clare in africa: a beautiful weekend in Ghana...

a few days away from the ship surrounded by God's awesome creation does wonders for ones heart. A visit across the border to Ghana has been long overdue. Its been something that i have wanted to do for many months, but for some reason or other have been unable to, until now! and i have fallen in love with the promised land-as ghanians call their homeland. firstly english is spoken, which is always helpful with all things communication. the level of oppression and spiritual heaviness is less evident. Ghana seems light compared to Togo, people seem freer, women wearing trousers. it is green...at least the mountainous area that we went to was lush and green - a million miles away from the concrete metal i see everyday from living in a port. the mountains and the space just soaked into my soul, putting a new leap in my step and joy in my heart.

the weekend started friday night, finally crossing the ghana/togo border about half 6 at night, then driving north 4 hours to the Hohoe district, and the Wli water heights hotel.(www.wliwaterheightshotel.com). we hiked all day saturday to the upper and lower waterfalls, with Alfonso our guide, and then took the trotro
(fit in as many people and bags as you can type of local bus/taxi) back on sunday.

what follows is a picture story of the weekend. pictures speak volumes compared to words.

scenes from the village and us walking down the main street.

it was wonderful to sit under that veranda and look out over the gardens and watch creation wake up each morning around you, to be woken in your room by natural sunlight coming in the window, so hear birdsong, to see a storm rolling in over the mountains, thunder, lightening, then wind picking up and then torrential rain like no other. to be with friends, to chat and spend quality time togther. to walk...the main purpose of the trip was to visit the Wli waterfalls, apparently the highest in west africa, in the Agumatsa wildlife sanctuary. the upper and lower cascades fall 60-80m, in two distinct falls. we chose to walk the 'loop' 7 hours hiking, up onto the top of the mountains and then down to reach the bottom of the upper fall, before walking back up a bit more and then down again to the lower falls.

setting off on our hike at 7.30am

we walked up the ridge on the right, along the plateau and then down to the upper waterfalls. that you can just about see as a speck of white just off centre above the buildings.

another view of the walk from the gate of the hotel.

what a climb!

the village that we walked from.

having a well deserved rest

where we were headed!

wishing we were there already...no more flies and heat and sweating, but cool cool waterfall water to swim in!

Clare's fly protection - our sweat smelt rather attractive to these nasty black biting flies!

where we came from-what a long climb up!

and alot of descent through the jungle too.

when we arrived at the upper falls, saturated sweaty clothes were dumped and we cooled off and splashed about in the beautifully cool water.ahhhhhh stunning!