Volta Region

I had an amazing weekend! We left early Saturday morning about 7am to go to the Volta Region. We took a trotro all the way there, and it was a four hour bumpy, hot, very uncomfortable ride. Once we got to Hohoe, we took a taxi to the Wli Waterfalls because trotros don’t go there. It was about a 20 min hike on a nice trail to make it to the waterfall. The waterfall was beautiful! It was interesting because there were bats all along the cliffs. And the water was very cold so I didn’t go in.

Once we were done at the waterfall we needed to get transportation back to Hohoe in order to get to the monkey sanctuary. After waiting for about a half hour for transportation a pickup truck offered to give us a ride. The man driving worked with an NGO that a young couple from Denmark were volunteering at. He was transporting them while they visited the the Waterfalls and the monkey sanctuary. So we road in the back of the pick up truck all the way to the Monkey sanctuary. It was great! The breeze was exactly what I needed to cool off. Even though it was a little bumpy, and I got a bruise on my back from hitting the side of the truck bed, it was still better than a trotro ride. The best part was it was free!

The monkey sanctuary has guest rooms that you can stay in. We got a three bedroom, nice cozy hut. And the bathrooms were outside, but flushable, well sort of, you had to fill the toilet with a bucket of water in order to flush it. We paid 20 cedi to stay there, which is about 12 American dollars and they fed us both dinner and breakfast. And the best part of it all was we got to feed the monkeys!

We got up early on Sunday morning at 6am because it is still cool out at that time and the monkeys are active. The monkeys are Monee monkeys and the biggest monkey in the group is the leader and called the commander. They were so friendly! They were on our shoulders even before the bananas were out. They were fairly aggressive when it came to bananas. You had to hold on to it tight or else they were grab it and go. It was really amazing because they would hop up on your shoulder and just hang out. It was the best part of the whole weekend. Oh! And there was a momma monkey holding onto to a baby. It was so cute! 

After we had breakfast at the monkey sanctuary, which was rice porridge, we left and headed back to Hohoe. Once in Hohoe we were able to get a taxi to Afadajo, we had to pay the taxi to take us there, wait for us, and then take us back to Hohoe in order to get a trotro back to Accra. It only cost 40 cedi, which was about 8 cedi each between the five of us, which I felt was a good deal. It was pretty funny too because our taxi driver ended up climbing to the top with us. Oh I didn’t even mention, Afadajo is the largest mountain in Ghana!! It is only about 885 meters above sea level, and was basically just a big bluff. The view from the top was wonderful though! I wish it wasn’t hamatan because it ruined the view a little bit. The hamatan is what they call the weather when a big dust covers Ghana during the dry season. I bet you could see for miles when it isn’t hamatan and that the trees are even greener than they were.

We finally got back to Accra at 8pm on Sunday night. The ride home was a lot longer than the ride there, it took about 6 hours to get back. All and all it was a great weekend! It is amazing how much you can do for so little here. The weekend cost me 70 cedi which is about 50 American dollars. But the memories made were priceless.