VoLtA ReGiOn

Waking up at 550am AGAIN on another Saturday to head to the Volta Region was just what I needed after a long Friday! I was excited to go to the Volta Region and see the beautiful waterfall and see Monkeys but I wasn’t excited about the uncomfortable bus ride I’d soon have to endure. I got a bad seat next to the door, it was one of the single seats, but I made myself as comfy as possible. I had my Ipod boomin in my ears, even though I said I was going to read and finish New Moon, didn’t happen, and it STILL hasn’t happened. But soon, before Wednesday… I keep procrastinating. Anyways, we stopped on for lunch on the way to the falls and we had a buffet. Chicken, Jollof Rice, fried yams, white rice, chili pepper sauce, fish, fried plantains, and I forget what else. If I’m not sick of this same meal now then by the time I leave Ghana I’m sure I will be. I do appreciate the Fried plantains though very much, I could continue eating those in the states if they were made properly burnt. ☺ The food was mediocre and I didn’t enjoy it as I’d hoped I would! Then after we finished eating, a couple of us were too lazy to walk about 15 steps to change in the bathroom into our swimsuits, so we turned the bus into a large changing station. I was so hot and stuffy on the bus, but I was just way to happy that in a few short hours we’d be swimming under a beautiful waterfall.

We finally approached Willi Falls just an hour away from the little restaurant we’d eaten at. It was about a 45 min hike to the actual falls so we put on our hiking sandals and ventured off into the beautiful jungle/ mountain. Although it didn’t seem like 45 min, the hike back seemed about 45 min, plus some. During the hike to the falls, our tour guide was giving us a mini lesson on the different plants and fruits that the forest had to offer. He cut open this coco fruit, and I’d expected it to be dry, although it was really slimy and white on the inside, with little pieces of cocoa you could squeeze out to try. I hesitated at first because if you know me at all, you’d know I don’t do the slime and odd textures; but I am in Ghana and every one was telling me it was so good. So I took one and slipped it in my mouth and was amazed at how good that little piece was. I spit out the seed and was like WOW, that was some kind of good. Finally we made it to the beautiful waterfall. There were other tourists there and some other Ghanaians as well, but it wasn’t packed and I didn’t mind exposing my non-worked out body in my cute salmon pink Victoria secret bikini… secretly, I know I still looked good (cocky? Naaaah).


The water looked cold, I mean it was a waterfall… so I had some other people go in and determine whether it was feasibly warm enough for me to swim in there. I kept my hiking sandals on, because I didn’t want anything touching my feet. I walked in hand in hand with my roomie and ummmm never will I take the advice of others, that water was super cold! I made it to the water touching my thighs and I was about to give up; but I couldn’t leave until I went under the water that was crashing down at more than 40 mph! As I got closer the water was splashing me and hitting me, NO punching me in my face. I slipped off a rock and went under, and that warmed me up a bit. Then I stood back up and held my other roommates hand and walked backwards to the crashing water. It was so hard because the water was hitting our backs even when we were still a bit far away and not completely under the fall, but we kept going until we couldn’t see and the water was on our hands and we bumped into the wall. I thought there would be some type of cove that we could hid in behind the falls but there wasn’t…. only a stone wall and I could barely see anything because it was like an inch away from the falling water. So we made our way back to the shallow water where the falls weren’t beating us to death. It was the most invigorating experience ever. It was awesome and I’m so glad I ‘womaned’ up and continued, even though I was kind of cold.

We took pictures of the falls, got one last look at it and then headed back to the bus. As I’d mentioned before the hike/ walk back seemed so much longer. After every turn I was like, “are we there yet? I see light” but it only lead us to another turn, and many more after that until I stopped holding my breath and just walked patiently until we finally were greeted with gentlemen saying, “Akwaaba, welcome back again, have a free look… no charge for looking.” They were selling their woodcarvings and some paintings, but I have enough souvenirs and good stuff and I don’t need to buy anything else.

We boarded the bus and then the consensus was to head to the Monkey Sanctuary and feed some monkeys!!!! We arrived there around 4pm, I was hoping that we’d actually see them, since it was late in the day and I’m sure they had many many visitors since the morning. We were hopeful, so we hiked with our tour guide to find some monkeys. All the while he’s doing his monkey calls and making kissing noises with his large lips, one of my group mates asks,
“Yo… Are these the monkeys that throw their doodoo?” and then all of a sudden, SPLAT! Monkey Poo to the face! Haha just kidding. Sadly these were not those kinds of monkeys, because that would have been hilarious. The Tour Guide reassured us that these monkeys were Mono Monkeys. All of a sudden we started seeing monkeys jumping from the trees and they all came together on this huge tree and then our tour guide, Emmanuel, said they were hungry and he showed us how to hold the bananas so that the monkeys would be able to peel them in our hands. I was the first to go, I was nervous because I didn’t want them scratching me or jumping on my hand. I stuck my hand out and then the monkeys had at the small little banana in my hand.


It was so cute they looked like little people there features were so distinct and so cute in this ugly kind of way. After they’d peel the banana they left me with the peeling and then jumped deeper into the trees. Everyone got a turn and then all of a sudden this big huge male monkey comes out, scaring the other little monkeys away. He was called, ‘Commando’! SCARY! He was actually pretty intimidating and I wasn’t about to be the one feeding his scary behind, he’d probably take my whole arm off. Anyways, he would take the whole banana out of your hand and then rub the banana really fast, it looked a little weird if your mind was somewhere else, then he peeled it and ate the inside and dropped the peel! After a while of stealing everyone elses bananas he moved to the side and allowed the other little monkeys to continue eating. It was so sweet. Then this mama monkey came out with a baby monkey in her pouch everyone snapped pictures and gawked at the cute image, and then finally with no more bananas’ we went back to the bus and headed to the Freedom hotel, in Ho.

I’ll just say that dinner was probably the most amazing buffet I’d had in Ghana. Even though it consisted of the same ol foods, chicken, jollof, pineapples, yummy Fried Plantains, and some bomb chips (fries), it was so BOMB!! Then it was bedtime for the kiddies and the next morning headed back to Accra ☺