Hello bloggers!!!
Megan and Katie here (we’re going to tag team this blog, it’s been a while we’ve done that).
We’re just sitting here enjoying a nice Ghanaian biscuit on Tuesday afternoon, 3 days before Christmas… precious babe Jesus is on his way, but don’t forget, Katie’s Bday is first (December 24th)…. She paves the way for little JC. Just in case you were wondering, there’s no snow in Ghana so we tried building a snowman with the dirt but it failed miserably. Then, we tried cutting down a palm tree, but the ornaments wouldn’t stay on the branches. Failure #2… So instead we are singing “White Christmas” and truly dreaming that there’s snow. Then we go to church where they sing the opening hymn to the tune of “Jingle Bells” (But it’s not the words to jingle bells, it’s the words to a church song, ironic) so naturally, Katie and I find ourselves singing “Jingle Bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way. Oh what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh, hey!” and no one notices because they’re singing their own words. It really is a nice set-up… we get our Christmas song fix while at church.
And just in case you’re all wondering, because we know you are, Katie and I spent yesterday decorating the dinging room for Christmas. We must say, we outdid ourselves. If you closed the blinds and ignored the heat you would think you were in Rockafeller Center on Christmas morning.
So school ended last Thursday and Katie and I took off on Friday morning for an adventure in the village of Hohoe. 1. We had no idea what we were doing. 2. We didn’t arrive until midnight, 4 hours late (thanks to the marvelous public transportation). 3. We met our guardian angel, George who took us in for the night. 4. We saw the most breathtaking waterfalls (largest in West Africa). 5. We fed Mona monkeys bananas from our hands in the jungle.
We discovered the joys of hopping from one tro-tro to another as our means of transportation the whole 4 hours back to Accra. We decided to try this method out after the “organized” STC Bus from Accra made us 4 hours late on the way to Hohoe.
So, back to George… naturally, arriving in a tiny village at midnight means no taxis running, so no way to get to our hotel… now what? Well that’s when George comes in. He recognized the look of desperation on our lost faces and offered to let us stay with his family for the night. It took us about .3 seconds to agree. We were exhausted. George literally gave us his bed to sleep in, fed us eggs in the morning for breakfast, fetched us water to bath with, and personally walked us to the taxi station in the morning so we could get to our hotel.
Once checked in, we headed off for the Agumatsa Wildlife Sanctuary where we met a guide named Samuel who hiked the 45 minutes with us into the jungle to the Wli Waterfalls. We paid Samuel 5 cedis to leave us at the waterfalls to explore on our own. For two hours Katie and I swam, and just took in the beauty of the falls. They were amazing. Such power and awesomeness. It literally took our breath away when we got close enough to the falls. Of course I thought it would wise to just swim in my underwear so that I didn’t have to hike with wet clothes on the way back. It was all fine and dandy for the first 2 hours until a group of picnickers came all of the sudden… oh well. They didn’t seemed phased by the crazy American in her underwear. There were hundreds of butterflies in every color imaginable and fruit bats by the thousands.
After our hike back to the hotel, we ordered our first real meal since Thursday night. We were famished. Other than the eggs at George’s house, we had been running on granola bars and Finding Nemo fruit snacks. Our meal was followed by a 4.5 hour nap and then a quick snack of French fries, ice cream, and pineapple. And back to sleep we went.
Waking up at 5:30am, we departed our hotel for Logba where we jumped on motor bikes that took us to the Tafi-Atome Monkey Sanctuary. Here, our guide Daniel took us to the jungle where we fed Mona monkeys. Yes, Katie, miss I hate animals, even fed a monkey and enjoyed it. I was pretty much in a state of ecstasy.
From here, we began our long journey back to Accra. Once back to our familiar stomping ground we found some pizza, and met a family from America who was in Ghana on vacation from Nigeria. They live on a compound in Nigeria because of the husband’s job with Shevron Oil. It was so nice to talk some other Americans.
Anyways, we are safely back in Kasoa and definitely got a true taste of Ghana this weekend.
Only 2 more days until Katie’s Birthday and Adam, Michael, and Jess arrive!
Merry Christmas everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And Happy New Year!
Much Love,
Katie and Meg
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