In Which I Meet Monkeys!

I'm back from the Volta region. We spent the weekend there, based in one hotel and venturing forth from there. On Friday, we drove. For four hours. But it was worth it. We made it to the Tafi Atome Monkey Sanctuary around noon. It was a short excursion but a worthwhile one, I think. In the Tafi sanctuary, there are several hundred Mona monkeys. These are relatively small monkeys. They live in small family groups, mostly in the trees. All fairly typical of African arboreal monkeys. But tourists can meet these monkeys. I got to stand within a foot of them. One took a piece of banana from my hand (picture below).

I was definitely a little bit worried about the affect of food-induced tourism on the monkeys. What if they became dependent? That is not the point of a sanctuary. But the guide was quick to assure me that the few bananas our group used made up a very small part of the monkeys' diet. It was so cool to see them so close. Their paws were leathery, like dog paws. But they were so agile! They picked bits of banana out of the skin easily and quickly. I was once again reminded of why I think primates are so incredibly cool.

Our hotel for the weekend was nice. It was new. Still under construction, new. It seems like the high-end hotels here (rather than the very high-end) are pretty comperable to nice chain hotels in the US. The rooms are clean and well-presented. But a bit bland, generic. I am having the occasional daydream about a New England B and B.
Saturday, we did two things: we climbed to the highest point in Ghana and we visited Wli Falls. I am not going to describe the hike up the mountain. I am so out of shape. I was miserable the entire time. But I made it to the top, even though I was kicking and screaming the entire way! Peter, one of our Ghanians stayed with me the whole time, encouraging and distracting me. He gets a medal in my book for that.

The time we spent at Wli Falls, though, was my favorite by far. The falls are quite high, but not terribly wide. They empty into a small pool at the base of a cliff. The really cool thing is that there is a colony of bats living on the cliff-face next to the falls. At any point, I could look up and see a bat or two flying to a new perch. And once, one of the rangers came and banged on one of the benched near the pool, and a whole swarm of bats took to the sky, circling and squeaking! It was like something in a book. The whole afternoon there was like something from a dream. It was so wonderful.

The pool is so shallow (I think because the water is in motion, right?) that it is possible to walk right up under the falls. There is a lot of mist and wind, so it isn't the most comfortable experience in the world, but it was pretty darn cool for a few seconds. I was also just a little bit naughty and jumped off of the cliff into a deeper section of the pool. Melanie, another of the USAC girls, and I scouted the water for rocks and deepness. There was only one place that it was safe to jump. It was so much fun. But we got yelled at after the first time, so we had to stop. There are pictures of me jumping somewhere... I will track them down eventually. Saturday night we all went out to a canteena in Hohoe, the nearest town, and danced and listened to very loud music. Most of the music was Ghanian--and tends to be very good for dancing.
Today, we went to the Shai Hills Game Reserve. I got to see BABOONS! Really, really close, too. A family hangs out near the entrance gate, and are relatively tame. We got to get out of the bus and take pictures of them. We also saw a larger group of baboons, maybe thirty or forty, as we were driving through the reserve, and also a herd of antelope, who were startled by the bus and ran away beautifully. I am having major Lion King flashbacks. It is so cool that I can see this in person. Even if I do feel just a bit colonialist. The image of the white person being led on safari has deep and problematic roots--that you can trace directly back to the roots of colonialism during the late nineteenth century. But the baboons were really cool.

I really do like all of these tours that we're doing. I do. I just feel like such a tourist. I promised myself that I would try my hardest to not be a tourist here. That isn't why I'm here, and I don't want to be condescending (Is it condescending that I worry about being condescending all the time?), and I don't want to take advantage of my relative position of power as a white American. But I'm starting to think that I really can't avoid being a little bit touristy. If for no other reason, but that I generally stand out like a sore thumb and have no idea what I'm doing. Argh.