Point A to Point B

Our WONDERFUL Ghanian National Fire Service bus that took us from Larabanga to Mole.
View from inside the a tro-tro, by the way, this one isn't full, we picked up another 4-5 people after this shot.
Dancing fireman.

My fantastic sidekick on this trip was my roommate, Christy. If it wasn't for her travel experience, I probably would not have been as open to going on this trip via public transportation. However, she's been to Africa several times, and had already made a trip to another country during my stay on public transport. Therefore, I felt assured we could do it with a little prayer.

We rounded Friday morning, then walked to the bus station. We caught a bus to Walewale, which a nurse from BMC was on. He then insisted he find us a ride to Tamale via tro-tro. We were convinced he would miss his own connection (he was going in the opposite direction), but he kept his word and found us a tro-tro to Tamale. We got to Tamale early enough to do some shopping and enjoy a nice dinner. We took a taxi to our accommodations at the Catholic Guest House, and were surprised when a caretaker from missionaries in Tamale, met us there to ensure we had arrived safely.

We knew there was a bus from Tamale to Larabanga (a town right outside the park) in the am, and in one of those God-planned things, someone at the guest house informed us we needed to go a ticket that night to make the bus in the am. We got one of the last tickets! So we boarded that bus at a nice early 5am the next morning, and took the bumpiest road ever to Larabanga.

Being that Larabanga is right outside a major tourist site in Ghana, they can be rather hostile or in your face about everything. Christy and I quickly escaped these "helpful" people, and thought we would walk the 6km to the park. We take off walking, when we here this loud bus of singing men, a red bus. It literally looked like some scene out a movie.

The singing red bus pulls up and tells us to join them. It's the Ghana National Fire Service! They were training in a town outside of Mole and were going to visit the park for the day. They were excited to be there. They literally danced and sang the entire ride! They were hysterical! We had to stop to pay our entrance fee, and they all filed off to dance some more! They were FANTASTIC!!!! I cannot think of a more perfect way to arrive at the park!

Then we were at the park, in the morning we wanted to fit in the morning safari (especially because the evening safari, we hadn't seen any elephants). But we also knew we were cutting it close because a bus back to Tamale was supposed to arrive in Larabanga around 10, and safari shouldn't finish until like 9:30am. We loved safari, and we saw our elephants up close. We begged out ranger to let us sneak off early to get moving, which he thankful let us do.

We overpaid a man (everything is more expensive in this part of the country since it's such a big tourist thing) to take a moto back to town, then he disappeared for like 10 minutes. Finally he reappears and after an argument with friends, it is determined his bike is too unsafe for 3 of us to ride. By the way, by US standards 3 people is always unsafe, but here, you can easily see 4 people on one moto! So his friend agrees to also use his moto, so it'll be only two people per moto. They drove so crazy! I prayed for my life on this ride, I was certain it wasn't going to end well! They would speed up, then slow down. Christy's guy at some point was chasing down this truck for an unknown reason. It was bad! Something I do not wish to repeat any time soon!

HOWEVER, they got us there with the bus already there, so were were grateful to not miss the bus! I'm just a bit frazzled at the moto bike incident and stress about making or not making the bus. We get on the bus, and the entire Larabanga football team is on there, singing, and dancing preparing for a game with Domongo, a town down the road. They completely melt away all of our stress!!! In fact, they insist we dance with them. Refer back to the note about this being one of the bumpiest roads EVER, but we did it! And in case Christy #2 reads this.....we got them to sing "You are the Most High God"!!!!!!!

To shorten the story, we got back to Tamale, stayed at a missionaries' house overnight. And took two tro-tros back to Nalerigu today! We missed Nalerigu, we had a great trip, but we were happy to return to our little town!

I loved my weekend, but I also learned how much I LOVE Nalerigu! The town is very good to us!