TRAVELOGUES OF THE FORMER GOLD COAST (DAY 6:DEC 21,2011)

LAKE BOTSUMTWI

Once again, in a bid to ensure I get to all the places I'd marked down for visit in Kumasi, Randy, my landlady's son (ah yes, I now know his name, had to ask him when I saw no way around it!)came to my rescue, taking the time to take me to the right bus-station and the right section of it since the bus-park in Kejetia is a very big one. We end up traveling part of the distance together and he even checked on me later by phone. I think the highlight of my visit to Ghana so far, is my meeting this extremely nice family.

I get to Lake Botsumtwi and wonder for the millionth time since arriving Ghana what exactly the job of the members of the Ghana Tourism Board is. I realise of course that I am only assuming here that one exists, I haven't actually checked that one does exist and I feel it's a good guess since Ghana is one of the destinations of choice for vacations in Africa. As it happens, as I wonder around the Lake and bring out my camera in readiness for picture-taking, a man who identify himself as the head of the community approached me and offered to take me round the lake. We didn't walk for long though before we were forced to turn back because of a number of guys who were having their baths on the lake.

My guide (the community head) told me the story of the lake and how some white men helped them to quieten their fears of the possibility that the lake might have been formed from volcanic substances which may prove dangerous to the inhabitants of the community. He told me the lake was formed from meteorite over a million years ago. No river flows into it nor does it flow into any river. The only contact it has with other kind of water is the rain. The water of the lake is quite fresh and I notice some little fish at the bottom.

Lake Botsumtwi

The clean bottom of the lake

When we got back to where we started our tour of the lake, I notice a boat discharging some passengers and when I ask about a possible boat ride, I am told the boat takes 15 people who share the cost. At this time, I was the only one around interested in the boat ride. A little later though, I was joined by a Ghanaian couple but the price was a little steep still.

The Ghanaian lovebirds I met at Lake Botsumtwi

Eventually, four other people joined us and the money became a bit more shareable. This is my second boat ride ever! While the first one at Bojo beach lasted just about five minutes if that, this takes much longer as it meant to take us round the lake while someone tells us about how the lake was discovered. The man repeated much of the story that had been told to me by the community head. I noticed an interersting pattern in the forty days taboo story in Ghana because the community head told me every fortieth day that fall on a sunday is taboo day on which they do not fish on the lake.

The canoe used in fishing by the fishermen in the lake are raft-like and I was told the biggest fish that can be caught in the lake is not much biggger than the palm of a grown man.

Canoes used for fishing on the Lake Botsumtwi

A fishermen casting his net on the Lake

Boat cruise on the Lake

Beautiful scenery at Lake Botsumtwi

Before going on the boat cruise round the lake, I had met Sarpong who worked with a company which was at that time conducting some sort of tests on the lake. Sarpong invited me over to the boat of the company and he expressed a desire to show me round the Volta region if he had the opportunity on learning that the Volta region was my next stop after Kumasi.

Having never been on a boat before the one that took me to the beach itself at the Bojo beach, and not knowing how to swim (what?!!), I wasn's sure whether or not I would be afraid on the boat cruise around the lake, to my pleasant surprise however, it was as if I had been going on boat cruises all my life! So much so that I sat on the edge of the boat for much of the 20-25 minutes cruise on the lake.

Sitting on the edge of the boat on the cruise

After leaving the lake I head back to the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital where my landlady works to join her on the way home. I really would have loved to stop by at the Fortune Fashion City in the Adum Business District to compare prices of clothes there but looking at the time and not wanting to miss the chance of going home with my landlady, I decide to postpone the window shopping to my next visit to Kumasi.

I met up with my landlady just as she was heading to her car. She however, very kindly exercised patience for me to visit the Komfo Anokye (pronounced Komfo Anoche)museum which houses the famous Komfo Anokye sword. The sword was set to have been put on the ground many decades ago and huge efforts made to remove it have proved futile. It is even said that the Asanti kingdom will end the day the sword is removed successfully from the ground.

The statue of Komfo Anokye outside the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi

Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital

Komfo Anokye Museum

The Komfo Anokye sword

Inside the Komfo Anokye Museum

My Hostess/Landlady on learning that I was yet to visit the Ghana Armed Forces Museum yet again very kindly offered to take me there and she waited very patiently while I went on a tour of the museum.


Ghana Armed Forces Museum

Historic pieces inside the Ghana Armed Forces Museum

A dungeon in the museum

I just can't help thinking and thanking God for the blessing of meeting this very wonderful family in Kumasi. The beautiful time and their going out of their ways to make my stay as pleasant as possible gave me a sort of reluctance to leave them. But leave Kumasi (and them) I must, if I want to get to all the places I had pencilled down for visit while in Ghan. My reluctance to leave is also compounded by the fact that very much unlike me, I didn't plan ahead on where I would stay in the Volta region. Although Sarpong gave me a number of a lady who wouldhelp me get a place to stay in Sogakope but I am still unsure.

TRAVELOGUES OF THE FORMER GOLD COAST (DAY 5:DEC 20, 2011)

After numerous calls and internet searches, my hostesses and host finally find out the Bobiri Forest and Butterfly Sanctuary (which was highly recommended by Astro, my landlady's daughter) is in Kubease. My landlady's son 9whose name I don't yet know) was especially nice, calling his office to notify them he would come late so as to ensure I get on board the bus that would take me safely to Kubease on the outskirt of Kumasi.

I get to Kubease and brace myself for the one hour walk to the Butterfly sanctuary. It is a very long, lonely and scary walk as I keep imagining that a wild animal will jump out at me from the forest. Of course, while I fear most animals, I realise the most dangerous of them is the human animal especially these days when people will do anything for money.

I finally arrive at the sanctuary after a walk (8 kilometers!) that took almost an eternity because of the distance. Not for the first time, I wonder what the Ghana tourism board is really doing and whether they know that by failing to ensure easy access to and from their tourist sites, they are losing quite a lot of money.

I was shown all the trees in the sanctuary. Disappointingly however, the butterflies, my main reason for visiting the sanctuary,were no where in sight! The few butterflies I saw were those I had seen during my interminable walk down to the sanctuary from the road. My walk down was really not lonely, I've always enjoyed taking walks so long as it is not under a scotching sun and there is no danger of anything suddenly leaping at me from anywhere.

Trees at the Bobiri Forest and Butterfly sanctuary

I get to the sanctuary and I'm told it is not the butterfly season and I might not see many. Well, at the sanctuary itself, I saw none! I was shown some trees which did not really interest me though some of them have some interesting stories surrounding them like the last tree ( a liana actually)I was shown, I forget its name now but my guide told me that anyone who cuts the tree knowing its story that it should not be cut would die. The tree is said to be medicinal and primarily to cure madness. It is said that the medicinal part of the tree is the bark which before it is cut, the person cutting the tree must pour some libations on it in form of egg and some other thing I don't remember now.

My guide further told me they don't work on Fridays particularly Fridays which fall on the 40th day (every 40 days which is a Friday). He says on this fortieth days, they hear drumming and singing which they believe come from this liana.

The Liana with the interesting story

I was quite fortunate on my way back because just as I was about to leave, a couple also on vacation from the Netherlands were also about to leave the sanctuary and fortunately, they had their own transport. And so I was saved not only the long walk back to the road from the sanctuary, I in fact followed them all the way to Kumasi.

After leaving the Bobiri Forest, I made my way to the Manhyia (pronounced Man-shia) Palace Museum where I, along with a group of tourists from Norway(and their Ghanaian host, a medical doctor who did the translation for the Norwegians), were taken round and shown historic relics. An interesting story told was about some chairs which were supposedly gender-specific. It was said the chairs for men could only be sat on by men and any woman who sat on it would immediately become barren while any man who sat on the chair for women would become impotent.

Sign in front of the Manhyia Palace Museum

The Manhyia Palace Museum in Kumasi

Yours truly at the Manhyia Palace Museum

My next stop after the Palace Museum was to the Kumasi Zoo. Before going there, I had been warned by Randy that there are too many animals to see and so I go there with no illusions whatever. I did see some lions but not too many other animals that would raise my hair or some such thing like that.

Lions at the Kumasi Zoo

From the Zoo, I go next door to the Cultural Centre where I visit yet another museum, this time, the Prempeh II Museum. I heard quite a lot of the story I'd just heard at the Manhyia Palace Museum but saw a few things I didn't see at the Palace Museum but of course the Palace museum is a much bigger museum. The two museum told the story of the Asanti Kingdom and how Kente was made the national cloth of Ghana and of course, the different designs and improvement made on the kente cloth over the years.

Statues at the Cultural centre

Entrance to the Cultural Centre

The Statue of the Prempreh II in front of the museum

By the time I leave the cultural centre, it was already getting dark and I didn't get back to my lodge until a bit late because it took quite a while for a bus going to Edwinase where my lodge is located to get to the park. Eventually, I arrive, all tired but fulfilled!

TRAVELOGUES OF THE FORMER GOLD COAST (DAY 4:Dec 19, 2011)

JOURNEY TO KUMASI


I leave early for Kumasi with the hope of getting there in good time as I'd read it's a journey of between 5 to 6 hours from Accra by road. The bus I entered however flagged off the delay in my getting there on time as it took literally forever to fill up. When we eventually depart from Accra, the first hour or so of the journey was done on dirt roads.

Dirt roads on the way to Kumasi

I'd noticed that what we call bumps or speed breakers back home are usually written on the road signs as "rumble strips". I'd idly wondered why they were so referred until today when it occurred to me it might be so called because of the way most drivers over there drive over them making the vehicles to rumble. I get the same feeling virtually all through the time the vehicle travelled on these dirt roads.

My bus takes its time and finally we arrive at Kejetie at about 4.30 pm GMT but it takes me quite a lot of phone calls and time to get a cab from the park as I have the dual handicap of not being able to speak the local language and not knowing exactly where I am going.

A Roundabout around the Adum Business District in Kumasi

It took more phone calls back and forth for the driver of the cab I eventually take to get me to my hostel.

My hostel doesn't appear to have a name yet but though I was initially aghast at the distance, the road and traffic we had to go through, the place itself is so nice that it makes up for my initial dismay at the distance and bad road we had to traverse.

My Landlady and her daughter seem to be quite nice and I spend hours chatting and gisting with the daughter before finally and reluctantly calling it a night.

The daughter, a post-graduate student at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology also went to a great expense, calling her friends in a bid to find out for me, how to get to the various places I'd penned down for visit during my stay in Kumasi.

When I mention that Kumasi seem to be very crowded compared to Accra, she replies that it's because of the festivities and that I should be very careful with my money and valuables when going out the following day because of the activities of pick-pockets during this period.