am enjoying a restful day today after what was
a hectic week. slept 12 hours last night, which i rarely am able to do anymore unless my body is really tired...
last week i signed up to go on a saturday group trip to boti falls, which are some waterfalls about an hour north of tema. so yesterday morning about twenty of us piled into the land rovers and took off, anticipating a nice day of relaxing/reading/swimming. about halfway there we were reading through the description of boti falls in the guidebook, the last sentence of which said something like, "Boti falls is usually a serene place, except for on the 1st of July holiday each year, when thousands of Ghanaians converge to celebrate at this sacred site." someone was like, "ummmm...isn't today july 1?" so of course out of the 365 possible days we could visit the typically-serene falls, we happened to choose the one crazy one. although our mental pictures of nice quiet relaxation were disrupted, we quickly switched gears and looked forward to getting to participate in a holiday celebration.
the area around boti was jammed with tour buses and parked cars...after making our way through the crowds and paying a holiday-rate of 30,000 cedi (about $3.50) to get in the park, we found that the guide book was indeed correct: a huge celebration with loud music, food/drink vendors, dancing, picnics, etc. it was pretty neat to see...the only downside was that the area around the falls themselves was really crowded (with lots of litter) so it was hard to appreciate the natural beauty of the area.
on the road to boti we had spotted a
sign pointing to "akaa falls"...we had no clue what they were like but after fighting crowds for two hours at boti we decided to go check them out. turned out to be a great decision, as the area was both beautiful and much more serene. several people in the group swam and climbed back behind the falls. the hike there was also pretty...almost felt like i was in red river gorge. by the end of our time there we had attracted a huge crowd of children from a nearby village who seemed to take humor in seeing the crazy white people splash around in the water.
my favorite part of the day was probably the
drive...getting out of the city and seeing the african countryside was really cool. we passed through lots of little villages with mud huts and thatched roofs. the people on the side of the road always waved and smiled at us as we passed by...it almost felt like we were local celebrities or something. the countryside was also beautiful...we drove over several large hills/small mountains with gorgeous views from the top of them. it was more similar to what i pictured africa to be like...tema is great but more of an urban area. unfortunately i didn't get any good pictures of the countryside because we were driving so fast and the roads were bumpy. hopefully i'll get back there again later when i can get some good shots.
top pic here is of food vendors (one lady selling hard boiled eggs, the other a local bread/onion dish) at the boti falls site. the second is on the hike leading up to akaa falls. the third is of akaa falls and the fourth is our crowd of curious onlookers.
back to work at the dental clinic
tomorrow. i've added a link on the left of a really cool blog that a photojournalist did earlier this year while he was on the anastasis in liberia. it has pictures on it of patients with conditions similar to what i saw at screening day here in ghana.
# posted by Jenn @ 11:01 AM