Afadjato Mountain

On our second day in Ghana I left for my Volta Eco-Adventure trip. The first destination of our trip was Afadjato Mountain, the highest point in Ghana. But what road trip in a foreign country would be complete without stopping to use the restroom? Of course I had to be the one to ask our bus driver to stop since our tour guide seemed to have no intention of doing so. (I swear he wasn’t going to let us pull over until someone actually had an accident.) From the time that we asked our bus driver to pull over to the time that he actually stopped seemed like forever, so I figured that the place we were stopping had to be decent. Unfortunately, I could not be more wrong.

We pulled up to a roofless building at the edge of the main road, which was really just a tiled area surrounded by low-standing walls with signs for men and women. Inside the divided area for women there was nothing that resembled a toilet or even a hole in the ground. Instead, there was a ledge that slanted down into an area along the perimeter of the room. This would maybe make sense if there was water flowing through the outer edge, but something about peeing onto a tile floor just didn’t seem right. Not to mention, that the men in the area next to us and I’d bet the people on the bus, could most likely see straight into our “bathroom.”
On that note, I walked out of the bathroom (if you even want to call it that), turned to my tour guide, and said, “Ya know I’d be pretty content with just peeing in those bushes over there if it’s okay with you.” It was at this point that I’m pretty sure I shattered any dreams he had of American women being perfectly ladylike because he was looking at me like he was a little appalled. So I took that as a “no” and decided I should just use the tile floor and embrace the experience with some of the other girls. I’m not sure if this is what all of the bathrooms are like in the rural areas, but if it is, I’d really encourage them to reconsider the good old outdoor thing, it makes much more sense.

I apologize if it seems like I go into major detail about something as little as an experience of using a public bathroom. However, it is these small experiences that really contribute to the trip in a big way. Not only does it completely desensitize you to any discussion of bathrooms or bodily functions, but it automatically creates a bonding experience among you and your travel mates. Trust me when I say that peeing on a tile floor is the least of what I’ve seen and experienced in my travels. And my shipmates would all agree with me when I say that there is no such thing as privacy or too much information anymore… we have all gotten a little too comfortable with each other. Anyway, moving on...

We finally arrived at Afadjato Mountain for our hike around late morning. We asked our tour guide how long it would take us to reach the top and he said that at the most it would take us 45 minutes. I didn’t think this was possible until I realized that we would be climbing vertically for almost the entire hike. I knew this because every time I stood straight up, I could feel the weight of my backpack pulling me backward. (I could picture the domino effect that this would ensue on the 20 people that were following directly behind me.) I would not have brought my backpack if it wasn’t for the fact that SAS terrifies us into keeping our stuff with us at all times and make it very clear that they are not responsible if we lose our stuff, including our passports, which would prohibit us from finishing the voyage. My logic was that if my parents found out I wasn’t able to finish the voyage and get credit for my courses, I might as well fall down the mountain, because I was going to be dead anyway.

Luckily, the trip up the mountain went pretty quickly since my tour guide didn’t believe in taking any breaks. I was beginning to see a trend… no bathroom breaks, no hiking breaks, etc… So I shouldn’t have been surprised when there seemed to be no plan in breaking for lunch. At this point I was wondering if I accidentally signed up for fat camp because it was beginning to feel like he was intentionally starving us. Until we drove to a village where we were given a little rabbit sized sandwich that we were supposed to eat on our walk to the waterfalls. Either he was pressed for time or this really was an attempt to make us lose weight. Thankfully I bought a bag of cookies from a lady in the village and gave my tour guide a look as if to say, “Yea that’s right, we American women also like to eat... Got a problem?”