A Hot Wired Car, Killer Ants, and A Night In A Tree.

Saturday /  Sunday

I started my morning with a bowl of real Kelloggs Frosted Flakes! When I went to Krobo for the beads, we did a workshop with a mother and daughter who are from the UK, but currently living in Accra. Well, they came to Cape Coast for a batik workshop, and brought an eight pack of little cereals, oreos, dorritos, chocolate chip cookies, and three NEW fashion magazines. They said that they thought we were so nice, and just wanted to do something nice for us because we were here volunteering. It was so nice of them!

Around 11:30, nine of us left to find our way to the tree house. It is in Kakum National Park, but it is on the complete opposite side than where the canopy walk is. Because there were nine of us, we had to split up into taxis to get to the tro tro station. Well, we all said that we were going to meet at Abra station, but when our taxi pulled in….we were the only obrunis to be found. So we are all just standing around waiting for the other taxi to come, and we just stand waiting….and waiting…and waiting. Finally, we decided that they must be at the taxi stop that is down the street. So we all walk to the end of the road, but once again they are nowhere to be found. At this point we are a little upset, because if you tell someone that you are going to meet them at a taxi stop….you meet them there. We think of one other station that they might be at, and we catch a taxi there. As we pull into the wrong station again, we get a call from one of the girls from the other taxi. We ask where they are, and she says “Oh we are here!” Well, come to find out “here” means that they are at the next tro stop 45 minutes away. So, apparently when their driver was taking them to the location where we were all told to meet, they realized that this was the wrong stop. Rather than just going with the plan, they decided to just go on with the directions, and leave us completely clueless as to where we were going. 

Eventually, we get to a spot where we can catch a tro to the next location, and when we get there we were told to look for a man in a Gucci shirt, and he would take us to the site. We pull into the station, and have very little faith that there is going to be someone there to take us to the next location, but sure enough as soon as we step out of the tro, Gucci came running towards us. We got into his taxi….that was literally about to fall apart, both on the inside and outside. I wanted to take a photo of it soooo bad, but my camera is just so obvious, so I think one of the girls in the back got a shot of what it was like. So, the driver gets into the car, and I am trying to roll down the window because the smell of gas is so overwhelming, that I think I am going to throw up, and he twists two wires together, and off we go. The ride was jerky, due to the fact the car was going to die at any second, but then we hit the dirt road, and it was a whole different story. We were weaving from one side of the road to another to try to avoid the giant craters. This ride took about an hour, and we just kept going deeper and deeper into the jungle. I just kept thinking that if something happened to us, nobody would ever find us out there.

FINALLY, we make it to a small village, and we try to get out of the car, but because there are no handles on the inside of the doors, we have to wait until he opens them up. I take a huge breath of fresh air, and we meet up with the others. We get a small tour of the village, where I held a baby goat, and then we went back to the main area for dinner. We had rice with red sauce and yams.  At this point it was only 3:30 in the afternoon, but after the crazy morning, it felt like it was 10:00.  After we finished eating, it was time for the two hour hike to the tree house. None of us really knew what we were getting ourselves into, we just read in the travel book that you can sleep in the tree house, and thought why not?

In case you didn’t know, it is rainy season here. The hike to the tree house was deadly. The ground was so wet and muddy and slippery, we were sliding all over the place. When we weren’t sliding, we were trying to avoid huge puddles, and then we met the ants. The man leading us out to the tree house said, ohhh the ants are very bad right here, walk fast. We didn’t think much of it, and started walking faster, but then we felt the horrible burn and sting of these army ants. They were all over our feet, and we couldn’t just brush them off, we had to literally bend down and pull them off of our bodies.

Once we were in the clear from the ants, we stopped and he pulled a cocoa pod down from one of the trees, and we had a little snack. The cocoa is so slippery, and it tastes like a sour popsicle. You just suck on the flesh, and spit out the bean.

As we continued to walk through the jungle, we eventually were not even on a path, and we were just climbing over fallen trees and jumping over puddles. Every-so-often we would hear someone yell ANTS! And we would all start walking really fast doing high knees, so that they could not get onto our feet. Yeah….just picture 9 people walking through jungle doing high knees in a single file line. It was quite walk. At some points I felt like it was a Disney attraction or something. All of those plants just did not seem real to me. 

Two hours later we made it to the tree house. It was literally a platform build around the tree with a tin roof and bars around the edges. We climbed up the looooong ladder, and at that moment I decided that I was not going back down that ladder until morning. I took a quick sip of water to swallow my malaria pill, and then I put the water away. It was dark shortly after we all got up the tree, so we settled into our spots for the night. My spot consisted of a beach towel and a sheet. Once we were all settled in, we basically had a sleepover, and we busted out all our snacks and passed them around. Then of course we tried to tell some ghost stories, but they were the kind of stories you would tell in 4^th grade, so they made us laugh more than anything.

The animals were so loud all night long. I kept thinking of those noise machines that some people fall asleep to, that are sounds of the rain forest. I think that it would be pretty annoying to fall asleep to all that noise every night, but that’s just me. Monkeys are so loud and I swear they just scream for fun! I didn’t get much sleep, because there were 9 of us crammed into a small small platform. We basically had an inner circle of sleepers, and an outer circle. Somehow I was stuck on the outer circle, and ended up practically smashed against the edge of the railing. I started out really hot, but as the night went on, I got colder and colder and colder. To add to my suffering, I had limited space to move, or stretch, or sleep. I think I slept for maybe a total of 2 hours, and when I woke up in the morning I felt like I was 90. My bones were hurting from the cold, and from sleeping on a board. Come to find out, none of us were sleeping, and as soon as it was light outside we all started laughing at how horrible sleeping was.

We packed up, and climbed back down the ladder, and finally I was able to pee! We had a longer hike back because we stopped to learn about the different trees and plants that are in the forest.  My feet were absolutely killing me by the time we got back to the village this morning, and my shoes were wet from all of the mud, and there is a rip in the toe of my TOMS.

When we got back to the village, they gave us breakfast, of eggs, toast and tea. It was so good. People in Ghana know how to make their eggs! Two taxis were sent to come for us after breakfast, but of course only one of them came on time.  I waited around for the second taxi, because I was not in any rush. Eventually he came, and it was a much nicer ride than the one I took to get into the village. 

Once we made it back to Elmina, we were all so tired. We went to the pool for a little bit, but there were some strange characters hanging out. I dont know if these girls were drunk or what, but one threw a glass of beer at some guy, and then of course it broke into a million pieces all over the cement. Then they were just being annoying, so we just went back to the house and hung out until dinner. 

Ok, I think thats all for the tree house. If I think of anything else I will post it tomorrow.  I know it sounds like it was a nightmare of an adventure, but it was so cool sleeping up in the trees!

peace. love. trees.