All The President’s Men

Mole (pronounced Mo-leh) is a national park of nearly 5,000 square kilometres bordering Burkina Faso in the north of Ghana. We came for four days and were promised elephants, but first we met the President of Ghana, John Dramani Mahama, who just happened to be on an official visit at the same time as us. No photos of the President were allowed for security reasons but we sneaked some shots of his flambouyant entourage…

We also saw many families of warthogs…

Dozens of kob antelopes…

Herds of waterbuck…

And various kinds of monkeys, especially the baboons…

So much of what we have witnessed in West Africa is simply beyond description. The sounds of the jungle, the exotic smells, and the humidity and heat, can only be truly appreciated up close and in person. The incredible taste of freshly picked tropical fruit is also an experience never enjoyed in northern climes. The pineapples and bananas are exquisite…

We bought a paw-paw from this delightful lady in one of the villages close to the park and decided to eat it in the back garden of our villa to avoid attracting insects indoors. Within seconds we were surrounded by a troupe of ten baboons who clearly wanted a share of our bounty…

James was having none of their mischief and shooed them away so they rushed to the poolside restaurant to snatch food from the unsuspecting diners. A great time was had by the baboons…

As for the elephants that we came to Mole to see…

Every day for four days Christopher, our intrepid guide and big game hunter, enthusiastically showed us the tracks that the elephants had made during the night. Here is Christopher proudly carrying his ancient rifle (which he admits he has never fired).

Each morning when the air was clear and pleasantly cool we searched the forest for the promised pachyderms, but by midday the heat forced us into the hotel’s swimming pool. By late afternoon, tropical thunder clouds bubbled high above the forest’s canopy and rewarded us with beautiful sunsets and nature’s firework displays…

And as the dying sun sank into the verdant sea we would scan the forest one last time for just a glimpse of an elephant. African elephants are big, really big – absolutely enormous in fact - and you can’t exactly miss them – but we did.