Saturday, 3 March 2012

Boti Boti Boti!


This morning we woke up and went to Boti Falls. It is only 2 hours from Asamankese by trotro, so we decided to spend the morning hiking and looking at the waterfall. We packed lots of water, grabbed our bathing suits, and threw on our hiking shoes.

The trotro ride to Kofaridua and then to Boti Falls was the other direction out of Asamankese than we’ve been before. The roads were even bumpier than the ones going to Accra and I have started to realize both how hard the bumps are on our bodies as well as how used to them we are becoming!
We met a guy from Germany on the trotro to Kofaridua and he had been in Ghana for 7 months already and isn’t leaving until July!! That is crazy!

I am SO glad that I brought good walking shoes with me, because the trails on this hike were brutal. They weren’t trails, they were rocky mountain sides. I have never sweat so much in my entire life. It was cooking hot, and our guide was practically running. I have never seen such a fast Ghanaian since being here; I found myself missing their usual slow pace!
The trails were beautiful though, through lots of rainforest and dirt trails, lots of rocky and uphill trails, and there were many places where you could just see for miles and miles. The views were gorgeous and there was lots to look at!

There were these ancient caves that had small alcoves in them. Apparently people would camp out and sleep there, and put their jewels in the alcoves to guard them and keep them safe.

Ancient Caves
Then we walked up this rocky cliff for what seemed like forever, I seriously realized how out of shape I am, solely based on this hike.

There was this giant umbrella rock that was held up by these tiny pieces of rock. It was said by their ancestors that snakes used to be there and when people started coming by, they would throw rocks at them. This made the snakes disappear and left the rocks behind...
It was really cool up there! You could see for forever, and it was just beautiful!
Umbrella Rock
Next we came to a small farm with the 3-headed palm tree. It was pretty cool, but THIS was cooler: in front of the tree sat this funny looking rock. Apparently it is some uterus-blessing rock and if you sit on it, you will bring forth twins in your future. Petra bounced right on and I stayed FAR away from that rock.
3 headed palm tree

This little goat with a leash was following us down the trail for a short while, but that is pretty much the only large animal other than a dog that we saw on the path. Apparently a long time ago they had monkeys, but they all got hunted out. We saw a ton of lizards and butterflies though, and there were enough large and strange looking bugs on the path to call them small animals. Yuck.

We then had to walk all the way back down the mountain that we had just climbed, which isn’t easy to do on all those rocks. We got to the bottom and Petra and I were both really excited to get to the waterfall when we realized we needed to walk down 250 concrete steps to get there yet. We did, and when we got to the bottom it was definitely worth it!!!

Boti Falls
There were two beautiful and flowing waterfalls coming off over a cliff into a big pool of water. We really wanted to swim in it, but the guide told us that we should only go in small small so that we didn’t get blood suckers on us. Good thinking.
We went in to our knees and the mist coming off of the waterfall was fantastic too. It was very refreshing. We stayed there for a while just walking around in the water, and watching some other and more brave guys go swimming. They also just went swimming small small. 

1 comment:

  1. hahahah so hilarious! I think at your age I might have gone and sat on that uterus rock too :) You know I've never been to Boti? I'm a shameful ghanaian! Loved the fact that your guide was a fast walker...totally unusual. Was this on Saturday?

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