Amedzofe, Ghana

In my last post, I left you all hanging by telling you we were heading for a curious little town called Ho. Well, we ended up spending just one night there and not actually doing or seeing anything in town except the minibus station. It wasn't too exciting. We did, however, have our cheapest hotel room of the trip so far, coming in at around $6. Lets just say you get what you pay for.
The next day, we took probably the most run down minibus ever to a beautiful village in the mountains near the border of Togo named Amedzofe. The weather there was a bit cooler. The people there were used to tourists, so they were friendly, but didn't try to hassle you. It was peaceful. And, it had some great views with some nice, short hikes.
The afternoon of our arrival, Andrej and I decided to hike up Mt. Gemi, which was just up the path from our guesthouse. Mt. Gemi was the highest peak around, and at the very top was a big iron cross that you could see from quite a ways away. The hike up only took about half an hour, and from the top, we could see all of the surrounding villages and the valley below. After spending some time enjoying the breezes and the view, we hiked back down. At the start of the path, a retired government worker had made a prayer garden that he insisted we come and see. It was a nice place with a number of benches and very shady with nice views. He seemed to enjoy his little project.
Our second day in the village, we went into the center of town and walked around a bit. This village was different than a lot of African villages we have seen because there were no huts. Everyone seemed to have cement or brick houses with steel roofs. Many other places we have seen mud huts with thatch roofs. The village had a nice amount of fresh food which was sold in the center of town in a sort of farmer's market setting. During our stay there, we bought lots of veggies, honey, rice, pasta, and bread. One night, we got a little adventurous and bought some cassava dough from a lady in the market. She told me we would need to boil and stir it to prepare it. Sounded simple enough, but it turns out its fermented dough and quite pungent. Perhaps we didn't cook it quite right, but neither of us could stomach it. Anyways, we came there not to eat, but to relax and hike. So, the second afternoon we went on a walk around town with a guide from the local tourism office named Godwin. He took us up to a local teacher's college which used to be a German mission. The college looked pretty nice, and it was fun to see that Ghanaian college students act like college students everywhere- playing loud music, cramming around computers to watch DVDs, getting out some drums and jamming outside their dorms, etc. We also walked around outside of town and met some of Godwin's friends. One neat thing about the area is that it is mango season. Mangoes are constantly falling from the trees, and you actually have to be sort of careful because I imagine it would hurt to get hit by one. Also, as with many places in Africa, rural or not, there are goats and chickens roaming free.
Our third day in the village we enjoyed some cooler weather which allowed for more nice hikes. We spent the morning on the top of Mt. Gemi again, and in the afternoon joined some other people on a hike down to a waterfall. This was certainly the most challenging hike we did during our stay there. It involved using ropes to make your way up and down because it was very steep. The area looked like jungle. The waterfall itself was a bit low on water, but it was quite pretty none the less. The rest of our group seemed to be really intense hikers, and I am rather out of shape, which made especially trying to get back up the hill pretty grueling. There is one odd thing of note about that particular hike. Occasionally there are things we encounter on our travels that just seem really out there. This was one of them. We were walking down to the falls, and Godwin and another Ghanaian guy spotted a grass cutter, which is a very large, gross looking rodent. Apparently it tends to destroy local crops (hence the name grass cutter, I suppose). So, they seemed to really hate this particular animal. But, instead of just pointing it out to us, they proceeded to pick up mangoes that had fallen off the ground and stoned the poor little grass cutter. When it seemed to have succumbed, I saw Godwin pick up a giant stone to finish it off. That was all I could take of it. To make things even more bizarre, he picked it up and carried it home to cook for dinner. All of this made me quite confident that my decision to be a vegetarian as of a couple months ago was an excellent one.
On our last night there, we had a powerful thunderstorm that lasted pretty much the whole night. It is supposed to be the start of the rainy season here. Despite the power being out this morning, we got up at the crack of dawn, took another minibus that must be some sort of engineering wonder because I couldn't believe it could still run, and left the village. A couple taxis later, we crossed the border into Togo! Andrej really liked this particular crossing because the no-man's land between the two border posts was practically jungle. Its certainly not the busiest border crossing we had ever seen! But, here we are in Togo. Everyone here speaks French, and we are very confused. since most of the rest of the countries in West Africa are French speaking, we are hoping to learn a little so we can communicate better with people. Wish us luck!