Mole National Park - Foot Safari

When we arrived in Tamale at 4:30 am, we continued to the Mole National Park with a Metro Mass Bus at 6:15 am and finally arrived at 10 am! Simon and I wanted to stay awake to not miss the station, but we both kept dozing off🙈 It was a very long day of traveling...

The bus was packed with luggage - everyone had suitcases, huge bags, and even fire bowls, etc. One person even had a box with a goat inside. It was tied to its legs and packed backwards into the small crate😢 Poor goat... It kept bleating loudly. We also saw a woman carrying a live rooster in a plastic bag - also tied to its legs and body so it wouldn't fly away. It's a terrible way to transport animals😕

Upon arriving at the park, we checked into our room - 8 beds in one room because we didn't want to spend 60€ per night. What we didn't know is that the dormitories are gender-separated. So Simon and I are sleeping separately for two nights😅🙈 But we have more money for the safari tours!

The hotel has a pool and an observation platform where we can watch the park below us. We even saw elephants bathing in the pond right below us!😍 Unfortunately, you can't see it well in the picture. Take a look at the picture descriptions.

In addition, we see many other park animals right in front of our room, by the pool, and at the restaurant: wild boars, 3 different species of monkeys (one of them being baboons), antelopes (waterbuck, bushbuck, kob), crocodiles in the pond, and many different species of birds. Unfortunately, there are no lions, tigers, or giraffes in Ghana. When we were swimming in the pool, we also saw 3 scarab beetles (as big as my palm!). However, they were already dead and floating in the water.

Last night, it rained heavily. Whenever there is a thunderstorm, there is a power outage! So we were having dinner in very heavy rain, lightning, and thunder. And then in pitch darkness🙈 But it was really beautiful! I love watching a thunderstorm when I'm dry myself.

This morning, we went on a morning safari tour at 6:45 am - a 2-hour walk through the park with a guard who had a gun. He told us that most elephants are gentle and won't harm us, but there are some aggressive ones. It was nice to walk through the landscape, but unfortunately, we didn't see elephants up close. Since it rained overnight, the elephants didn't need to go to the pond to drink and cool off. We saw all the animals that we could see from the hotel while walking. However, the antelopes were very shy and it was difficult to take pictures of them. Tomorrow we're going on another tour - hopefully, we'll have better luck!🍀🤗

We had surprise guests at breakfast after the foot safari😂 Suddenly, without us seeing them coming, monkeys were on our table. We just took our valuables and leaned back. And just like that, Simon's toast was gone! The hotel guard saw it too late; the monkey was already gone with its loot. Not 5 minutes later, another monkey came with a young one - the guard didn't see it again and our jam was gone😂 I found it more frightening than funny, but Simon couldn't stop laughing! As compensation, the staff gave us more bread and jam🙌🏻 Perfect! We were full!

Today we just relaxed, played cards, read, and enjoyed the view from above.