I almost forgot the crown jewel picture from Mole!

             just incase you couldnt figure out what you were supposed to do in this room

Mole National Park March 31 - April 3

Last weekend I had the opportunity to travel up to Mole national park with my Wildlife Management class. Mole park is in the northern region of Ghana, up near the boarder with Burkina Faso. It was a brutal 16 hour bus ride up to the park, complete with SUPER DUPER bumpy roads. The trip was 685 km As much as the transportation sucked, the trip was awesome. Thanks to a profound lack of picture quality, I am using very few of my own photos from the flip video. Instead ive borrowed some cool pictures from some of my great friends who are also in the Wildlife Management class.

A group of Baboons who live around the small camp that makes up the Mole park tourist area. 

The park is extremely isolated, with only very small villages in the area. In talking to the park rangers, I found out that they are in desperate need of increased infrastructure to keep up with the increasing demand from tourists. 

On the first day we were in the park, a group of us, under the supervision of Dr. Hallbeck, a Danish professor who has lived in Ghana for a very long time, went out to set up "misc nets." Misc nets are very fine nylon nets which are almost invisible to the unwary eye. Each one was 18 meters long and 3 meters high, and we would set them in the prime flight areas for the savannah birds. When the birds fly into the nets, they get hopelessly tangled until we come along to get them out. Our class was just learning about live capture techniques for the birds, but some zoology grad students who came up with us were taking blood samples to test for avian malaria and avian flu. 

 We captured some amazingly beautiful birds in the misc nets. The only sad part was a crow found one of the nets before we came back to check it, and it killed 3 of the birds in the net. Other than that it was a very successful bird capture technique.

I had to climb this tree to clear a branch that was in the way of the misc net. 

This a mosque in the town of Darabanga (sp?)  that is over 600 years old. Its a pretty amazing building. The only problem was that the local people in the area were very aggressive about taking our money. They would come up and tell you a few facts about the mosque then try and charge you money for the "tour" they just gave you. Haha, yeah right. 

We did not get to see any Elephants while we were in Mole. Apparently because of the rains that came last month there are still plenty of watering holes in the deep bush for the elephants to drink at, so they dont have to come to the big lake near the visitor center. Fortunately my friend Eryn took this picture the week before, when she and 2 other friends traveled to Mole on their own. 

According to the rangers there are over 450 Elephants living in the park. Poaching used to be a HUGE problem, and the rangers would spend the majority of their time doing anti-poaching patrols. More recently, with increased penalties for poaching and public education to raise awareness about the damage, poaching has become less of a problem. Still, 4 elephants were killed last year alone by poachers in the park. 

The park sends weekly anti-poaching patrols out, with each patrol lasting around 10 days. The rangers carry no back packs, no food, and only one water bottle along with their .305 rifle and 5 live rounds. In talking to James, a ranger who has been in the park for over 30 years, he says that everything you could possibly need is located in the park. They forage for fruits, nuts, and roots, drink from streams, and have medicinal plants to use as antibiotics. These guys are serious, serious survivahs. 

Above, my friend Eliza is sitting with some Elephant bones. Im pretty sure this one died of natural causes. 

The most amazing part about the skull was that the lower jaw alone weighed significantly more than the entire skull and upper jaw. hmmmmmmmmmm

When you have a beard and you find a feather on the ground, you HAVE to put it in your hat. 

                                 Just flying

 View looking out over Mole national park.

Some Crocodiles in the water hole

Sunset over the park. 

BIG ole MOON. ----people here are saying its upside down from the way it looks back home. My eyes were never good enough to make that distinction, but I figured Ghana is still in the northern hemisphere so I would think the moon would be the same. Tell me what you think!

Aloha,
Chase

Busua Beach 25-27 March

 A group of friends and I decided to take a trip up to the fabled Busua Beach, in search of waves, decent surf boards, and burritos. The cramped tro-tro ride to Busua took about 5 hours, as the beach is in the far western region, about 30 miles from the border of Cote D'ivoire. The beach is surrounded by a small town, and boasts the only REAL surf shop in Ghana. The "Black Star Surf Shop" was little more than a small room filled with surfboards, but it was attached to the DELICIOUS "Black Star Restaurant," which served the only Burritos in Ghana. And I ate my fill. And got my surf. And it was AWESOME.

Most of these EPIC photos were taken by Erin, and infact, all of them are from her fancy camera. Thanks Erin!

Ginger catchin the first wave in Ghana

 'I swear I wasn't posing!

 Im not sure what im doing in this one... picking my nose or something. Erins always getting them candid shots

 A Ghanaian braddah who works at the Black Star. He shreds the gnar!

 Waitin for our pancakes...

 We had breakfast at Frank the Pancake mans shop. He cooked eggs and banana pancakes for all of us on a single hot plate. It took him an hour and a half, but it was delicious!

 Found some really beautiful shells, along with a piece of what I think is a China plate, some really old perfume bottle glass, and a slipper.

                 The Black Star Surf Shop

 Just dealin some crack across international boarders.

We had delicious fresh lobster, which we just HAD to share with our kitten friend. We called her Cali.

 I AM the ObRoNi prophet


                         And now the most recent edition of the beard diaries...

So I apologize to anyone I might have offended with this photo, but I felt that I needed to have proof when I made the claim that there are a large number of phallic carvings in Ghana. This just happened to be the biggest one that I have found.



It is now Thursday morning 4:50 am, and I am getting ready to go on a field trip for my wild life management class. We are meeting the bus at 5:30 to begin our 20ish hour bus ride up north to Mole national park. I decided to stay up all night tonight because I had my telephone interview with HYCC at 1 am, and hey, the internet is WAY faster when everyone is asleep. Sleep is for busses. Much Love and Aloha,
Kofi Chase

Trip to the VOLTA region

The tro tro ride up

So 2 weekends ago, Krystal, Andrew, and I went with Survivah up to the Volta region. Volta is the most mountainous region in Ghana, and is the border land between Ghana and Togo. The trees and mountains are beautiful, and we had a great time, hiking and settling into village life. We stayed with Survivah's cousin, Naked, who was extremely welcoming. From just kickin it in the shade, listening to church music next door, to learning how to cook Ghanaian cuisine, it was a great trip.

beautiful plumeria tree. called "forget me nots" here

Lake volta, one of the worlds largest man made lakes. Its still growing, and its waters still claim farmers fields every rainy season

Approaching the lake...

 Hangin out in da mango tree!

 You can see the dead trees marking how high the water rose this year alone. Rising water is a big problem, as it displaces many ewe people who lived on the land for generations;

These are Naked's younger siblings, playing a local game. They tried to teach me, but I was totally incapable.