Friday, February 17, 2012

Monkeys, Fufu, and the Crazy Dutch Couple (Ghana Day 3)



We woke up early for breakfast and met the driver just outside of Hans Cottage.  Noah drove us to Kakum national forest.  A few people had mentioned to me before I left home that I needed to do the canopy tour while in Ghana, so that’s what we decided to spend our morning doing.  Our tour started at 10AM, so we had a half hour to walk around before it started.  We spent the time walking around the shops and seeing what they had.
There was a short walk to the start of the tour.  It was slightly uphill, but they had us take a break halfway up…  Which was maybe five minutes in.  I guess they are used to having some pretty out of shape guests.  The canopy tour was very cool.  It was set up in the trees with rope bridges and ladders.  Our group made sure to go last so we could take out time and get lots of pictures.  My only complaint is that it was over too quickly.  I would have loved to have spent more time up in the trees.
We decided not to take the guided nature walk and went back to the front area of the park.  Our walk back was a lot like a nature walk anyway, since we were walking through nature and all.
 
We set up my GoPro on a tree to get some good group shots.  Unfortunately, I ended up setting it so it took pictures upside down for the rest of the day.  I had to flip them right side up on my computer, but I think I have it set right again.  As we came out of the rainforest an SAS bus pulled up and a bunch of our classmates piled out to take the canopy tour.  We really can’t get away from these people!
                While Tracy, Caitlynn, Liz K, and I went to the museum to look around Noah, our driver, went to look for a good place for us to try fufu.  There was a shop just outside the national forest that he found and we all walked there since he said the car would be safer inside the park gates. 
Eating fufu is a lot like eating dough.  It was basically just cassava bread and yams mashed together.  You eat it with your fingers in some kind of sauce.  It came with some kind of meat, but I didn’t try that because I could quite figure out how to eat it.
                Next we visited the monkey sanctuary.  We had heard it was too expensive and not worth it, but we decided to try it anyway.  The price was cheaper than what we had thought and wasn’t too bad.  It was really interesting to see all of the animals they had.  There were a lot of monkeys and then some snakes, parrots, and several cool things that I can’t seem to remember the names of.  The owners were a Dutch couple that had been living in Ghana for the past eight years (I think) and working to rehabilitate sick monkeys.  They were very interesting to talk to.  Dennis, the owner kept referring to himself as crazy for deciding to drop his highly paid position as a chef to come down to Ghana and work with monkeys.  They talked about how they lived with absolutely no electricity, living like locals, and how much fuller their lives have become since leaving their old lives behind.
                After we left the monkey sanctuary we planned just to head straight back to Hans Cottage, but ended up stopping on the side of the road to watch a family working to extract palm oil from palm nuts.  They seemed to think we were insane for stopping to watch them, but they didn’t seem to mind.  Back at the Cottage we went for a swim, talked about our plans, and got cleaned up.  The internet had broken down once again, so I wasn’t able to email anyone like I had hoped.
                Dinner was amazing!  I had grilled lobster, and someone else had groundnut soup.  While we were sitting at dinner we listened to some man trying to scam a woman at the table over from us.  Despite the fact that the internet had been out for several hours, he had a website pulled up on his computer and was trying to get her to give him money for some schools.  We would have stepped in and said something if it had gone any further, but the lady seemed to figure it out pretty fast.
                We watched one episode of Doctor Who before heading to bed.
                Here’s one interesting fact about Ghana!  In Ghana the day of the week you are born on is very important and people often use it as their names.  I was born on Wednesday, but I can’t quite remember what the name is.  You can probably Google it and figure it out pretty easily!

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