Our last trip of course!
Danielle, Mckell, and I set out to sleep in the Tree-platforms in Kakum National Park. You do not go to Kakum National Park though, the first issue we had since we went there the first time we tried.
Our second try was to the correct location, the Mosomongor village. This requires a trotro out of Cape Coast to Foso, but you alight at Fanti-Noyrkomasi. From there you get a share taxi (with 4 people in the back, 2 in the front, and the driver) to the village. This ride is down a series of old red dirt roads lined with potholes and ditches. It also takes 2 hours to traverse.
This would have been normal, but luck was not with us. We drove into a bank of storm clouds, which resulted in a down pour. We ended up taking on 4 more passengers who all climbed into the trunk of our taxi. We then got stuck 3 times.
The first was in a detour around a cement blockade of the road (no idea why it was there...) So you drive off to the side on some tree branches, which of course sunk into the mud and resulted in us being unable to move. Some of the passengers got out and pushed, although they would not let us help.
We got moving again, but now encountered a hill. The road at this point had a small river running directly across it, which the car did not want to traverse. It instead slide to the side and got stuck in the gutter. This was much more difficult to get out of. We had to slide back down the hill while lifting the car out of the gutter and avoiding the river. It took 2 tries to get out and then 2 more attempts to actually get up the hill.
The final location was the last hill before the town. This was a lot of wheel spinning and required some pushing, but we managed to get out rather quickly. Of course, as we made it to the top of the hill the rain stopped and everything was back to normal.
We therefore arrived in the town by 4pm. Yet upon our arrival, there was no one there for the tree platforms. We inquired where to go and one of the locals took us to the school, which is were the guesthouse is located. We then met Samuel, the community tour guide. He explained that you need 2 guides to enter the forest. A community tour guide and a forest guide (the one with a gun). Samuel also explained the manager of the program was out traveling as were 5 of the 7 forest guides. We told him that we wanted to go in this evening and had been trying to call all week to make an appointment without success. (We were informed that the numbers had changed and he gave us a new one for next time.) We meet the 2 forest guides who were still in town and the first said he would not go because was sick and the second said he would not go because it rained...
Its a rain forest... ?... Yeah...
So we then decided to return to town that evening because we had to be back in town by 10 to do a beach clean-up and there was no point in paying 30 cedis to sleep in a guesthouse just to leave as early as possible. This however required that we wait for the last taxi of the evening to come and then drive us back to town. We played with some of the school kids while we waited for the 2 hours.
Our ride back was just as good as getting there. We started out fine (with 8 people piled into a tiny little car with no trunk so we had to hold all our bags) and made it to the point with the cement block before we got stuck again. So we got stuck and the car stalled and the headlights went out. We were informed that the driver was an electrician and would have it fixed in no time. After 30 minutes of tinkering without success, we set off again with no headlights in the middle of the dark tropical jungle on a pot-hole ridden red dirt road...
The solution to this was that the right-most passenger held a flashlight out the window so that we could see the holes and the other cars could see us. It was insane! We were convinced that something would happen, but we got back to Fanti Noyrkomasi in one piece. The longer we reflected the more hilarious the whole situation became...
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| This is the ancient flashlight they were using... Image from flashlightmuseum.com |
We then got a tro to Cape with the help of one of the other passengers. We were told by a local that we could stay at her house if the tro did not come, and her daughter gave me a huge hug! She was so cute!
The tro ride back was relatively normal and fast since we were back in Cape by 9. The whole trip seemed like it took forever though and was crazy!!!!
We did not get to sleep on the platforms again... So third time is the charm! (We hope...)
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