Face to Face With an Elephant

The road to Mole National Park in northern Ghana is undoubtedly one of the worst in the country. It is 170km from Tamale, the northern regional capital and closest big town. At least half of the road is unpaved ruts, craters, and sink holes coated in a thick layer of red-brown dust. The drive took 5 hours.

I had left Kumasi on the STC bus at 10am that day (March 21) and arrived in Tamale around 5:00. On the way I made friends with the German girl sitting next to me and we decided to team up and hire a taxi to take us and her parents to Mole that same night. By the time we finished bargaining it was nearly 6:00 and getting dark, but we headed out nonetheless.

I have never been filthier than when we pulled up in front of the Mole Motel that night. The dust was caked so thickly onto my skin that I looked like I'd rolled in it. The dorm was full and I thought I might have to sleep on the floor of the Motel Reception, but thankfully the German family was kind enough to let me sleep in their room.

It was all worth it for the animals. Mole Park is home to warthogs, baboons, monkeys, bushbucks (small deer), kops (antilope), and elephants. There are also lions (haven't been spotted since 2004), crocodiles, and several hundred bird species. We weren't sure how long it would take, but we were determined to see all the animals - with the exception of the lions.

It turned out that we really didn't have to work too hard to see the animals. We woke up before dawn the next morning to go on a walking safari, and walked out the door to find a warthog and its baby rooting through our trash. Then a monkey stole the German father's toast off of his breakfast plate.

We joined the safari group and followed Christopher, our guide, into the bush. We saw baboons clambering through trees, bushbucks staring at us as they chewed the foliage, and kops fleeing like deer from our approaching footsteps. Then, after an hour of walking, we arrived at the watering hole to find ourselves staring at an elephant on the other side of it, about 200 metres away.

It was a young adult male, Christoper said, because his tusks were still small. The elephant looked at our excited group, considered us briefly, and went back to drinking. I had known that elephants drink a ridiculous amount of water, and our elephant friend confirmed that by drinking non-stop for forty minutes, plus whatever he had had before our arrival. A small posse of white egrets followed his every move, snapping up the insects he disturbed with his movements. Finally he tired of drinking and moved off around the water hole, which brought him even closer to us. I scrambled to get closer, but Christopher only let us get within 100 metres of the elephant. Young males can be unpredictable. Still, I got some great photos.

We moved on to the crocodile pond, where floating logs turned suddenly into crocs lunging at passing fish. They seemed pretty small and never came out of the water. After visiting the sacred crocodiles near Ouagadougou though, any other crocodile experience is anticlimactic. In Ouaga enormous crocodiles bask on the muddy shore, gorging on the live chickens visitors are required to purchase for them. Some measure up to 2 metres long, but they're so well fed that you can squat over them and hold their tails, which I did.

After the crocodiles our walking safari was over. My plan was to sleep in the dorm that night and continue to the Wechiau Hippo Sanctuary in the extreme north west of Ghana the next day. This would entail another trip on the evil road leading to Mole, only this time in a crowded bus leaving at 4am. I went to reception to see if I could get into the dorm that night, and found a guy who was driving a Canadian and a Brit to Wa (the transfer point for Wechiau) in a 4x4. They had an extra space and took me with them that afternoon! As I relaxed in air condioned comfort with my new friends, I felt that I had never made a better decision in my life.