Ashley Shira’s Blog

Day Twenty-four

We got up this morning at 6:30am, got ready, packed up, and went down to check out of the hotel.  We asked them to arrange for a driver to take us to Kakum National Park, wait on us, then take us to the STC station in Cape Coast.  While they called around we headed to the restaurant for our complimentary breakfast.  We had an omlette, croissant, and fresh fruit…it was great! When the driver arrived we negotiated a price of 50 cedis and headed out.  There were several ominous black clouds in the sky and it rained on us once briefly during our 30min drive to Kakum.  We got there around 8:30am….just in time to join the first group leaving for the canopy walkway.  We paid our 5 cedis and the group headed out. One of the girls from our tour group at Cape Coast Castle, Kerri, was in our group once again.  Our journey began with  a bit of a steep climb up to the walkway.  Kim and I decided to be at the end of the group on the walkway so we could make lots of pictures. (I will get some posted….the computer I’m using now doesn’t have any way for me to post pictures) The walkway was a rope net hung between two parallel steel cables  that were stretched between trees.  In the bottom of the net there were metal ladders laid end to end with wooden planks screwed to them. The bridge swayed and wiggled a lot and at times I was quite scared. The views of the rainforest made up for the fear…it was absolutely breathtaking! When we came to the end of the canopy walk our park ranger offered a nature walk about 45 mins long for an additional 2 cedis.  We decided to go for it.  We were joined by Kerri and 3 guys from Canada.  It was very enjoyable and informative.  It was quite warm though and I’m not sure I’ve ever sweated that much in my life! When the nature walk was over we stopped by the gift shop before sitting down for lunch at the park restaurant, appropriately named the Rainforest Cafe. After we ate we found Peter, our cab driver, and headed back to Cape Coast.  We arrived at the STC station and paid our 3 ceids and 50 peswas to get on the bus.  Luckily they were ready to leave as soon as we got on and Kim and I both got seats by the window.  It was a fairly nice 2 hour drive back to Accra. We arrived in Accra around 2:15 and took a taxi back to Manna.  When we arrived the 6 other students were playing cards and we got to meet the 4 new students.  It is two guys and two girls….ChiChi, Leigh Ann, Mike, and Adam.  We decided to all go to the soccer game at the big stadium downtown….we had been told there is one every Sunday night at 6pm.  Adam and Izzi cooked some great chicken, rice, and veggies for dinner while Kim and I showered.  After we ate we headed out for the stadium.  It was raining when we went outside but it only lasted for about 15 minutes.  We piled in two taxis and headed into Accra.  When we arrived we were disappointed to find out that the game started at 3 and was already over. From there we decided to go hang out at the mall.  We got some ice cream from Frankies…and convinced Adam that pistachio ice cream is wonderful despite it’s bright green color…he is now a believer! Kim and Andrew decided to go see Valkyrie and the rest of us sat in the food court and talked then went to the grocery store.  I went in one of the baby stores in the mall and got an outfit for Gilbert’s baby girl that is on the way….we wanted to get he and his wife a little gift for being so kind to us.  When the grocery shopping was done Izzi, ChiChi, LeighAnn, and Mike decided to go ahead and get a taxi home and Adam and I waited for Kim and Andrew.  Adam and I found a bench to sit on and spent about 20 minutes chatting while we waited for the movie-goers….it is very nice to have new people to get to know.  When Kim and Andrew came out of the movie, we went outside to get a taxi.  Adam jumped right in and tried his hand at bargaining with a taxi driver. He got us a fair price and we headed home.  When we got to the mission house we were surprised to find that the others weren’t there.  Izzi left the mission house cell phone at the house so we had no way to call them.  Adam, Andrew, and I played a couple of hands of UNO while we waited on the others and tried to figure out what we should do if they didn’t come home soon.  There really is no good way to go about looking for 4 people in a taxi with no cell phone.  After about 30 mins they finally showed up.  Their taxi driver had gotten lost and they weren’t able to tell him how to get back to Manna so when they finally saw something familiar they told him to let them out of the car and they walked.  Poor things….they looked exhausted when they came in.  By then it was 10:30 and we decided to call it a night.