Behemoths and Gate Crashers

:: Posted on 16 Jan 09, but backdated to account for the chronology of our travels over the last three weeks ::

Our visit to Mole National Park was exciting and filled with bureaucratic intruigue. We arrived on Sunday the 4th and stayed until Wednesday the 7th. As previously mentioned, safaris were offered at 7:00AM and 3:30PM as the animals are most active in the mornings and evenings. During the hottest part of the day, they hole up in the shade and rest - not a bad idea.

On our first safari, which started with the warthogs at the staff dump as previously described, we saw bushbuck (small-ish antelope with really interesting white markings on their sides - sort of like cave paintings), kob (medium-ish antelope with two single prong antlers with a twist), crocodile, baboons, some of the biggest termite hills I ever expect to see, and three elephants.

One of the elephants was very close to the road and came even closer as we watched. We were allowed to get out of the car, but then the elephant looked right at us and growled - yes, very low and rumbly for about five seconds, which is quite a long time if you are on the business end of an elephant. Our guide just quietly said, "Get inside," and we did. We later learned that another guide had to fire a warning shot the day before to scare off an elephant that began to charge.

We also had two sightings of a red-flanked duiker (shy and rare and so fast we only got a glimpse but reminded me of a cross between a really big jack rabbit and a fawn), and many, varieties of birds. Pam had brought a West African bird book, so we had fun looking them all up whenever we returned from safari.

The roads in the park are set up in loops that begin and end at or near the information center although some of them cross one another. This particular morning, as we finished our 6 km loop, we turned onto a 9 km loop that intersected the road we were on and led us down toward the watering holes. It was on this second road that we saw the baboons and crocodile and also, where we found the elephant footprints and body imprints from where the elephants had visited the watering hole area to bathe in the mud during the rainy season. You really get an idea how big they are from these prints.

That afternoon, we were a little slow getting back to our room from the pool, getting cleaned up and out the door. Pam was resting in her room, so decided not to go along and Leslie and I arrived at the information center at about 4:10, but there was no one there. The Ghana guidebook we have says that "walking in the park without an armed guide is forbidden," but since we were driving, we decided to drive one of the loops on our own and just avoid getting out of the truck if any game were nearby. We selected a 16 km loop and discovered after about 2 km that the camera battery was dead. This was disappointing but turned into a blessing because we simply enjoyed being out there together and discovering nature like children, wide-eyed and amazed.

On this outing we saw more baboons, both gray and red monkeys, more bushbuck and kob, which are ubiquitous in the park, and another elephant who was too far away for a photo anyway, but was on the move climbing across the face of a rocky ridge. We watched him through the binoculars until he crossed out of sight in a more densely forested part of the hillside. He just plodded along seemingly without a care, but was incredible to watch as he was easily the largest elephant we had seen and seemed to own his domain with an enviable anthropomorphic confidence.

However, the most majestic of all the sights on our (soon-to-be-labeled) misadventure were the roan antelope, which are absolutely huge. We came around a corner and there were about 30 of them crossing the road, at least until they turned to look directly at us. Each of them stands 150-160 cm at the SHOULDER (that's 5 ft + to most of you). Now, remember, the camera was "finished", as they say here in Ghana, so the photo above is from the internet, but it essentially means that the top of the horns is probably about 8 ft -or 240 cm - or more. So, now imagine there are 30 of them blocking the road and looking at you. Fortunately, the corner we had rounded was pretty far from where they stood in the road, so they did not see us as a threat and continued across the road. Nevertheless, it was terrifying and exhilerating, and positively the highlight of my trip, and captured only in my memory as perhaps all of life's true gifts should be.

So, we returned to the Motel by about 5:30 and went to the room to freshen up for dinner. We left the room again at about 6:30 as it was just beginning to get dark and stopped by Pam's chalet next door on the way to the dining porch beside the pool. As I waited on the main sidewalk while Leslie went to Pam's door, a casually dressed man approached me. "My boss would like to see you," he said. I assumed he was a Motel employee or something and told him we were waiting for our friend and would be right there. In Ghanaian English, the way to say this is simply, "I am coming."

Boy, were we in trouble. Waiting two or three minutes for us to come along was apparently unacceptable in this case because the "boss" met us on the sidewalk half-way to the dining porch. "You just returned in your truck. Where did you go?" Cue the deer (kob, bushbuck?) in the headlights.

The man was the head of Tourist Relations or some such title, but basically the senior dude at the dude ranch. We told him we had just been driving around and he said, very politely, "Oh, so you went on safari without a guide. That is illegal." We tried to tell him that our tour book said you could not walk in the park without a guide but said nothing about driving. He was very nice and polite, but unmoved by our argument, telling us it was posted at the front gate - and then the "bad cop" began.

The first guy, who had told me his boss wanted to see me, turned out to be the manager of the safari guides. He derisively began really telling us off and basically called us liars and said that we knew a guide was required because we had taken a guide in the morning. That's when I got my back up and decided this was probably a shake-down to see what they could get - as they were the two most likely to have lost some personal revenue from the deal (a two hour safari for two people would have cost 3.00 cedi, or about $2.50). So, thinking quickly, I told him that I always take a guide the first time I visit a place and re-iterated that the only information we had said a guide was required if walking, not driving.

Then we had a long discussion about a why we didn't have a copy of the rules, which are not only at the front gate but in the park brochure/guide. They wanted to know what book we were talking about and said that it wasn't an official park document - and I became mock-indignant about the fact that when we entered at the main gate they told us the park maps and brochures were "finished" (meaning they had run out) and that we had to get one from the information center, but that the information center had sold us a booklet and map for 15 cedis (!) which turned out to be the "Ghana @ 50" tourist guide (left over from 2007) for the whole country with a map of Ghana on one side and Accra on the reverse side so totally useless to us in Mole.

This almost got them distracted because they were shocked I had been sold this map at the info center for 15 cedis (somebody must have been supplementing her salary but not cutting the bosses in on the deal). But, alas, they did come back to the fact that the safari guide rule was "clearly" posted at the park entrance and that if anything had happened to us our embassy would hold him responsible, and that if you break the rules you have to pay a penalty.

There it was. So I asked him, out of curiosity, what the penalty was. He glanced at the ground and quickly, but with just a hint of testing the water, said, "50 cedis." Seeing this slight hesitation, my confidence about the shakedown increased. I looked distraught and said we didn't have 50 cedis, which was almost true, as I intended to pay for the Motel in US dollars, which it turned out would have been stupid because they were only giving 0.90 cedis to the dollar rather than the market rate of 1.20! But that is later, when the whole place begins to look like a racket, but I digress...

Anyway, growing bolder, he said we had to pay and he would give our license plate to the gate guard and would not let us leave unless we paid. He just went on and on about how if you break the rules you have to pay the penalty and at some point made some comment about what would happen to us if we broke rule back in America, to which I responded, "But we can't do that because we'll be living here with you." It totally caught him off guard and he laughed - and one thing I've noticed in Ghana is that once you make someone laugh, any and all animosity is gone. So the entire tone of the conversation changed to a friendly banter, but he did not relent and said we should pay the penalty at the information center when it opened at 7:00 in the morning. I told him I would see him there, like friends planning to meet for lunch, but did not promise to pay. That seemed the only way to make it to dinner.

BUT, we didn't go right to dinner after all. Feeling an adventure coming on and a growing desire to argue before the Supreme Court, we decided to drive to the main gate and actually read the sign. As the gate guard saw us approaching from far up the road, he opened the gate so we could continue through without stopping. He was a bit baffled when we pulled over on the inside side of the gate and got out of the truck, so we told him we just wanted to look at the sign. This seemed rather unorthodox to him, but he motioned us through.

On a billboard-sized sign with a safari-ish picture in the center were listed 10 bullet points, five on each side of the picture. Beginning on the left, we read that we should wear closed-toed shoes when on walking safari, pick up our litter, and other typical park reminders. The seventh item said "Avoid going on safari without an armed guide". The ninth item said "Park authorities may expel any visitor failing to follow the above," and the tenth said, "You are in Mole National Park at your own risk."

We discussed the meaning of the word "avoid" at length and decided that combined with the last bullet, and the word "may" in the ninth item, we had some pretty good arguments. The best, we decided, was that he could expel us from the park, but the sign said nothing about a monetary fine - an argument we decided to keep in our back pocket until it was time for us to leave anyway (two mornings hence), at which time expulsion would be a non-punishment.

Therefore, we did not pay the penalty the next morning, and the woman at the information center did not mention it and did not strike me as someone who would be organized enough to remember it even if she were instructed to collect it. She had enough trouble catching on to the idea that the two people in her office to pay for their safaris were from two different groups, one with three adults and one with three adults and a child. Nor did she mention it when we went on safari that evening. We did, however, see the Tourist Relations guy (the good cop) twice more. The first time he was on his way to the clinic as he "wasn't well". The second time, I greeted him like an old friend, shook his hand, inquired about his health, and he jovially said "you haven't paid your fine yet." I smiled on one side of my mouth (is that a smirk?) and said, "Oh, yes, I know," and he again told us he was telling the woman at the information center to expect us to pay the 50 cedi fine and telling the gate guard to detain us if we tried to leave.

So, Wednesday morning rolled around. Having experienced Ghanaian customer service, employee training, and efficiency for these few months, I was fairly confident that any instructions given to the gate guards would not be properly passed to whomever was on duty nor that, if they were, he would note them somewhere and actually be looking for a white truck, not to mention the specific license plate. Nevertheless, since we had told two Swedish women we would give them a ride to Techiman, we did feel it only fair to inform them at breakfast that there was a small chance we would be arrested at the gate. They also had been in Ghana for several months, found the prospect and story hilarious, and were up for the adventure.

After breakfast we loaded the truck and as we did we saw the head guy (my buddy) come down the road from the staff quarters on a motorbike and turn toward the main road. Leslie and I looked at each other and thought, "Uh oh. He's seen us packing and is going to the gate to make sure the instructions are followed." I was all prepared to pretend to call the embassy and ask for the names of the gate guards and all sorts of intimidating, underhanded tactics - at this point, just for the thrill of it. But we were also prepared to pay the fine if it came to that. Our outing, with just the two of us had been worth far more.

So, making a long story longer - as we approached the gate we did see a motorcycle on the other side of it, still too far away to determine if it was the same one. Just after we saw it, however, it seemed to take off away from the park and toward the town three kilometers away. But at the same time, as we continued toward the gate, the gate guard did not open it as he had done the other evening. We all looked at each other and said, "Here we go." We stopped the truck in front of the gate and the guard came over.

He had both a worried and relieved look and said, in English not quite this grammatical but in essense, "When you arrived I gave you a receipt from the wrong book. Can I have it back so my accounts will balance?" I gave him the receipt (he did not replace it with one from the correct book - so he probably just made 16.50 cedis, the price of our admission) and he opened the gate. Thank goodness for Ghanaian bureaucracy. The guard was so worried about losing his job for having his books not tally that any instruction he may have been given about the oburoni women in the white truck was far from the top of his mind.

We got a few hundred meters down the road before we whooped like Thelma and Louise (without the Grand Canyon). Although, we were a little disappointed we didn't get to make any of our well prepared legal arguments.

XO