Weekend Visits: Wli Falls, Hohoe and Tafi Atome

We loaded the STC bus at Tudu Station where we were scheduled to leave for Hohoe at 3:00pm. We were out of the station no later than 3:45pm, or what locals might call "leaving early."

STC Bus schedule at Tudu Station.

I was content with the decision to take the STC bus, Ghana's popular national transit system, as the journey ahead of us was likely to take about five hours (probably about 45 minutes sans Friday afternoon Accra traffic). The Trotro seemed to me the poorer travel option given that in Trotros my knees are always pressed into the metal frame of the seat ahead of me for the duration of the trip. Five hours was sure to leave some unattractive bruises.

The bus was comfortable and allowed for some much needed nap time. We stopped in a village along the way where the bus was swarmed by people selling food to the hungry traveller. As a vegetarian, my snack options were limited to a loaf of white bread, peanuts or Kenkey (a kind of deep fried maize meal donut treat). I opted for the granola bar I packed along with me.

Rest stop in a village with no shortage of kebabs, fried fish and other treats.

Soon enough the sun had set and the bus was pitch black. I took the opportunity to listen to some podcasts, lean my head against the window and close my eyes. An hour later I realized this was a grave mistake. Upon its stop in a village near Hohoe, the bus flicked on the lights and my eyes were met with a family of cockroaches crawling all over the window and wall that I was using as my headrest! And we're not talking like, nuclear family of cockroaches... this was like a cockroach family reunion including the extended family, uncles, aunts, 3rd cousins, nephews and nieces and their best friends, grandpa's new wife, the cousins that you are told to call "cousin" even though you aren't related etc.

*Deep breath.*

I don't think I can talk about the cockroaches anymore so I'm going to skip to the part where we arrive at Hohoe and I jump out of the bus shaking my head and flailing my limbs violently to ensure no cockroach has decided to resettle its cockroach life on my body which is officially a cockroach-free zone DIDN'T THEY GET THE MEMO? *shiver* blech.

OKAY! Let's fast forward to the next morning at Wli Falls where an ill-prepared Gabrielle was met with a 6-hour excruciatingly exhausting hike to Ghana's highest waterfall wearing BIRKENSTOCK SANDALS (thank you crappy 4th Edition Bradt Ghana Guide Book for omitting the part about Wli Falls that informs the reader that the "pleasant hike" towards the falls requires two years of intense cardio training and an ice pic)!!

Now my friends who hiked along with me may disagree as to the level of difficulty of the hike, as they arrived at the falls about 1.5 hours ahead of me. But I for one have yet to participate in a hike where I had to use my hands to climb a near-90 degree ascending mixture of dirt, rock and tree branches (I harken back to my first entry where I stated VERY CLEARLY that Zilkhas are not climbers). All this in the rain no less!

I nearly broke (both emotionally and literally) when I positioned my hand on a rock to prop myself over a fallen branch only to hear and feel a stomach-wrenching *crunch*. Flattened against my palm, with its legs sticking out in ill-formed "z"s in a tragicomic Looney Tunes kind of way, was a hard-shelled beetle the size of a small mouse. I cried out in disgust but continued along trying to forget what just happened. In the words of Doreen from Finding Nemo: "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming..."

"How much longer until the falls?" My friend Melanie, equally exhausted, asked our guide. Melanie's struggle with the hike made me feel a lot better about my own shortcomings, as she too needed breaks to keel over from a cramping stomach and a racing heart.

"We have about one hour until the falls." The guide responded, displaying no evidence of any physical exertion, not even a bead of sweat on his brow.

Breathtaking view isn't it? Not as breathtaking as the hike, I assure you.

Soon enough, the hour passed and the sound of the falls became louder and louder. Through the trees we could see that the site which once seemed much too far away to be worth it, was to become a reality.

Wli falls, from below.

I expected to find my friends in the same rough shape as me - covered in a delightful mixture of earth, mud, bugs, sweat and mist. Wrong again. I seemed to be the only one who was covered head to toe in filth.

Our guide snapped this photo in the middle of my instructions on how to use the camera "click and HOLD the - oh, I look bad in this photo don't I?" Notice the layer of dirt covering my clothes.

Given my current state of looking like Pig Pen from the Peanuts comic, jumping into the falls was the answer to my prayers. I did myself a favour and temporarily suspended the knowledge that I will have to do the very same hike all over again to return back from the falls. I simply tried to enjoy the moment. I especially enjoyed the sensation of standing under the falls as it was the closest thing I have experienced to a stand-up shower since I arrived in Ghana. Like a showerhead with a near-fatal level of water pressure!

Me forcing a triumphant smile. I have used Photoshop to removed the stink lines emanating from my body in this picture.

A friend enjoying the refreshing falls.

The hike back was met with similar challenges, though this time I was accompanied by a headache and a horrible taste in my mouth from taking a bite of the world's sweetest fruit. I have to thank my lucky stars though that my sandal broke only at the last 30 minutes of the trip - when all that remained was flat land.

Other than the sweet fruit, our guide showed us some other neat plants and vegetation including a pineapple bush/tree, coffee beans and cacao trees.

Our guide shows us the cacao beans located in the cacao pod. The white stuff tasted sweet and gooey but inside was a reddish-brown bean which provided the pallet with a faint reminder of chocolate.

Sunday brought about a completely different activity. One I have been anxiously awaiting since I was informed of its existence: the Tafi Atome Monkey Sanctuary!!

We left for the sanctuary at 6am as we were told (by that same deceptive guidebook that led me to wear Birkenstocks and skinny jeans on a 6-hour hike) that the monkeys tend only to come out in the early morning or at night. Waking up at 5:30am was early enough for us, thank you very much.

We bargained with a taxi driver until we were blue in the face to take us form our hotel in Wli to Tafi Atome (about an hour to 75 minute drive) for 25 Cedis. Upon arriving to our destination, our driver tested his luck and tried to bump the price up to 30 Cedis to which we wildly protested with the help of the Monkey Sanctuary staff. I was desperately hoping that the Monkey Sanctuary would actually be run by monkeys, with one wearing thick glasses and a visor, crunching numbers on an old fashioned calculator with a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth... alas, much to my dismay I was met with boring run of the mill HUMANS.

Our guide led us through various trails in the forest, often asking us to hang tight for a few minutes (or forty) while she went into the thick of the forest presumably to bribe the monkeys into entertaining the tourists.

An hour or so passed and all we had seen up until that moment were a couple of butterflies and some ants. We sat patiently, awaiting our guide's return. The taxi driver (who tagged along for the monkeys with the hopes of our using his service to return to Hohoe) grew impatient and told us that the guide didn't know what she was doing and we were very unlikely to see any monkeys.

Upon her return, the guide, remaining optimistic, motioned us to follow her back to the dirt road where the Monkey Sanctuary office was located. I really felt as though our chances of seeing monkeys was diminishing by the second. Even a dog at this point would have lifted my spirits.

Just as we were ready to resign ourselves to a monkeyless Sunday ("Guide, where's the closest bar?") lo and behold, we were brought to a bench underneath a tree just off the side of the main road where at least a dozen monkeys were flipping and flopping about!

The guide handed us some bananas (cliche, I know, but it really is their favourite snack) and showed us how to feed them. They were so adorable and so much fun!

Here you go little fella!

"Don't worry, you look fine! Just act natural, no don't look at the camera.... ok, tilt your chin a little to the left. Yes! That's it. Tyra would be so proud."

The king monkey or the leader of the pack, so to speak. You can't tell here but he's actually a lot bigger than the others. I told him he looks just like the actor who plays the wise old monkey doctor in The Lion King. "If I had a nickel for every time someone said that."

After running out of bananas, an hungry monkey contemplates eating a live snail. "I mean, the French do it all the time, don't they?" Kinda...

A monkey's expression after I tested my new stand up material on him. "You see it's funny because airplane food is so SMALL... get it? Whatever, I don't care for the opinion of someone who eats with their feet anyways."

Our journey home on the Trotro (no buses leave from Hohoe on Sundays) was, as predicted, painful, particularly on my back where the back of my folding seat kept digging every time we hit a bump in the road... which is all the time. Luckily it was a hell of a lot faster than the STC bus (driving at 165km/hour can speed certainly things up) and we were back in Accra by 2:30pm or so.