11/29/2011: The Rainforest… Welcome back, Allergies.

We woke up early, like we do every day, and took off for Kankum National Park, a rainforest reserve. It must have been 85% humidity because I was wet the instant we walked off the bus. It was soooo different than the landscape in Accra! Remember, Accra is mostly a sandy strip of dry, temperate, savannah basically. Kankum was full on bugs, moisture, trees, plants, vines: think Tarzan style. We took a small hike, maybe 15 minutes, up to the first platform of the park’s main attraction: Africa’s only canopy walkway. It was a rope bridge that was strung between seven platforms that straddled a big valley. Walking across the bridges, we were at the same height as many of the treetops but many were even higher. The platforms were attached to big trees, so there were ants everywhere. It was cool to see the way they followed each other and what they were carrying! But those were the only animals we saw, it didn’t really matter though! The variety of pants and the view of the hills in the distance was enough to make us all happy!

We hiked back down, dripping by now, got back in the bus and drove again to Elmina. We ate lunch in an awesome restaurant that was on the beach. When I mean on the beach, I mean you look out the window and there’s sand, water is 100 feet away. It was at this point that I discovered that I had been sneezing more than average. something in the forest must have triggered my allergies back :( I hadn't had any problems before this...annoying nose. After lunch we drove back to Accra, but somehow it took MUCH longer to get back than it took to get to Cape Coast in the first place. We left lunch at about 1:30 and didn’t pull into the hostel until about 6:30! Needless to say, we ate dinner and crashed for the night.