🤩 Elephants 🤩

प्रकाशित: 02.09.2019

So I uploaded some more photos of the recent days. Some from the African market in Tamale like this one
This is how people travel who can't afford a Trotro.
I also uploaded more pictures from the crocodile pound in Paga, like this one where I pull its tail.
Or this one where I take a bite off its tail 🤣
Aaaaand I discovered the 'ultra wide angle mode' on my smartphone - there are plenty of landscape shots..
Like this one with its beautiful reflection on the water.
And also plenty of shots of the beautiful town called 'Swopa' which I mentioned earlier and is a safe place for women. They do lots of painting and pottery there.
We left Shiraz place yesterday and I had to capture these adorable goats.

We arrived in Damongo where Ibrahim picked us up. He is the owner of the Orphanage where we were to stay the next two nights. He told us a bit about the work they do, it's really impressive! The majority of the children actually still have parents but are abandoned.. At first I was afraid if the place is going to be really sad but it's quite the opposite. Super lively children, happy, singing, dancing and enjoying.
She was fascinated by Magalie's hair 🤣
Then Abu, one of the people in charge at the orphanage, showed us around in the village.
This is the oldest building in the village.
The people here make Shea butter themselves and sell it, you might know it, it's part of many pricey cosmetics.
Then we moved to the main attraction of the city, this mosque. It is very unique in the way it's built. It's also the oldest in Ghana and one of the oldest in West Africa.
Here are now some pictures of it
Obligatory selfie..
This is the men's entry
This door is for the Imam and only for him. Notice that the door is higher, so he doesn't have to bow down when entering.
This is the women's entry
And this massive tree grew beside it. The top gets cut every year so it doesn't grow very tall.
Back at the orphanage. Everyone cares for the younger ones.
This is our food being prepared (rice with eggs)
These stones were once toilets.
The kids totally loved my devil sticks.
A better picture of the food being prepared, it's about to get dark.

Next morning at 6:30 we went to the Mole National Park. Monkeys already greeted us on the streets.
Another tourist had a plastic bag with sweets. The monkeys attacked him together, coming from different sides, racing and jumping and just ripped the bag in pieces and collected all edible things before the poor guy realized what was happening. Never show food to monkeys 😂😂
This was the vehicle for our Safari.
Yes, we sat on top.
These monkeys are super lazy in making way.
An antelope, we saw dozens of them.
Some big bird in the tree, I forgot the name. Can you spot him?
And there was an elephant in the water hole 😍😍
He made bubbles with his trunk, super cute.
And a second one on land. He was super shy though.
He tried to hide from us..
But we followed at a safe distance (on foot now, by the way)
He attacked this poor tree multiple times.
One last look and
he joined his friend in the water.
We went back and saw more antelopes.
This is the view from the Mole Motel, a place many people stay for the national park. The two young elephants stayed together for hours and made bubbles in the water.
But eventually they left the water.
This slingshot is used by the motel personnel to intimidate the monkeys. If you don't lock the door of the Motel, they just press the handle down and search for food - even when people are inside!
I have heard stories that they even knock on the door when it is locked, so people open up and they just rush in.
The Safari on the Jeep was from 7 to 9. We decided to go for a walking tour from 15:30 to 17:30.
It rained in the meantime and the elephants come to the water hole to cool themselves down - but they don't have to when it rained, so our chances of seeing elephants were low. We did it anyway.
This dead tree looked really cool.
This was the bird watching station but often you can also see elephants or crocodiles from here - we weren't so lucky.
But we saw this nasty, poisonous caterpillar 🔥🔥🔥

Yee so far so good but not everything was nice that day. I ate some rice with tomato-chili sauce and really liked the flavor and put lots of the chili. It burned but I'm used to hot food by now and enjoy it. But it was too much and led to diarrhea..
I took a nap in the shade since we had lots of time to kill between the safari and the walking tour. When I woke up, I lay in the bright sun and felt dizzy.
We then went for the walking tour and I felt pretty bad. My circulation totally broke down, I had to rest several times, and I was afraid to black out.
I made it back to the motel, felt super shitty, hot and cold at the same time, was thirsty and felt like vomiting. I still had diarrhea, was super dizzy, had incredible headaches, and my balance was pretty bad. All I thought was 'please let it be just a sunstroke and not Malaria'.
I had some Fanta to get a bit of sugar and went back to the orphanage, took painkillers, pills against diarrhea, and went to sleep around 5pm (17:00). I woke up in the evening and they prepared food for me which I couldn't eat. I took more painkillers and went to sleep again.
Now it's 8:30 in the morning of the next day and I am already feeling pretty good again. Some minor headache is left but that's all. I am pretty happy! 

Now I'm going south with Magalie. We're going to Cape Coast where our paths will split again. She wants to see the castles and check the area there, and I'll go to Busua which is a surfer's paradise and go for some wave surfing. I will probably not make it to Busua today so I'll spend a night in CC. This day is going to be pretty boring and I'll be staring out of some window most of the time..

So far, hope you guys are good,
Laurin
PS: I TOTALLY FORGOT, HERE ARE MORE VIDEOS OF THE ELEPHANTS:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=12yLEEyDWJwCBld6H6bmPB9BaGHz8R-fZ
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