Playing tourist for a week..

w00t! I just got done playing tourist for the first time since I've been in Ghana...and you know what? It was a blast! Right at the beginning of this vacation I traveled around the northern parts of Ghana with 6 of my friends. Thanks to Anthony, Beth, Brian, Kyle, Toby, and Tristen for making it a great time. I'll try and let my pictures do most of the talking, but if you want to know more about anything just shoot me an email and I'd be more than happy to tell you more, but we saw many things. This was my first time traveling to the Northern two-thirds of the country and I've got to say it's a pretty cool place. The people are just as friendly and the land is much more flat and brown than what I've gotten used to down here in the southern regions. We went first off to Tamale, and then stayed with a friend just outside of Bolgatanga. and then in one day we did a lot of sightseeing, first to the crocodile ponds, then to an old slave camp, and lastly to Tenzug village. So we saw lots of wildlife and learned a lot about some of the history of the North. Crocodiles were HUGE and really neat to see, we even got up close and personal with them. I really don't think that they would ever ever ever, allow this type of thing to happen in the states. We also checked out a place called Sirigu with traditional art, which included pottery, drawing on walls, and many other things. It was really neat to see the traditional designs that the people use and hear about the everyday use of many of the items they have.
Also in the North there is Mole National Park, and the travel there can be a bit of a pain, only 85 km on a very very rough road, on a bus with at least 90-100 people crammed on board. Makes the journey almost as much fun as the park itself. But evidently we picked a great time to go to the park because this time in the North is the beginning of the rainy season and the elephants like to come out and swim just down the hill from where we were staying. It was truly an amazing site. We saw maybe 15-20 elephants, lots of baboons and warthogs, a green monkey, monitor lizard, cob (a deer like animal), water buck (looks like a cross between a donkey and deer...), and too many birds, crocodiles, and insects to count. Really cool place to visit. If you have your own private car the park would be really cool to see because you could go into the center of the park and perhaps see a wider variety of wildlife.
Anyways, after this phenomenal trip I got home only to find that a large storm the night before had knocked down the tree in front of my house and it hit my house and knocked out my power for a few days! It was pretty big tree too...the owners of my house worked amazingly fast however and were able to get the electricity fixed very quickly and then replaced the damaged tin roofing sheets. So the rain only leaked into my house one time and made a mess once before it was fixed.
Also the day after I got back from my trip, I had a few really nice folks from Peace Corps South Africa come and stay with me for 2 days, and I finally made it down to Kakum National Park and checked out the canopy walk! Man, what a trip! I really didn't know what to expect, but you are really high up, it was awesome! So thanks to all that made these trips possible, my guests from South Africa were really amazing people and my traveling companions in the North were equally amazing and I think a good time was had by all. Cheers, I hope you all enjoy the photos.
The first photo i think needs no explanation. And Yes, that crocodile is alive, we just watched it eat two chickens...

We got pretty close to the elephants too, didn't get to touch them though. This is a picture of our walking safari guide and an elephant when in Mole.

I'm feeding an elephant..

Group photo!

Anther fantastic group photo, in the pool at the Mole Hotel.

View from one of the platforms on the canopy walk in Kakum National Park.

And lastly, this is the tree that landed on my house. They had already trimmed most of the branches but you can see where it hit the corner of the house and knocked out the electricity. But my landlord and his family had everything fixed up within 3 days.