trip to mole!

Well, this weekend we departed on our first extended traveling adventure through Ghana from Winneba in the South and by the coast to Mole National Park in Northern Ghana for a safari. So we left about 5:00 am Friday morning on our adventure and quickly realized that traveling in Ghana isn’t exactly cruising down I-75…basically it makes the right lane in Alabama and Mississippi—which most drivers avoid at all cost because of its roughness—seem like a freshly paved smooth road. Lol But perspective is key because some roads became quite fun and seemed like amusement park rides as I would literally come off my seat and get air when we hit certain bumps—ok craters in the road—just right! Ha The best part of the trip there involved our stop at a place called Kintampo Falls…The falls were beautiful and I felt so wild at heart—thanks John Eldredge—as I got in the water and climbed under the water fall and just had so much fun getting soaked!!! I even discovered a natural water slide that was short but fun over some slick rocks—pics will be coming soon…I definitely felt like I was living the dream of a ten year old boy out exploring and playing in nature…or maybe the dream of a 22 year old boy…either way I loved it!!! Next the bus ride continued…one note about traveling in Ghana: time doesn’t really matter when you stop. So often the bus driver would stop and let us out to use the bathroom or in this case take a short hike to see the falls and then leave with the bus to refuel, get food, see family, run a few errands, swing by Walmart, whatever and return at his own pleasure. Haha So you just had to embrace the Ghanaian culture as our slogan became, when in Ghana, do as the Ghanaians, and we would just hang out and wait for his return. We finally arrived in Mole after close to a fourteen hour bus ride about 730 and ate some amazing supper! I had fish—cooked whole with skin, head, and eyeballs—and fried rice, but our favorite part of supper was the ice cold bottles of water. Most drinks are not very cold so this was like water from heaven!
The next morning, its safari time, which was the entire point of our trip as we all wanted to see animals, especially an elephant. We split into two groups and our guide led us off into the African bush. Ok so bad news first: my group did not see an elephant. But after the safari was over and we had breakfast, an elephant came to the watering hole and I was able to walk down and see a male elephant bathing and check out 6 crocodiles also in the elephant hole…so even though the other group got an elephant on the actual safari, it all worked out in the end. Now back to our safari because we did see a crocodile, some monkeys, so many antelopes, warthogs, and guineas—I had a great time! More than anything for me the safari was good for my soul. Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, Frederick Law Olmstead and many others have proposed that people need nature and wilderness to be healthy mentally, physically, and spiritually, and the safari again confirmed that to be true. I loved getting out of the city and into the African bush because I connect so well with God in nature so the safari for me provided great time with God—some good soul food! As I returned from watching the elephant at the watering hole, I was informed we were leaving early because of discovering that our bus was leaking gasoline and so the race against time began. As we were leaving we met a guy from Ohio, John, who was volunteering with an organization for youth development in Ghana and the founder of the organization, Emanuel. They visited Mole for the weekend and missed the 400 am bus they needed to catch back to Kumasi where we had to pass through on way back. So God provided for them by allowing us to give them a ride back! They were great guys who were a lot of fun and it was cool to see how God allowed us to be a blessing and meet their needs for transportation, because if not for us, they were stuck in Mole until Monday morning. So we took off leaking gas, stopping to refuel occasionally and monitor the growing leak. We made it to Kumasi and dropped John and Emanuel off and two Swiss girls who were staying in Kumasi that some of the girls had met at the lodge the week before and who decided to join us on the trip. We left Mole about 100 pm and about 1245 am we were out of gas 45 minutes from home, and we pulled into a gas station whose sign said it was open for 24 hours. We quickly discovered that the station no longer stayed open 24 hours and that it would reopen at 400 am. Ha So now our adventure had landed us out of gas, 45 minutes from home, but surrounded by street merchants selling all night to truck drivers and other travelers since this was a main road. At this point, some people were losing it but to me, it was out of my hands so several of us just made the most of it. I hung out with Gideon, who is our friend from the University and who helps greatly with our trip, and we bought a banana and some groundnuts (we call them peanuts ha) from the merchants…then Philip told his hilarious version of the day—he is great…then a couple of us got to listen to Gideon talk about his background and hear his heart. He came from a village with no electricity to now teach technical classes at the university and will soon have two masters degrees…he recognizes that God has blessed him so he can bless others and he has such a heart to help kids from his village get an education and better themselves like he has been able to do…his heart is incredible and he understands that Jesus lowered himself to lift others up and we should do the same. Then a blessing from God came in the form of a truck of guys that just happened to have an extra barrel of gasoline which we bought off them. One of the guys even helped patch the leak a little so instead of waiting until 400 to finish the journey, we departed around 200 am and arrived back around 300 am. What an adventure! It ended with one of the best showers I have had in a while because between the safari and the elephant at the watering hole, I went for a run because I wanted to run in Ghana’s only national park, so it goes without saying that I was covered in layers of dirt sweat, oil, and probably other fun stuff! Haha So traveling in Ghana proved an unforgettable experience and an incredible story!