Aburi

We left Kelli at Kineshie station where she had some of her own adventures (taking pictures of a field of dust with a sign in the middle that says "keep off the grass" and buying childrens' stories such as "The Wicked Barber" and "The Man Killer 2: Return of the Man Killer"). Mac, Elaine and I continued on by tro-tro to the town of Aburi, which is a story to itself. Aburi is most famous for a large botanical garden that was out of bloom because it was the end of the dry season when we went. The land had been cleared by the British as a military outpost but when Ghana gained independence the British government funded the creation of a botanical garden as an act of good faith for the new republic. However, because that was in the 50s and nobody knew anything about environmentalism, the garden contains exactly 1 tree species native to Ghana with the hundred or so others imported from the vast collection of plants in the British botanical garden. Ah, ironic twists in history.
We got off the tro-tro and stoped at Edna's place where Elaine and I split banku (fermented corn dough that tastes a little like unbaked sourdough bread if you squint your eyes twist your tongue just right). From there we walked up the road about 5 minutes and arrived at the gate of the gardens. The haze was still present, but they say that on a good day you can see the coastline and the city of Accra, about an hour away. Impressive. While some of the trees were bare, some were really cool.


Here is Elaine standing next to a very large tree that with fern-like leaves









This is the single tree species native to Ghana that is planted at Aburi. I do not remember what it was called but it was overgrown with ivy and grew these large pods that were full of cotton-like material. People use it here to stuff pillows and mattresses because it's cheaper to get than cotton. It had a number of medicinal properties too. Plus, it was huge!




Here are Mac and Elaine peering from the shell of a tree. A tree used to grow on that spot, but a parasitic plant grew around it, sucking up its nutrients. The original tree died and disintegrated over time leaving only the sinewy outline of its parasite. It was so pretty though. Check out the inside of it looking up



We also saw a huge group of uniformed children attending a school tour at the gardens. They really enjoyed seeing the plants and a couple of white people walking around were an added spectacle. They rushed by and we slowly walked on. We met up with a bunch of other people from our program who had come up to Aburi for the day and were leaving as we met them to go to some carving stands just outside of the gardens and then to take a tro-tro home. That left me and Mac, who promptly checked into the Botanical Garden resthouse. We dropped our bags and went to a shop just outside of the gardens that had designed a number of hiking trails in the area. and took a walk at dusk.


This was a farm landscape we saw on the hillside as we mosied our way down the 6km hike. Part of the fun of the trip was that instead of being given a map or directed to follow markers on the "trail" (and I use the term loosely), we were given a packet of photos with a man walking the right way who we were meant to follow in a nightmarish version of "Where's Waldo". This became quite a challenge in the middle of the tropical jungle (where every banana plant looks more or less the same, so figuring out if you are at the right place to turn or not is not possible). We also realized that we'd met quite a lot of confusion because a dirt road that appeared several times on our set of pictures had been paved betwen when the pictures were taken and our hike. Needless to say we got pretty lost, but generally knew the direction of town, so we just meandered along through the woods.

Here is Mac carefully examining the pods of a cocoa tree where all of your chocolate comes from (Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire together produce more than half of the worlds raw cocoa).








This is a very tall tree we saw at dusk






Then we got back to our room and crashed. I read the guide book for a while and we at dinner at the only restaurant around. I ordered rice and chicken and was told there was no rice. My response was to stare blankly at the waiter for what felt like 5 minutes because I honestly didn't understand the concept of not having rice around. I realized that I eat it with almost every meal.
The next morning, I returned to the hike shop to go on an excursion.
Mac didn't feel like it so I went solo on a mountain bike ride. I was homesick and thought that being on a bike was the closest I was going to get to Berkeley in a while. I had a helmet and functioning brakes, which was good becasue the trail was not made for biking on. There were several dry creekbeds full of jagged rocks with steep banks that were allegedly part of the route. I got off and did a lot of walking. Plus, following the Where's Waldo picture set was hard enough on foot, never mind when your main focus is to not die on a bike. Still, it was a fun way to spend the morning (it is, of course, so hot here the thought of riding more then 6km is very unappealing). I was sweating bullets up the last hill in town attracting quite a lot of attention. When I got to the shop and droped off the bike, the men there gave me a chair, some water and some refrigerated pineapple (so good!). I walked back to the resthouse and took a shower before joining Mac for a big breakfast of oats, toast, eggs and tea. Then we caught the first tro-tro we saw because we didn't want to be stranded there on a Sunday