The Footsteps of a Waterfall

The adventure started early in the morning. Mus and I woke up at 5 am to get dressed and eat breakfast- eggs with spicy peanut pepper, our usual pre-hiking meal. We headed over to meet Mr. Ampadu, and the three of us were in a taxi, on our way by 6:30am.

Our objective was to check out this beautiful and impressive, yet relatively unvisited, waterfall in a remote village up here in the mountains. Our first two taxis (which we use like buses here, meaning they have a fixed route and don't take us straight to our destination) took us through familiar territory- paved roads (albeit poorly maintained) and decent-sized villages. At the last village, we entered what Mus calls a “bush taxi.” Bush taxis (or buses, for that matter) are essentially frames bought from what Americans refer to as a “chop-shop,” often times patched with scraps of metal. Then they take some old, shredded seats that often don't fit in the ride properly, and four tires that are “donuts”to complete the illusion of a working car. The operators of bush rides also have a very different philosophy than the operators of other rides; in their minds, a bush taxi is never full. There's always a way to fit one more person in the ride. Or if not in the ride, per se, then at least on top of it.

So seven people climbed into a bush taxi with 5 seats. In this particular ride, the seats were not bolted to the floor properly, gasoline fumes filled the car, and the leftover upholstery of the ceiling hung down to get caught in my hair. The road was more of a 4 x 4 trail, and the car had very little in terms of shocks, leaving me feeling very carsick by the time we pulled into the village one hour later.

But thankfully, we had arrived. Once out of the taxi, Mr. Ampadu met someone he knew. We were informed that the waterfall was currently dry due to the harmattan, and also that an obruni had “discovered” the waterfall and encouraged the residents to clear the area and set up a committee to capitalize on their “tourist attraction.” He tried to help them set up an event for publicity with a live band in front of the waterfall over Christmas; unfortunately, the event never came off. Rumor in the village is that he was in a car accident.

As for these grand plans, the site is nice, but the location is so remote and the journey so arduous, I can't imagine many tourists making the trip. And I have no idea who they were thinking would attend this live band function. In fact, we were the first visitors to come see the waterfalls for several months. The villagers optimistically took our visit as a sign that more tourists were on the way, and that the obruni's was working. But we only came because Mr. Ampadu had friends in the village; I don't think we are indicative of most obruni tourists.

We also soon found that the village has some issues to iron out amongst themselves. The man who informed us about the obruni's plans for the site was the secretary of the committee set up to turn the site into a tourist attraction. We paid him about $4,and then he asked a couple of kids to guide us to the falls. We were only there a few minutes when 3men came up to us, demanding their share of the money. We informed them that we had already paid and they should take the issue up with the secretary. Even though they accepted this explanation, they still went on and on about how they had cleared the site, and they were getting cut out of the money. A little while later when they went to find the secretary, they found that he had taken the next taxi out of town, presumably to spend the fee we paid him.

The tour with the kids continued. We started by going to where the bottom of the waterfall should be, had there been any water. Then we climbed up to the top where the water falls from. The rocks and trees were very beautiful. At one point during the tour, when we were all kind of wandering about exploring on out own, we heard a loud splash. I turned to see one of the kids- who couldn't have been more than 5 or 6- pulled his hand out of a pool of water, his hand clutching tightly to a crab, and the crab in turn with a firm grip on the poor kid's finger. It was difficult to say who had who, really, until the kid pulled the crab off his finger and held the crab tightly so he couldn't be pinched again. Turns out, while Mus and I had been taking photos,these kids tracked a crab and the little kid nabbed the crab his first try. Anyone who's seen a crustacean underwater knows that you gotta be really fast to do that. So the kid took the crab home for lunch.

After the tour we met some of the village elders at the one drinking bar in town (I had a warm Coke since they have no electricity in the village). The bar is owned by Mr. Ampadu's good friend, who's the fetish priest who takes care of all the spiritual aspects of the waterfall. The village elders (of whom the priest was a part), the three angry men who'd cleared the site, Mus, and Mr. Ampadu had a long and animated discussion about how the waterfalls should be run, and who should get the money. One cultural difference that really struck me during this discussion is how expressive Ghanaians are, or, perhaps how restrained and stoic Americans are in their interactions. For example,as a visitor, I've often been greeted with joyful shouting, dancing clapping, and even impromptu songs. And that has nothing to do with beinga forgeiner- that's simply how many Ghanaians received visitors. Similarly, in debates, voices are raised, hands gesticulate wildly; to a Westerner, it seems like violence is about to erupt. While I watched their discussion (during which the priest waved his toothbrush threateningly at people and pounded it on the table for emphasis), occasionally one of the participants would stop, smile at me, and say, “Don't be concerned. We're just discussing how to run this business. Don't worry.” Of course, by now I understand enough that I know that things aren't as heated as they seem.

Of course, none of the conversation was in English, and I soon grew bored. Lucky for me, two of the chubbiest puppies I've ever seen came waddling out of the house to entertain me. I also noticed that all the goats in the village were a peculiar shade of black that looked navy blue in the sunlight, and I was amused by the blue goats (unfortunately, they didn't turn out so good on film, so you'll have to take my word for it). The discussion ended with Mus pointing out to everyone that if they continue with this confusion and borderline harassment of visitors, that no one will ever come and the project will never work. This they agreed about, and in the end they all agreed that the secretary must be brought to book and everyone departed with smiles.

Next Mus and Mr. Ampadu and I headed off to this beautiful stone bridge to wait for the next car to come to town. By then I was completely out of disk space, so I no longer had my camera to entertain me. We sat there for two hours before we saw a vehicle. When a bus finally came, it was so old and rickety I swear you could get tetanus just from looking at it. We had traveled for about an hour, when we blew a tire. I was not surprised in the least by this, since the driver had crammed almost twice as many people in the bus as he should have, and he was driving on four donut tires. In fact , the only surprising thing about the situation was that the bus had a spare tire, and 20 min. later we were on our way again.

In all, what was a one hour journey in turned out to be a 2 hour journey back. We found our way back onto a paved road right before it started raining, which was a huge relief since the rain would turn the rugged trail into mud, making the road impassable for who knows how long. We arrived home covered from head to toe with a thick coating of dust from the gravel roads (including nostrils and mouth).

Anyway, I got some great pictures. Check them out.