I’m currently in an Internet cafe in Cape Coast, Ghana. This is located in the southern part on the west side. It’s amazing how much more developed the southern part of the country is compared to the north.
As expected, my Internet capabilities cannot possibly keep up with the rate of cool stories I’m accumulating. We all seem a bit tired of traveling around; it’s entailed two early morning bus rides (one at 4 & 6 a.m.), and there’s another at 4 a.m. tomorrow. The places we’ve been are absolutely beautiful so it’s worth it. We started in Mole (pronounced Moe-lay), which is a national park. While we were there we saw Cob (which looks like deer), Waterbuck (also “deerish”), Warthog, Baboon, Gazelle, Crocodile, and of course Elephants. We actually had bad luck finding the elephants up close, and it took us three tries of doing a walking tour to be successful. This is actually stretching the truth because the last time we cheated by just spotting them from afar and walking down to see them.
It’s pretty hot here right now, and the animals feel it too. To cool off, the elephants come to drink and swim in a large watering hole conveniently located down a hill from the park hotel. I admit that having a drink and watching the wildlife was an agreeable way to spend the day.
Here’s a picture of the wild cob we encountered on a walk. Most were pretty shy but a few let us get close.
The Warthogs came right up to the hotel and even walked right through, which seems odd the first time one passes you as you sit by the pool. They eat just about anything and are scrounging for food, and they seem totally oblivious to people.
Here’s a picture of myself with the elephants in the background. Two are swimming on the left and one is drinking on the right. There were also at least 20+ crocodiles in this lake, but surprisingly, they were all extremely shy.
A Mole sunset overlooking the park. The large body of water on the left is where the previous picture was taken and where the animals come to drink.
A better shot of the sunset.
A few hours before we left, some elephants hiked up the hill near some of the bungalows to eat. They weren’t looking for “people” food like the warthogs, and seemed quite content eating the vegetation. There weren’t any tour guides, so some people just walked over and started taking pictures. We gradually got closer and closer, and in hindsight I’m surprised the elephants didn’t get jittery. At one point we were about 25 meters away and they started walking towards us. We immediately froze, but luckily they didn’t show any signs of aggression. I included this picture to show just how close we were.
Then more came.
And for the finale – here’s the “close up” picture I took. At this point I was within 10-15 meters.
Here’s a video of the same experience. Pretty exciting stuff!
No comments:
Post a Comment