The final weeks in Ghana for Anna and the Gapbreak volunteers

We’ve come so far! Since I last wrote and also since the beginning. We’ve all been thinking about the beginning a lot lately because right now we’re all at Felcare Hostel, the place where we spent our first few days in Ghana. It was three months ago that we walked down these same dusty streets, bought our SIM cards and spent some valuable time chilling in the lady’s house that developed passport photos. We’ve come a long way in these past three months! Our two weeks travel was absolutely amazing. We were very fortunate, everything ran quite smoothly and went off without a hitch. Our exciting journey started at the ridiculous hour of 3am when we woke up, packed those last minute things (like the toothbrush and the pyjamas), said goodbye to our host families and boarded the first bus to Kumasi.

It was actually quite cold, there was a smashed window a few seats in front of us so Harriet had to whip out her sunnies (in the dark) to save her eyeballs from the wind! I thought she looked pretty cool. This is where we started our donut trend… and ended our ‘let’s-get-skinny-on-travel’ trend. Hot donuts make for an amazing early bus breakfast. We arrived into Kumasi at about 10am, which felt strange because we had to travel for about 5 or 6 hours. We were too exhausted to do anything much but the rest of the day was spent planning, walking and taking advantage of the cheap and yummy street food (strefoo). Our days in Kumasi were fairly touristy!

We checked out the Museum (mainly a room of the various Ashanti Kings’ possessions) and also the cultural centre, where we saw some traditional kente cloth being woven, and also a disabled man who produced amazing artwork by painting with the brush in his mouth. We also visited the Komfo Anokye Sword Site, a sword that was planted in a stone some 300 years ago, and cannot be removed (otherwise the Ashanti kingdom will collapse). This was less spectacular than it sounds, more a small sword handle in a hole in the ground surrounded by strange bottles, but cool all the same!

Then it was time to up and go again – this time off to Kintampo in the Brong Ahafo region. The ride was about 3 hours, and we had to awkwardly stop the bus on the side of the road because it had driven straight through the town. It was even more difficult to find our accommodation… after clearly stating the “Prince of Peace Guest House” our taxi took us down a random dirt road and dropped us off at a sign that said ‘GUEST HOUSE’. This lead us to another leg of the journey in a private trotro, that took us to the ‘Prince of Peace Maternity Ward’.

Luckily the other taxi had arrived safely at the correct hostel, so we could give directions to the driver (which turned out to be walking distance from our original position anyway). Good times! We had a beautiful waterfall experience at the Kintampo Falls, and even got to go swimming in the 3rd falls. It was such a cool experience… wearing bikinis and closed in shoes with a waterfall hammering down on my back… I could hardly keep my eyes open. Probs the coolest shower I’ve had in Ghana.

The next leg of the journey saw us on a nice cramped and sweaty trotro ride to Tamale! We were so lucky to have Moses to look after us : ) When we arrived in the bus station, he was there to pick us up and take us to our accommodation. Or should I say donkcommodation! (There was an awesome donkey there!) As soon as we came in he ambled over and nuzzled for our attention. Wheeee. This was the night that Kristen and I were supposed to spend bonding, but instead spent picking bugs out of our hair and clothes and skin. It was a mistake to take off the sheet and find an infestation of ants, crawling up the sides of the beds and having a party in our sheets. This was when we knew it was time to shimmy in on other people’s rooms and do some pencil sleeping. (Pencil Sleeping: when you are cramped in a bed, i.e. three in a double, and the only sleeping position available is the classic pencil).

But all of this was okay, because after an awesome breakfast of pancakes and super tasty jam (Kristen will confirm) Moses gave us the news that he had found 6 other backpackers heading our way (to Mole National Park) so it was actually cheaper to hire a private air-conditioned bus to take us directly to the park! Yabadabadooo! ;) This was such a relief after the horror stories of 16 hour waits we’ve heard about trips to Mole.

For me, Mole National Park was the highlight of the two weeks travel. There was just so much wildlife! Even in the living quarters, warthogs were shuffling just outside on the grass. There were monkeys by the pool to steal your biscuits, strange scorpions in the pool (I’ve never seen Gina move so fast), deer poking their heads out of the trees and countless stick insects and spiders to keep you company. Mole was hot – so the pool was a blessing. On the first night we all sat around it and watched the sun set over the savannah. It was gorgeous, and unlike any other sunset I’ve ever seen!

The sun was huge, and looked kind of fake.. like a huge orange ping pong ball suspended in the sky, lighting up the lakes with flocks of birds flying around.

It looked like something out of the Lion King.

As far as activities go – we got to do this cool as driving safari along some dirt roads through the park. This was especially cool because we all got to sit on the roof, and spy the various baboons and antelope (Cob) and pray for an elephant. When our guide got the news that one was in the trees, we set off at such a pace that we nearly fell off the roof. But it was all worth it to see these 3 beautiful creatures walking through the trees not 50m away. This was nothing compared to the waking safari, when we got even closer because “the elephants are in a good mood”. We circled around and got so close that we could see the wrinkles around their eyes. Mole had a very relaxed atmosphere, so when we weren’t out with the animals we just got to chill by the pool, sleep, read and play scattergories.

We left Mole on the 4am bus back to Tamale. The bus was cramped, and smelly, (buckets of mud?) but luckily we found a donut lady to carry over our tradition and tide us over until arrival at about 8.30am. Even though we got on the bus to Bolgatanga fairly promptly, we didn’t set off on our journey until about 11am. Bolgatanga was the place that we stayed so we could do a day trip to Paga – the crocodile sanctuary right on the border of Burkina Faso. The crocodiles were huge, and didn’t seem too happy to be coaxed out of the swamp. We payed our money to lift up his tail, and then skedaddled out of there before he could munch on any of our ankles. It was very incredible though, to be so close to such a powerful creature. There wasn’t a huge amount of stuff to do in Bolgatanga so that meant there were a lot of rounds of scattergories to be enjoyed under the trees and in our stuffy hotel room.

From here we started our journey back down to the South of Ghana. Baaaaack to Kumasi! I think we were all very happy to be back in that sunny town. It felt nice to arrive (after 6 hours especially) in somewhere familiar, and a place that we had already explored at the start of our travel. We had two days there, so on our second day we decided to visit Lake Bolgatanga, the largest natural lake in Ghana, (formed by a meteorite – just a fun fact). The lake was beautiful, and we spent the time sitting on logs and taking photos on the jetty! Pick your pose – titanic, praise to the gods (a Maddie invention) or the classic tree pose. This was when I discovered the funky settings on my camera (yes, a week from the end) so when our batteries died we thought it time to head back. This all happened on a Sunday, so it was impossible to find something to eat because everyone goes to church. That night we went to the petrol station and bought cold soup, bread and chocolate bars, which actually turned out to be rather amazing.

We decided to end our journey with a trip to our treasured Big Milly’s Backyard, so it was only fitting to continue the tradition of getting the 4.30am bus from Kumasi to Accra. This didn’t really work out as planned, as although we boarded at the correct time, I woke up about 2 hours later to find that we hadn’t actually left the station yet, and the bus was going to leave at 7.30am instead. We ended up spending about 10 hours on that bus… I think we were all grateful that we hadn’t slept the night before so we good just pass the time with our heads on our backpacks, snoozing the potholes away. We arrived at Big Milly’s at about 3.30pm, nearly a 12 hour travel day. As you can imagine, it was pretty much pizza and bed. But not just any pizza… I will remember this pizza until the day I die. It was thin and crispy and juicy… and followed by half a slice of chocolate cake. Perfection.

Our final days were spent in the sun (Bardie’s red skin can vouch for that) swimming, eating and reflecting on our months in Ghana. Lauren, Hari and I had this huge sentimental chat about growth, challenges and culture shock… it made me realise how far we’ve come since we arrived, and even though it may be difficult to tell, how much we all would have grown.

I think everyone will agree with me when I say that this experience has been the best thing that had ever happened to me. Living in a different culture is just such an eye-opening experience, and we’re so lucky to have that sort of opportunity. As it’s all ending I suppose there’s nothing left to do but say goodbye, board planes and greet our families with a million memories, photographs, presents, and journals full of 3 months of emotion. Ghana is such a beautiful country and we’ll be so sad to leave!

As for Maddie, Kristen and Harriet – they shall see you all soon, and the rest of us will be with you in the New Year. Not long now!

We send our love, our smiles and our gratitude. See you in Australia!

Are you interested in working as a GapBreak volunteer in Ghana? Find out more about the Ghana GapBreak program here.