Volta Region

Kaya- This weekend we went to Volta Region with the International Programmes Office. It was a lot of fun but there were a few glitches in the trip!


First we left Saturday 30 minutes later than planned. Then the driver went the wrong direction- another 30 minutes. We stopped at a Monkey Sanctuary where we got to see these adorable monkeys called Mona monkeys and feed them bananas. It was a lot of fun and really cool to see. From there we went to Wli waterfall, the highest waterfall in West Africa which was a 30 minute hike and spent maybe 45 minutes actually swimming. We ran out of gas because the driver forgot to mention that gas was low before driving half an hour down a dirt road in the middle of no where- where the waterfall was located. Luckily, we went in two cars so the second van was able to get us some gas and use a cut up water bottle as a funnel to fill the tank. This event delayed us another hour. We didn’t get to our resort until MIDNIGHT and from there we were supposed to take a motorized canoe to the actually huts on the beach we were going to sleep in. Because it was so late, there was only one life jacket, AND it was lightning at this point, so Moses the coordinator decided it was safer to find other accommodations. So after another hour or so we ended up in two random guest houses that would take us in and finally got to bed around 2 AM. The first guest house was able to take 33 people and the second only 8. After arriving at the first guest house, Ayaan being in the other van, jumped onto my bus in order to make sure we were in the same guest house. We were not very optimistic because the first guest house was pretty crappy but luckily ours was really nice including air conditioning, hot water, and breakfast included. The other students had to shuttle over to us the next morning in order to eat. Clearly we lucked out with the better accommodations.

Saturday we took the canoe to the beach and spent the day there. We both got a little sunburn but it’s all good. It was bound to happen at some point right?! After around 7 hours at the beach, getting flipped around in the water, and returning to Accra, we were treated to the Emperial Pecking Chinese restaurant for a Valentines Day buffet dinner which was a lot of fun but a lot of us were also exhausted and just ready for bed.
This whole weekend was quite an adventure, but it was a lot of fun regardless of the few mishaps. There are a few students who are high maintenance that were frustrated by the trip but we still enjoyed ourselves and will just consider it a part of the African experience!