Last weekend was a full and total exercise in Things Not Going to Plan. J and I resolved ourselves to be content nevertheless - and we succeeded.
The Plan:
Spend a long weekend away doing a couple of touristy activities, relaxing in a chill hotel at night run by rastafarians.
Leave early Friday morning; take public transport to the hotel near to Hohoe, about a 4-hour ride away. Possibly have enough time to hit the lower part of Wli Falls during the day.
Wake up EARLY Saturday to see the monkeys at Tafi Atome monkey sanctuary. Then maybe to Wli Falls, or maybe back to the rasta pad to chill.
Sunday: wake up early if we didn't do so Saturday, and see the monkeys. Return to Accra on public transportation so J can catch his flight at 8:15 Sunday evening.
First. We tripped a fuse in our house at 7:30 in the morning when I shorted out the electric kettle. There was water in the wrong place on that one. We checked every fuse we knew in the house and downstairs from the mains. Thinking this could take a long time to figure out, I called the hotel to cancel our booking. Eventually we had to call the landlady, who had to call in an electrician - who came an hour later, unlocked a separate part of the house and flipped on the fuse easily. If only we - or the guards - had known there was yet another set of controls in yet another locked part of our building, we'd easily have been able to save that time.
It's 10:30 and we decide we can juuust make it before dark. I call the hotel again to un-cancel and we head out the door. Catch a taxi to Madina, where there's a station for departing tro-tros to such destinations as Koforidua, Kumasi and Hohoe. The taxi took 30 or 40 minutes; it was two hours before we were in a tro-tro.
It's 1:00 PM and we decide that if no car has come by 1:30, there's no way we can make it to the place in time. Ten minutes later, our car comes. On the way we sit next to a nice woman who shares some of her snacks with us - white kenkey, which must not be fermented, tastes like solidified grits and is served in a corn husk - with salt, I think. Not half bad! We also stop on the way for some freshly boiled corn cobs, dunked in coconut water and wrapped in a plastic bag. The cobs are so young, they've still got tender baby-corn tips. Corn is back in season! Mangoes are ripening on the trees. I've never seen a mango tree so loaded with huge fruits as I did on this ride. Can't wait. They'll definitely be ripe by the time we get back from our Christmas & New Year's vacation in Germany.
It's a 2 1/2-hour ride to Peki, which we think will be a little town near Hohoe. Peki turns out to be a couple of buildings in the middle of nowhere. But the people at Roots are really nice, the food's ital (vegan menu) and we have a nice time chatting with the parents of the lady of the house - who are here on their annual visit and are farmers back in the UK. Another of their daughters runs Green Turtle Lodge, which is a buzzword in expat circles around here. Thanks to the in-house book swap shelf, I spend a couple hours reacquainting myself with
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which I haven't traipsed around in since high school. J finds a book on happiness coauthored by HH the Dalai Lama.
It's chilly in the mountains! Our bed is provided with only a sheet. I wake up freezing in the middle of the night, and as a blanket I grab the towel which I turned back to fetch as we were leaving home.
Saturday morning was not for the monkeys. We decide to have breakfast and head to Hohoe, to get a taxi to Wli Falls. We know this should be a five-hour hike so we start waiting for cars around 9:15. Many cars pass; all are full. Finally around 10 one stops to let us on.
Half an hour later, we thought we'd already be in Hohoe. we have no phone reception and thus no idea where we actually are.
An hour into the car ride, we pass Tafi Atome, the monkey sanctuary. J gets phone reception and realizes we're halfway to Hohoe.
So much for a half-hour bus trip. We also decide that we can't do the monkeys on Sunday, either - waiting for a tro-tro, traveling an hour to the monkeys, seeing them, traveling an hour back to the lodge, then waiting for another tro-tro back - when J wants to be back in Accra by 3 or 4 latest.
Some time after that we pass the scene of a horrific head-on car accident. A body has been lain facedown on the side of the road and from the shoulders up is covered with leaves. As we pass, many of the passengers on our car whistle quietly or cluck their tongues. What a shame, they are saying. How horrible. I can't begin to think about it - but I do. And then I start freaking out about mortality, and realize exactly why people cling to God. It's very comforting to me to think there's something bigger out there which decides (or has already decided) my time to go - and that my time isn't now. Reassuring myself that my time isn't now, even though we are seated in the front seat and probably most likely to be injured in the case of an accident, I am able to reassess the day's plan with J.
Arriving in Hohoe at noon, with darkness falling around 6 PM, there is no way we can do the full five-hour waterfall hike. Even the lower falls, which are an hour's hike, would be a big stretch. Do the math: arrive at the falls at 1, hike there and back until 3, drive back to Hohoe and arrive at 4, then we'd be pushing 6 to get back to Peki if the tro-tro left the instant we got in. And that doesn't include any time for lunch.
So we resolve to hang around Hohoe and lament not having brought the travel guide this once for guidance on where to eat. We see a sign for the Hotel Geduld (German for "patience") and take it as a sign.
Lunch is tasty. As we sit down to eat, the carabiner lid of my water bottle shears off and breaks. There's a hole left in the lid so I can't keep any water in that bottle any more. And my touch phone's keyboard program realizes there's an update available and
won't let me type until I install it. which I can't do without an internet connection. Which means no Swyping for the next 24-plus hours.
The owner of the Geduld advises us to check out the festival that's going on this weekend, so we dutifully trek over there, planning to get out of town around 3. We park ourselves tantalizingly at the edge of a shade tent and watch the speeches, performances, and attending local chiefs under festive umbrellas. In some ways boring, but in other ways fascinating people-watching.
15 minutes in, J realizes some chocolate has melted all over the inside of his backpack. When I bend to help him wipe it with my handkerchief, we are both distracted and someone snatches my point-and-shoot camera from his pocket.
He'd been borrowing mine until Christmas, when he'll pick up a replacement for the one which was stolen in South Africa in September.
We head for home. I've been shaken so many times this day and haven't gotten to - and won't get to - see anything I hoped for.
J says he's having a nice weekend, anyway, spending the time together despite every setback.
We get into the tro-tro at 3 and are assured it's leaving "right now."
It leaves at 4. We reach Roots half an hour before nightfall.
Back at Roots, we make the most of the relaxation. J reads that people tend to return to a baseline level of happiness no matter what.
We have plantain chips and guacamole, then deliciously spiced tofu kebabs on top of garden egg (eggplant's cousin) stew. We're given a second and third sheet for the bed; the third one turns out to be a tablecloth. Roots's Head Man realizes that they should think about offering blankets when the weather turns chilly.
Overnight we are toasty under our sheets and tablecloth. In the morning we eat toast with peanut butter and honey (him) and scrambled tofu (me), washed down with a spicy soy-milk chai, and begin the wait for a car back.
Inside Accra, tro-tros will smush four passengers to a row of seats - which is the closest you can get and remain marginally comfortable, not to mention legal. On every other ride this trip we lucked out with three to a row. The car that stopped for us has already got that. J squishes in as the fourth in a row, and so do I - so the mate (fare taker and signaler to the driver of when to stop) wedges my knees between his legs and rides backwards sitting on a ledge. And we get pulled over at a police checkpoint. The mate is berated, within earshot and in English, about the impression they are making on "those foreigners" - that Ghanaians are ignorant or lazy. I have never had that impression from a packed tro-tro! I can only assume these guys dashed the policeman (out of the foreigners' sight, clearly) and headed out.
The route ends in Kpong, where there's a big station for tro-tros and we are able to catch a car to Accra.
From there it's a hot ride that's over soon enough with the help of a nap. We get out at MaxMart and do some shopping, and arrive home at 2 PM.
A quick taxi ride brings us to a late Sunday lunch at Mamma Mia's with cold Peronis for hot obronis, fresh pizza with zero waiting time, and a calmer outlook on life than has been had all weekend.
I'm proud of us for rolling with the punches. I'm disappointed that Roots booked itself as "convenient" to Hohoe, Wli Falls or Tafi Atome - it's not, and especially not without a car. I'm disappointed we'll have to cover all that ground over again when we actually do have a chance, better-informed this time, to do the falls and the monkeys.
Still, maybe we can make a bigger trip of it and visit the Cedi Bead Annex on the way, plus the pottery maker in Kpando and an Ewe kente village. Maybe we can do all that on a longer trip. And I did have a nice stay at Roots itself. Next time, we just need some blankets - and different expectations.
I have a quotation framed in my room back home (at Mom 'n Dad's) which reads: "Most things in life can be summed up as a good time, or a good story."
Hope this story has kept you entertained, at the least.
