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awindowamirror · 7 years

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Trek to Hohoe, Wli Falls, and the Tafi Monkey Sanctuary

This weekend, my friends Ceci and Charlotte and I decided to take a break from Accra life and check out the Volta region more. I went a few weekends ago just for one night, but we didn’t go hiking or see a ton, so I was excited to go back and explore more.

Charlotte had a class on Friday evening, so we left campus at about 5:30 pm and took a trotro to Accra Central, which took about an hour in the traffic. All of the big metro buses going to the Volta region had left by this time, so we tracked down where the trotros leaving for the Volta were. There was one leaving in 15 minutes, but only two spots, so we were the first to buy tickets on another trotro. This was both good and bad—good because we got to claim the back seat and not sit in the wimpy little side chairs, but bad because we waited in the parking lot for another hour until our trotro had filled up. Honestly though, we were just happy there was a way to get to where we were going, and it only cost about 30 cedis each.

We left the parking lot at about 8 pm and expected to be in Hohoe, a town near our hotel, by about midnight or 1 at the latest. Google maps had told us it was about a 4-5 hour journey. What Google maps did not take into account were the traffic and road conditions. It took at least an hour to get outside of Accra, and the roads beyond the bridge over the Volta River (where I stayed on my previous trip) were in really bad shape. It ended up being about 7 hours for us to arrive. We were absolutely dead.

There were many holes I did not think we were going to come back out of. I am amazed that our trotro is still standing. Actually, at one point, in the middle of nowhere and in pitch-black darkness, our driver turned off the engine and got out and opened the hood, which would have been more than mildly concerning if we hadn’t been delirious from lack of sleep.

No worries though, about ten minutes later we were on our way again, and there was only one more episode like that. Also at one point I’m pretty sure we hit a goat—Ceci and I heard something and then looked at each other and burst out laughing because what else is there to do? 3 am on a trotro…it is a mind-altering experience.

When we got to Hohoe, we had to take about a 45 minute taxi ride to our hotel, and because it was so late/early, our taxi driver charged us 120 cedis and there was nothing we could do about it because there were literally no other transportation options. After cheating us, he thought it would be appropriate to ask for our numbers, which I find very interesting.

Anyways. We MADE it safely to our hotel and fell asleep by about 4:30 am. We slept until around 8:30 am, waking up just in time to catch the tail end of breakfast at the hotel restaurant. Charlotte was rearing to go on just 4 hours of sleep, but Ceci and I struggled a bit. But, when you’re in a beautiful and new place, it’s hard to choose sleep over exploring, so we set off to the tourism center (just a 5 minute walk from our hotel) to get a guide to take us to see Wli Falls up close and personal. Our hotel restaurant had a lovely view of the falls and the mountains as well, but we were ready to hike.

We stocked up on bananas and water and chose to do the 6 hour hiking excursion. I’m not sure what we were expecting, but I was entirely surprised by the hike. It was wild. We literally went straight up a mountain for close to 2 hours. Straight up. I mean it. At one point, Ceci asked our guide in between hyper ventilations, “Anthony, have you ever heard of switchbacks?” Alas, Anthony had not. And, upon hearing what they were and the supposed benefits, he declared, “Straight up is better.” Ok then.

Either way, straight up is what we had, and so we did it. There were many moments where it felt more like rock climbing than hiking, and we all slipped and fell at least a couple times. It was amazing though. Hiking to me is the definition of returning to my roots, to something I am so sure of. All you can do is put one foot in front of the other—you can only focus on the moment you’re in, the beauty around you and the good company. It was a really difficult hike, there’s no sugar coating it, and I am still very sore, but there is no better way to spend a day in my opinion. And we did it. How cool.

So we technically were hiking to the upper falls of Wli Falls, but on the way, we climbed a mountain even taller than the tallest mountain in Ghana. How is that possible, you may ask? Well, we slipped into Togo for a few minutes—turns out, half of the mountain is in Ghana and half is in Togo, but the tallest point is in Togo, so Ghana can’t claim its height (it’s not a very impressive height when you compare it to mountains in Colorado or other places, but it sure felt tall—I think it was a little over 1,000 m).

When we got to the upper falls, we splashed our faces and arms in an attempt to cool down, and then headed down to the lower falls. Anthony left us there, and we stayed a while, soaking our feet and watching shouts of water fall screaming with joy from the rocks. It was beautiful. There is something so magical about water, and waterfalls showcase every piece of that magic. After looking up at the falls for several minutes, we finally noticed about 200-300 bats staring at us from the cliffs. SO MANY BATS!!! It was crazy. It would have been creepy if it weren’t so cool.

The walk back to our hotel was super easy—I think it’s the trail that most people take, and it was very flat and well-travelled. Thank goodness. We were all ready to put our feet up and have a good meal, which is exactly what we did. Oh, and we showered. We were covered in a layer of dirt and multiple layers of sweat. Fun note: Ceci had the same Dr. Bronner’s lavender castile soap that I use back in the states, so it just added to how at home I felt—hiking AND castile soap? What more could I ask for?

We stayed at dinner forever, sharing three dinner dishes and a bowl of fruit and ice cream, and talking about politics, social issues, and how to make sense of people who agree with Betsy DeVos. We retired at about 9:00 pm (I really think retired is the correct word for this situation, though I know that it would sound more at home in an Edith Warton novel than a 20 year old’s blog post), and stayed up a little longer talking. It was a lovely evening, and we were happily asleep by 9:30 pm (remember we only got 4 hours of sleep the night before).

In the morning, we met a group of young people doing Projects Abroad (I think this is an organization where people volunteer abroad, but I didn’t fully understand it). One was from Chicago, and I think the rest were from the Netherlands. They were headed back to Hohoe as well, so we shared a trotro out with them—much cheaper than our 120 cedi taxi ride on Friday night!

From Hohoe, we got a taxi driver who (we thought) agreed to drive us to the monkey sanctuary about 30 minutes away, wait while we explored, and then drive us to Ho (a city further south where we could catch a bus back to Accra) for 130 cedis. Not a bad deal, and so we set off, excited to see monkeys.

Once we arrived in Tafi, where the sanctuary is, the driver said, “Ok, Ho is very far, so you’ll have to add on to the 130.” WHAT? No. You cannot drive us to the middle of nowhere and then change the price, no. I was so pissed, I got into full on Holly Battle Mode. Two of the guides at the sanctuary, guys around our age, came out to help, and they did a wonderful job of asking us what we had been told and then reasoning with the driver. Very helpful and genuine people. Eventually, we all agreed on 150 cedis total to take us to Ho, though we still have no idea what the driver was thinking. I do NOT like being taken advantage of.

But how can you stay mad when there are MONKEYS everywhere??? The guides took us to buy bananas for the monkeys, and then made kissing noises until the monkey started coming out of the depth of the woods to the road to meet us. It was SO cool watching them swing and jump around and eye our bananas. Such cool animals. The whole time, we were just thinking how much they look like little baby humans. They are so smart, too! Ugh. Amazing.

We got to feed them bananas, which you do by holding a banana firmly in your hand with your arm outstretched in front of you. Then, a monkey will approach you and jump onto your arm/back and peel the banana and eat it. How cool is that??? So I had several monkeys crawling on me, including the alpha male. What an honor.

We learned a few interesting monkey facts, but my favorite was that at least in this monkey colony, the alpha male sings everyone to sleep at 6:30 pm each night, and sings them awake at 6:30 am each morning. I don’t usually have much use for alpha male anythings, but that’s pretty darn cute.

We said goodbye to the monkeys and the sweet guides and climbed back into our hostile taxi, in which we made it safely to Ho. Our driver tried one last time when we arrived to get more money out of us, but we shoved his 150 into his hands and got the heck away. We bought some bread, avocados, and plantain chips to hold us over for a ride to Accra, and then climbed aboard our trotro.

Our trip home was much shorter than our trip there—I think we made it back to Madina junction in about 4 hours, and then we just a had one more short trotro to Okpongolo. Not bad at all.

The whole weekend was really lovely, I am so glad we went. I felt so grounded and at peace-- being outside, eating and buying everything communally, and being with people who value the same things I do. I felt very at home.

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