Koforidua and Agomanya

Did some more spontaneous traveling this past weekend. I honestly wasn't planning on taking very many weekend trips while I'm here, but I'm glad that I've been taking advantage of the opportunity. I always have so much fun when I'm out finding new places to go instead of sitting around ISH for the weekend and going to Accra all the time. My friends Zoe, Chekwube, and I decided on Thursday night to head to the eastern region on Friday morning. So we took a trotro to Koforidua, a small city about 2 hours north of Accra. From there we took another trotro to a place called Boti falls. Only to find out that the falls were dried up. But we decided that since we had gone all that way, we just went on a hike instead. (It was much less intense than the one at Wli, so no worries.) We hiked up to a place called Umbrella Rock, which was this big rock perched precariously on this smaller rock. I didn't get a good picture of it, but here's me standing on top of it:

And then there was a weird palm tree about a three minute walk from there. It had three trunks coming out of one, and legend was that any woman who could climb up to the top would have twins someday. Needless to say, I did not partake...neither did Zoe or Chekwube, as both of them are one half of a set of twins and didn't care to start new family traditions.

So then we hiked back down. this is where things got a little weird. We had this guide named John. Quite the interesting fellow. I really don't mean this as an insult, but the truth is that his English was terrible and we could only just nod and smile while 75% of what he was saying went right over our heads. Also, he seemed to really like Chekwube, because I don't think he directly spoke to me or Zoe for the entire hike. Which was pretty funny, actually.

So anyway, we found out on the hike back that this guy was bat-shit insane. We had a suspicion on the hike up. Just because he was kind of irritating us by repeatedly saying for the entire hike that he wasn't going to pressure us to go fast, because we are ladies and ladies should be careful and go slow. And that was fine and all the first couple times he said it. But by the 500th time he told us to take it easy because we were ladies, I was about ready to slap him. So instead of slowing down, we went a little faster than I think we would have otherwise. But on the way down, instead of telling us there was no pressure to go quickly, he saw the tour group that was behind us pass us on the path, and that's when he completely lost it. Apparently they get paid per tour, so the more you get in one day, the more money you get. He didn't want his coworker to get the money that was his, but unfortunately Chekwube had a twisted ankle from an injury that happened a few weeks ago, and she had to go really slow while climbing down the rocks because it was really bothering her. For John, this was no excuse for going slow because he told us on the way up that we should be careful because we were ladies, and now one of us is hurt, and he told us this would happen if we didn't be careful.

John, posing next to a tree
right before his hissy fit

He was pissed. And started running way up ahead of us on the path in fits of anger and then screaming to himself about how we should have been more careful and how this is such a waste of time. At first we thought he was talking to someone else ahead of us on the path, until we caught up with him and realized that he was, in fact, screaming to himself. We were just so done with him by that point that we kept telling him that if he wanted to go ahead of us and get another tour group, we could make it back by ourselves. But he wouldn't do that. He eventually calmed down toward the end of the hike. But it was just a really weird experience. And then he asked us for a tip at the end, to which we were all confused by.  So far the only places people have really expected tips in Ghana have been tours. But I don't think that this guy realized that tips usually depend on the level of customer service...and if you're yelling at your group to go faster for half the hike when one of them is hurt, I think you can safely forget about getting a tip.

So then we took a trotro back to Koforidua. At one point in the ride where people had to get off and we shuffled around the seats, I ended up in the middle row, looked down, and to my surprise there was a live chicken on the floor next to my feet. Just tied up and chillin. Scared the shit out of me though. Hadn't made any noise for about 30 minutes, so that was the last thing I was expecting to see on the floor. It really creeped me out though, because I felt like it was just staring up at me with the one eye I could see, and it was just panting from the heat. I really felt bad for it. But I couldn't help but be really freaked out that there was a live chicken on a trotro, 2 inches away from my feet.

So then when we got back to Koforidua, we got a late lunch and headed to our hotel, which was really nice! The water there was actually running, and they gave us each our own bar of soap! And there was a water boiler, and breakfast was included the next morning, and it was cheap, when split between 3 people.

"Bead is everywhere, so bead all you can bead."

Saturday morning, we checked out and went to take a trotro to a place called Agomanya, which was about an hour away from Koforidua. At Agomanya, they have this gigantic market--it was so huge, I think we were probably wandering around for about an hour before we realized we had no idea where we were anymore and had to ask someone to help us find the bead market, which was what we came for. We were led through the market on the most convoluted path that there's no way we would have ever found it on our own. I'm glad we got there though, because it was worth the trip to that market. There were just rows and rows and rows of people selling handmade glass beads and they were all so beautiful. At the time, I thought I was going overboard buying so many beads, but they were so cheap that looking back on it, I honestly think that I maybe should have bought more.

Before we headed back home, we stopped at a place where they make the glass beads from the market. Like I said, they're all hand-made individually so that was really cool to see. They're also all made from recycled glass. They take recycled glass bottles and crush them into powder and add pigment and fire them into beads.

So overall it was a great weekend. Then on Easter Sunday, I bummed around ISH the whole day, which was eerily quiet for hours. It was because all the Ghanaians were most likely at church, and a lot of the other international students were still gone for the weekend, so I felt like I had the whole building to myself. That obviously wasn't the case, but it was so much quieter than I had experienced before. It was a nice change!

On an unrelated note, I register tomorrow for my LAST semester at UW. As in, I'm most likely graduating in December. How crazy is that? I'm freaking out about graduating so much earlier than I had planned, but it'll save some money. And it's pretty exciting! But I really have no idea what I'm doing after I graduate yet, but I've been looking at a bunch of options.
Time really flies. I can't believe college is almost over.
And I can't believe I only have less than 7 weeks left in Ghana! That sounds like a long time, but if you look at it like this: 3 more weeks of classes, 1 revision week before finals, and then I have about a week and a half of finals, and about 2 weeks left free for traveling or doing whatever. Then home. That's going to feel like no time at all. And in that amount of time I'll be going to Kumasi, Togo, and Mole national park, so those will make it go a lot faster too. I'm excited for things at home, but I know that I'm definitely not ready for this to end just yet. I'm afraid it'll go too fast.