali to consider whether to give us permission to fly. After several phone calls, Ali said we were cleared, provided a 'Guide' accompanied the first flight and he was willing to offer his services! With that, Ali and his charming wife, Joanna, left on their motorbike leaving us to set up the basket and settle for the night. At 6am Sunday, Osman and a driver with his Nissan Patrol arrived to help us inflate. The wind direction had swung through 90 degrees so we ended up draping the balloon over tall grasses and small bushes instead of along the airstrip, but all went well when Ali arrived for his flight. The lower wind took them back towards the Park but higher up it was quite fast and directly towards the village of Larabanga and the road. That should have worked well as we followed in the Nissan and were close when Chris descended. However, he was enjoying the flight so much they went up high again and finally found a small clearing to land in with no road to it. A farmer borrowed Chris's machete to hack down enough trees and bushes to deflate the balloon in and the driver did the same to reach the balloon. The farmer turned out to be very useful in helping to organise the repacking of the balloon, loading it onto the top of the Nissan and keeping the hoards of children out of the way.
My first session on the computer is rapidly approaching (it took a long time to log in to the blog), so I will have to finish the story in a following post. I will keep going for as long as I can.
The permission for a second flight was no problem, as Chris wanted me to fly too, and after meeting Ali's boss on Sunday and refuelling all 3 tanks with butane from the Motel cylinder, we were told we could fly from within the Park, even from beside the elephants' bathing area. We did another drive around a different part of the Park with another Ranger, where I was shown red-breasted bee-eaters flying in and out of their holes in a sandbank and viewed the area from a tree-top platform, and we found lots of savannah areas where it would be possible to land and be reached from a track. We went to bed that night with the arrangement to meet Osman and the driver at the Information Centre on Monday morning and decide on the best launch site having let off a little balloon for direction. To be continued .....
Tuesday, 14 February 2012
On the way to the coast...
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After 4 wonderful mole days and 2 flights we are on our way to the coast.
Sunday, 12 February 2012
5th Country Flown
5th country flown, many Elephants at Mole. We are staying at least one more day for Sue to try eating more rodents. Many adventures to report when we have net.
Mole Park
We have arrived at the Mole Park to be met by Hogwarts in the car park and the prospect of exciting animals tomorrow.
Wednesday, 8 February 2012
Tamale, Ghana
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Our posts are getting a little out of sequence as we have been travelling. The photos from the air in Benin have only just been added, so we are getting a bit behind. When possible we will add the photos of the bigger mud castles in Togo. Today we arrived in Tamale from Yendi and we are staying here for the next couple of nights at least. We have found an ideal place to park in the grounds of the Tamale Institute for Cross Cultural Studies, which has a guesthouse as well and the Jungle Bar terrace close by. The receptionist Abigail and one of the tutors, Sylvester, have been very helpful and friendly and within 30 mins of arrival Abigail suggested their on site housekeeper should do our laundry, so we have given her everything we have for washing and it's already out on the line.
One of the really enjoyable parts of our travelling is that we are meeting such kind, friendly people wherever we go and they in turn introduce us to others. Our host in Yendi last night was Don. We chose to stay at his guesthouse as we had both air conditioning and fan in the room and were able to have a shower without emptying all the things we store in our own shower in the Enterprise. We woke in the night feeling very cold and had to use our own bedcovers to warm up. If the temperature in the Enterprise drops under 26C at night we feel quite chilly! We have been keeping up with BBC News whenever we can and see that the UK and Europe are having a very cold spell.
The Harmattan wind has indeed arrived and blows quite strongly at times, but not every day is windy so we hope for a break to make a flight in Ghana. The downside is that the atmosphere is left full of dust from the Sahara and visibility is very poor. Tamale has an airport, but it is probably too large to allow us to fly there, we have yet to investigate. A longer flight than in Togo would be nice. Chris has a list (somewhere) of small air clubs in Ghana so it might be possible to find one of these. Between Yendi and Tamale there are vast 'cotton deserts' where the harvested cotton crop has been burnt off leaving large areas of waste ground, but they are not inviting places to take a balloon to.
A very happy birthday today to our grandson Alexander who is already 6 years old. How time flies by. I have another treasure for you Alexander - an intricately woven weaver bird's nest which I found on the ground amongst the rocks of the Sindou Peaks in Burkina Faso. I think it blew out of a tree before it was finished as it appears unused.
The TICCS where we are staying does not have wifi so we are using an Internet Cafe for the first time in our travels, which is just across the road and very convenient. We are using the fast server here to investigate fully onward travel from Ghana. We would like to go via Cote d'Ivoire to Liberia so long as the travel situation is relatively safe.
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