Sweat

04.30. Meet the Ghana Mountaineers at Accra Mall. Security guard looks very confused at why we are all here, in shorts. Andrew and Christie fail to look suitably guilty for suggesting a Three Peaks Challenge and getting us all up at this unsociable hour.

05.36. At the base of Krobo. Sun just coming up. Feeling fit and ready to whizz up my favourite hill in Ghana.

 

06.13. A quick ascent to the summit, 345m. No time for fussing about or admiring the view – there’s a record to be beaten.

06.49. Back down, and into the cars to Iogaga.

07.20. At the base of Iogaga, with some crazy parking to cut off a few metres of walking. Does this incur a time penalty?

 

08.22. At the top, 436m. Had forgotten how steep Iogaga is, and how tall the grass gets. Bit longer at the summit, so time for breakfast. Mike sleeps off last night’s beers with the Accra Hash. Andrew also catches 40 winks, a bit rich given this was his idea.

09.31. Back at the cars. Two down, one to go.

10.25. At Osoduko. Long drive not ideal for stiff legs, but boots back on and a nice easy track to start with.

11.20. Hmm, summit not getting any nearer. Path seems to keep twisting round.

11.22. Focus on catching up with Stephen, just a few metres ahead. Maybe I can speed past him, annoy him a bit.

11.23. Maybe not.

11.25. Murderous thoughts about Andrew and Christie, whose idea this nonsense was.

11.26. Murderous thoughts about Kevin, who dreamed up the Ghana Three Peaks after reading about the UK version. Shame he didn’t read about a teashop and set up one of those instead.

11.29. Cycle of excuses about why I am struggling so much: combined, the three hills equal a Munro; it’s hot; I have bad knees; I am getting old. Realise deep down the answer might lie in the collection of empty beer bottles at home.

11.30. The top. 424m. Who cares? Want to sleep.

12.34. Down again, via a diversion through the village having got lost. Mike back first. He always speeds up when it gets close to time for beers. Those few minutes have crucially cost us a record-breaking effort, slower than the January trip by one minute. Bah.

12.45. Stone Lodge. The hardest-earned – and best-tasting – Star of the year.

Total ascent: 1052m

Total time: 5 hrs 33 mins

Total distance: 17.15 kms

Nine participants, nine finishers.

Well done everyone (and goodbye Andrew and Christie!)

Coffins

Accra has its charms, but they are somewhat limited. After a few weeks stuck in the city, Hannah and I had tired of traffic jams, dust, and men pissing by the side of the road. It was time to escape for the day. The question was: where?

Bojo Beach is our usual fall back option, but the gathering clouds suggested it wasn’t a day for sunbathing. We picked up our Bradt guide, and headed to Deli France to mull the options over a cappuccino and croissant (good cafés are one of the city’s charms).

Hannah was in favour of a hotel pool but I persuaded her we should do something a little more cultural. So we decided to head to see the coffin workshop in Teshie, a small town wedged between Accra and Tema. Not an obvious day out, but these coffins, carved into curious and quirky shapes, have become something of an attraction. The guidebooks sell it as a chance to see one of Ghana’s artisan handicrafts being made. The guidebooks are wrong.

Our taxi driver promised that he knew where the workshop was. He didn’t. All we knew was that it was near Coco Beach, Teshie’s own stretch of plastic-bag-and condom-covered sand. It wasn’t. The Ramada Hotel was, however, so we decided to go for a swim first.

The Ramada Hotel’s pool was refreshingly quiet after the ones in Accra, where the poolside is overrun with men looking like James Bond villains and women showing off how good their surgeons are. And the heat in Ghana, even on a cloudy day, makes any pool a welcome refuge.

Two hours later, we headed out to try to find the coffin shop on the way back. The drivers gathered opposite hissed to get our attention. We picked the one nearest and asked him if he knew how to get to the coffin shop.

“Yes, I know it. 15 cedis.”

“No, it’s just 5 minutes away. 3 cedis.”

“No my friend, Labone coffee shop, 15 cedis.”

“Ah no, we said cof-FIN.”

“Yes, yes, 15 cedis.”

“No, cof-FIN – where you put dead people”.

“I know it, the one in Labone.”

We actually spotted the workshop as we drove and quickly asked the driver to stop. Inside were four coffins – a fish, two coke bottles, and one Guinness bottle – and a dusty, deserted workshop with a courtyard behind. I asked the man sat by the door if we could see where they make the coffins.

“They make them here. 10 cedis to look. Each.”

“But I can see them from here.”

“10 cedis to look around.”

I muttered a colloquial take on ‘forget this’, and we headed off, away from two laughing Ghanaians and Africa’s crappest tourist attraction. Teshie has few other sights except rubbish pits, sewers and straggly goats, so we jumped into the next taxi and sped back to Accra. Which at least has good coffee shops, albeit some that apparently store corpses. 

* I wasn't in the mood for taking photos, but you can see the coffins here: http://easytrackghana.com/destinations-ghana/coffins-ghana.html

Taxis

It’s rare to walk more than a few metres in Accra without hearing a toot of the horn, followed by the questioning upturned hand from the window and the familiar call: “Where are you going?”

Taxis are everywhere in the city, and obronis are their preferred (i.e. inflated) fare. Drivers can spot you a mile off, and it’s not uncommon for one whizzing past to slam on the brakes and reverse – at full speed, dodging potholes and pedestrians – back towards you.

If you don’t want a taxi, the next bit is a test of nerve; like James Bond bidding for a Faberge egg, even the slightest eyebrow movement or flick of a hand is treated as interest. A clear shake of the head usually works, but it needs to be definite, as these guys are persistent; even when you are stepping out of a taxi at your destination, another driver going past will still give it a try, just in case you are spending the day in different taxis, just for the fun of it.

If you do need one, then next comes the negotiation. As a general rule, taxi drivers don’t know where anything is, but always know how much it costs to get there. To haggle, knock off around 40% of the quoted price; they will usually then agree to split the difference. And then off you go into the traffic jams of Accra.

It all sounds like a bit of a hassle, but in a country where customer service is mostly a vacant stare in response any request for assistance, the idea that someone wants to help you is quite welcome. They may drive too fast, ignore traffic signals, and happily fleece white people, but when it comes to providing a friendly service, Accra’s taxi drivers stand out.

Elephants

It takes five minutes to drive from the entrance of Mole National Park to the Mole Motel. In that time, we saw six elephants cross the track, followed by three kob antelope; a baboon eating a banana at the roadside; and a family of warthogs scurrying ahead of us. Not a bad start to our safari.

And we didn’t have to wait long for our next encounter. As we were unpacking, the manager knocked at the door. “One of the elephants is feeding behind the pool; I thought you might like to see him.”

 

Mole, which covers nearly 5000 km² of northwest Ghana, is the country’s largest wildlife sanctuary. It lacks the species diversity and numbers found in east and southern Africa, but people make the arduous journey along the heavily rutted dirt road from Tamale for the chance to get close to wildlife. The focus here is walking safaris, and the chance to admire animals from a few metres’ distance – a welcome change for anyone who has spent time jostling for camera positions in a crowded truck. It’s cheap, too; a two-hour walking safari costs just 9 Ghana cedis – around £3.

I had high hopes for the walking safari the next morning. Tourists waited outside the park headquarters at 7.00am as the senior guide put us into groups. This involved much indecision and head scratching on his part; clearly sorting random tourists into walking groups is a task not taken lightly. Finally he was happy and off we went with Adam, our allocated guide.

Adam was an enthusiastic guide and took his job seriously. His uniform was freshly pressed and he was keen to explain all aspects of the wildlife to us. Our first encounter was with a large group of warthogs scuffling around the staff village, near the motel. These normally shy animals have become accustomed to humans, and compete with baboons for scraps from rubbish piles. He told us the Latin name of warthogs and baboons, having spent two years learning these and keen to show off (Phacochoerus africanus and Papio anubis, for the record). As he talked, a flash of sky blue in the bushes caught my eye: an Abyssinian roller, a strikingly beautiful bird.

 

We continued slowly through the scrubby forest of baobab, shea nut and dawadawa trees. Adam did his best to interest us in the different aspects of Mole’s Guinea Savannah ecosystem, but everyone was really waiting to see the star attraction – the herds of elephants that roam the park.

At 8.00am, we sat in a wildlife hide on the edge of one of the water holes near the motel, scanning the horizon for movement. After 15 minutes, Lilly, our friend visiting from Germany, spotted them: three males emerging from the trees and heading for the water. Just behind came seven more. “The patriarch herd,” said Adam, clearly enjoying our excitement at seeing these mesmerising creatures.

Our group watched the herd’s morning routine. First a dust bath, then some skin care as the elephants stamped a hole in the ground and added water to form a mudpack, which was then sprayed liberally on their huge backs. And, after a brief standoff with the Nile crocodiles on the bank, a long soak in the pool. The group cooled themselves off with several trunkfuls of water, while the youngest member – a 15-year-old that had recently joined this all-male group – played on their backs, sliding about while the others patiently indulged him. Egrets and francolins in the reeds nearby completed the scene.

A furious rustling in the nearby bushes distracted us. A loud splash, then we saw a male waterbuck swimming across the pond. Its competitor remained hidden from view. Adam explained how the males fight for territory as the beast swam gracefully across the water, posing perfectly for pictures as it escaped on the far side. A bleeding haunch suggested he had lost the fight, but despite the wound he managed to trot away into the scrub.

At this point in most safaris, the trucks would speed away in convoy to search for the next animal. But Mole is different; we headed around the watering hole for a closer look at the elephants. Adam either ignored or failed to hear the questions about exactly where the bask of crocodiles had gone, and led us to within 10 metres of the one elephant that had declined a swim. This was People’s Friend II, identified by his missing tusk and a hole in his left ear. (People’s Friend I had passed away a few years earlier.) He was the guides’ favourite, being gentler than the rest of his herd.

 

Adam was very knowledgeable and elephant facts were a speciality. He would repeat one of his animal facts if he thought anyone hadn’t been listening, so we learned – three times – that, contrary to popular perception, elephants are actually black and their familiar grey colouring comes from their regular dust baths. As we returned back to the headquarters, we saw several kob antelope – and did you know, you will only ever find male kob on their own or with a female group, never in a group of males.

After the morning safari, everyone congregated at the motel pool or the nearby viewing platform. Situated on top of a rocky bluff above the watering holes, this was the perfect spot for watching the daily activities of the animals below. The elephants splashed about for another hour, before trudging off into the scrub, and the kob arrived in the droves for a cool down. The hours passed quickly at this tranquil spot, especially with a cold Star beer to hand, one of Ghana’s many fine brews.

The only disturbance to the tranquillity was the need to order lunch. This was not sound a major challenge, but in reality involves going through the motel’s extensive menu until you find something the kitchen actually has in stock. This lack of convenience is a reminder that Mole is pretty much in the middle of nowhere – in a rural part of northwest Ghana, over three hours from Tamale, the major town in the north. No option to pop out to the local shop for extra cheese.

During the morning walk, Adam had twice mentioned the option of a driving safari in the afternoon (in Ghana, this counts as a hard sell). We decided to go for it – only 50 cedi (£16) per hour, shared between a group. The Land Rover that Adam drove up in looked too small for six tourists and two guides. He quickly explained: “You all sit on the roof”. Ghanaian safaris really are a bit different.

Leopards, hyenas, hunting dogs and cervals all live in Mole National Park, but are rarely seen on safaris, which usually only explore a tiny corner of the protected area, which covers nearly 5000 km². Adam had seen only two leopards in eight years working in the park. But this lack of big predators allows some of Africa’s less iconic animals to take the limelight. We spotted bushbucks, western hartebeest, and patas and green monkeys as we toured along the dirt road, deeper into the park to the Brugbani North Plains.

Mole is also a birdwatcher’s paradise, with over 300 species recorded, and the roof of a vehicle is the perfect place from which to spot them. Violet turacos, woolly-necked storks, purple herons, and various species of bee-eater, kingfisher and hornbill swooped overhead. The highlight of the drive was the small spring near Brugbani Camp. We saw the curious hammerkops with their anvil-shaped heads, as well as jacandas, hadadas and white-faced western ducks nesting nearby.

Returning to the motel at dusk, the bar was already filling up. Tourists sipped drinks and swapped safari stories around the pool while the staff crowded around a TV showing the Champions League game. A bird watching group compared notes on the day’s sightings. It took them two hours to tick off the time, location and activity of each species, suggesting they were serious about their hobby.

Escaping the chatter, I headed back to the viewing platform for one last look across the park. The elephants were absent, but the antelope were drinking at the water hole, as the sun set behind them. Hopefully the injured waterbuck was OK; he more than anyone must be grateful for the lack of big cats. And if you don’t mind missing out on the big cats, Mole offers the most colourful – and cheapest – safari in Africa.

 

Kakum

There are two ways to experience the rainforest canopy walk at Kakum National Park. One is to arrive during the day and share it with the hordes of other visitors, many of whom are likely to be over-excited schoolchildren. The alternative is to stay overnight in a tree house and have the forest to yourself as the sun rises. We opted for the latter.

Kakum, the largest of the few remaining fragments of natural rainforest in southern Ghana, is one of the country’s leading attractions. A short distance from Cape Coast, it is a slick operation by Ghanaian standards, with a well-designed education centre and a variety of hiking and bird watching tours available.

Arriving mid-afternoon from Elmina, we were unsurprised to find our reservation for the tree house – made weeks in advance and twice confirmed – had not been written down. (I had my suspicions about the efficiency of the booking system when I first called; I had to suggest to the receptionist that she should take down my name, and maybe the date we were coming, for it to count as a booking.) But the guide on duty made a quick call to a colleague –all Kakum’s guides live in nearby villages – and he soon appeared to take us into the forest.

The tree house is only around 40 minutes from the park entrance but, as anyone who has seen the BBC documentaries of David Attenborough badgering gorillas will know, rainforests are very humid places. Despite the brief walk, we all had to wring out our T-shirts on arrival.

After a couple of hours munching biscuits and listening to the noises around us, we set off for our night hike. The hope was to see bush babies, but all we encountered were giant snails and numerous black and red millipedes, a few of which came to an unfortunate boot-induced end. Millipedes may not be the most exciting of creatures, but they do make one hell of a crunch.

Despite the lack of night creatures, the forest at night is a unique experience. We spent the night amid the cries, shrieks and howls of the residents. The tree house was remarkably comfortable, its collection of mattresses somehow surviving the humidity and mosquito nets keeping out all but the most inquisitive bugs.

We woke early and set off for the much-publicised canopy walk. It resembles an Ewok village, a series of wooden platforms linked by long and narrow rope bridges. George, our guide, explained how two Canadians suggested the project to the President in 1995, as a way to boost tourism. A good idea in one sense, but the downside was that all the people who used the forest for subsistence hunting or to collect wood were instantly evicted without consultation; “You do what the President says in Ghana”, remarked George. Some villagers, like him, were compensated with jobs in the National Park, and the walkway is a success, attracting around 1000 visitors a day.

But we were keen to avoid these hordes, and the early start did the trick. At 7am, the forest was once more alive with birdcalls and the morning mist hung about the emergent trees. Across the first two bridges I focused on exactly how well these things were constructed, with unfair and unfounded suspicions about the quality of Ghanaian engineering.

But as we reached the third viewing platform, high above the canopy layer, we got our reward for the early start. A few metres below were a troupe of Dinah monkeys. We watched for 15 minutes as they breakfasted on leaves and leapt about the branches, before disappearing from view. This magical rainforest scene felt like our own first-hand Attenborough documentary – complete with sodden T-shirts for a truly authentic experience.

Forts

Egypt has pyramids and Kenya its wildlife, but Ghana’s best-known icons – the slave forts and castles along the coast – were places of misery and suffering. Not the easiest features with which to market your country.

Given this tricky selling point, tours of these historic buildings are done extremely well. At Cape Coast castle, the most famous slave fort, the visit starts in the museum. This has artefacts from the slave trade – chains, shackles, whips, that sort of thing – as well as interesting details about all the trading that occurred in the Gold Coast.

Europeans traded in guns and powder; they would leave their goods on a beach and return to their ships. At this point the local traders would leave an amount of gold or ivory on the beach, before heading back into the forest. The Europeans would then either accept the trade, or return again and wait for more gold and ivory to be added. This wordless bargaining continued until both sides were happy and would take away the goods.

Other displays detail the extent of the slave trade. The large maps demonstrate just how many countries were involved, but the role of different African tribes, who captured slaves and sold them (usually captives from inter-tribal wars), is also fully acknowledged. The Ashanti people don’t come out of this too well, although, as a Brit, colonial slave forts are not the best places to start pointing fingers.

It is during the tour of the castle’s rooms that the grim lives of the slaves are spelled out. Our guide described each room in an understated way, without any melodrama or sensation. But much of the tour makes for uneasy listening, with the little details often the most shocking. In the windowless punishment cell, he pointed out the scratches in the stone floor, made by prisoners going mad as they were slowly starved to death for the most trivial of disobediences. In the male slave holding room, he showed us a line about two feet up the wall; this marked the level of human excrement that had built up during its period of use, discovered as archaeologists dug out what they thought was the floor when excavating the cell.

Our guide at the Castle of St George in Elmina, which we visited the following day, had even more stories to tell. He described– four times in fact – how the courtyard by the female cells was built so that the governor, from his living quarters, could choose which women to take to his bed. He then showed us where the women were made to wash before entering, and even the steps they used up to the bedroom. Judging by the detail, this was his favourite bit of the tour.

More sobering was the Dutch church, built directly over the slave cells, from where both groups would have heard the other during services. And perhaps the most unsettling aspect of the tour was the two punishment cells near the main gate. The cell for soldiers, whose usual crime was coming in drunk, had windows for air. The cell next door had no windows; this was for slaves, who were locked in there to suffocate in the intense heat.

We made a quick tour to Fort St Jago in the centre of Elmina – worth the climb uphill for the opportunity to explore a castle without any guides or other tourists – before exploring one of Ghana’s most colourful coastal towns.

We stayed at the Bridge House Hotel, next to the harbour, and were woken at 5am to the sounds of fishermen preparing their nets, one man beating a rhythm on a bucket while the others sang and worked. This, along with a pungent smell of fish, provided our backdrop as we ate breakfast, accompanied with several lizards and geckos that fought for the bits of jam on toast we dropped.

Elmina’s main activities are fishing and harvesting salt from the nearby lagoon. Given its famous castle and prominence in Ghana’s coastal tourist circuit, it’s remarkable how little tourism has affected the village. It feels very different to beach resorts in Thailand or Goa, where towns seem set up solely for tourists; in Elmina, visitors are welcomed, catered for, and then largely ignored as people get on with their lives. And, as a result, Elmina is a much more interesting place to stay.

Veranda Mountain

Veranda Mountain, an inselberg lying east of the Shai Hills, is easy to find but hard to get to. We turned off from the Stone Lodge road and headed along one of the many tracks leading to isolated cattle stations. But as we got closer, we found our route blocked: by scrub along one route, impassable animal tracks along another, and finally by cattle themselves. 

It took several bouts of head scratching and even more U-turns before we found a way through. Michael and Priscilla’s skilful driving took us over a landscape of deep ruts and rocks I would never have considered crossing. Clearly growing up in southern Africa prepares you for these things in way that Wiltshire doesn’t. 

We parked, unloaded the cars and set off for the mountain. My fellow campers had described the walk up as easy going, so I had been liberal in my packing. A bottle of South African wine, a bird-watching book and novel, spare water, jellybeans, some spare food, and even sandals for the evening. It all seemed a good idea back in Accra – nothing like a few treats while out under canvas. But while Veranda Mountain is not high, it certainly is steep. And we had set off in the mid-afternoon heat.

And it's covered in dense scrub. We had discussed what kit to bring during a pre-trip drink at Roby’s Dutch pub, but not got around to deciding who would bring what. So while three of us lugged up potatoes for the campfire, no one had brought a machete to cut through the thorny branches. Slowly we picked our way, trying to find the path of least resistance. 

I can’t have been the only one wondering if it was worth the effort as we staggered to a steep rocky step near the summit, covered with treacherous dried grass. My thoughts took an unsavoury turn, contemplating whether to share the wine weighing down my rucksack or hide it in my tent until everyone was asleep. Michael’s moral dilemma must have been harder still, as he lugged up a backbreaking cool bag packed with meat for the fire.

But all negativity soon slipped away as we reached the mountain's eponymous 'veranda'. There can be few better camping spots in Ghana; a platform of flat rocks with ample room for tents, fires and sleeping bags, set off by spectacular views across to Lake Volta and the nearby hills. 

We set up camp and got the fire burning as a storm rolled in from the north. It passed between us the lake, providing a spectacular backdrop as we started grilling the assorted goods: Boerwurst, tilapia, spuds and veg, barbecued ribs, and plenty of marshmallows for the younger campers. At least the packs would be lighter on the way down.

I woke early the next morning and headed to a small clearing on the summit, just behind our campsite. The scrubby slopes below were already busy, with several White-throated Bee-eaters flitting about almost close enough to touch, and many other calls came from the scrub below, including the high-pitched call of the Black Kites high overhead. The grunt of a lone baboon also drifted over, but I couldn’t spot him. As the sun rose, Andrew’s binoculars helped us to spot Grey Hornbills, Senegal Long-tailed Parakeets and a pair of Red-headed Lovebirds. 

Further below, the residents of the cattle stations started on the long walk to church in brightly coloured dresses and shirts. The cattle made their way to the watering hole for a drink, before being herded out to the tinder-dry plains to search for nourishment. It was a vivid picture of rural Ghanaian life, and our mountainside perch was the perfect place from which to enjoy it.