What a weekend.

It ended up taking close to six hours to get to the Mountain Paradise Lodge. Getting out of Accra took an hour and a half. The tro-tro ride to Ho took about three hours, followed by an hour wait for a tro-tro to Fume, then another wait for transport up the unpaved hill to the lodge. Apparently late-80s Toyota Camrys can go off-roading. Who knew?

The Mountian Paradise Lodge should be named the Nickel & Dime Lodge. There were surcharges for everything, including the shuttle service up and down the hill, room keys, bringing your own food, and eating in certain parts of the hotel. Its a shame, because the hotel was is such an amazing spot.

Sunday morning began with a 45 minute hike from the lodge to Fume, followed by two tro-tro rides to the Wli waterfalls. The Wli waterfalls are the highest in west Africa, with a 200 meter drop. The plan was for seven of us to hike to the higher waterfalls, and the other person was going by herself to the lower waterfalls ("only" 90 meters). It took a 40 minute walk to get to the split off point. Less than 10 minutes into the hike to the higher waterfalls I decided to turn around. The trail was a series of steps that kept getting bigger and bigger, and I became really worried about screwing up my knees. I am very happy with my decision, as right after I turned around it started pouring. The trail quickly turned into a river, and it took me a while to make my way down. What was supposed to be a 90 minute hike for the others turned into 3 hours. Despite getting soaked through, I enjoyed my time at the lower waterfalls. The lens on my camera got wet, so some of the pictures are blurry. My cell phone was out of comission for two days.

Here are the facebook pictures, as usual I dont have Picasa galleries ready.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/album.php?aid=26085&id=1628075351

On the way back from Wli we waited an hour and a half for a tro-tro, only to be significantly overcharged for the short trip to Ho-hoe to get a connecting tro-tro to Fume. We had a lot of hassle from drivers in Ho-hoe, many of which kept insisting that the station was closed and that the tro-tros were out of service. I managed to get away from the throng of taxi drivers and asked some locals, who let me know that the drivers were lying. Eventually we got ourselves in a reasonably priced ride back to the hotel.

At work, we are nearing the submission deadline. Unfortunately we only have 30 submissions, well short of the goal of 200. I was told to halt fundraising for a couple of days, but now I'm back on duty. Tomorrow we will find out if the competition deadline is getting delayed again, or if the whole thing is going to be called off.

In Accra I am just about used to the smell. I never thought I'd be able to say that I don't notice the stench from an open sewer. I'm still getting used to the feeling of sticking out like a sore thumb everywhere I go. It does depend on the area. If I'm in a touristy area, I don't notice it. But when I go food shopping at Nima market, I most certainly stick out.

This weekend I am staying local and probably playing lots of beer pong. On Sunday night I'm doing a big dinner, starting with goat cheese & orange dumplings with spicy honey, panzanella (italian bread salad), Ghanaian-style paella (jollof rice instead of yellow rice), and the pineapple ravioli dessert.