Our first stop was supposed to be at the Aburi Botanical Gardens (dad you would have loved that I'm sure), although we ended up not going in because when they saw the bus of white kids they kind of upped the prices a bit. So, after our first failed attempt, we went on to see Ghana's first cocoa farm. We were surprised however, when we pulled up into a group of probably, I don't know, a gazillion people all milling around the cocoa farm looking very festive. They were even more surprised to see us though i think. We all laughed and wish we could dig a little hole and climb into it, but we ended up getting off the bus to find out that it was their first annual cocoa festival! So we took a tour, tried fresh cocoa seeds (you suck on them and they taste sour, very yummy), and dried cocoa, which tasted like incredibly bitter chocolate. Me and my friend Emma then found the free samples of chocolate milk and bought some chocolates and candies and giggled from our much needed sugar high. (She is generally my partner in crime when it comes to delicious food. We hadn't hung out for a few days and when she saw me she said "I miss you, I've lost like three pounds from not hanging out with you!" You can see why were' friends).
After our adventures at the cocoa farm we headed to our final destination, Boti Falls. We walked down through the beautiful forest to a secluded little sandy area with drooping trees all over, it was very beautiful. And falling into the relatively small pool of water were these two beautiful falls (they say one is supposed to be male and the other female... I don't know why). It was pretty much a straight drop for the water because there was an overhang at the top. I am horrible at estimating, but if I had to... I would guess 70 feet? It was very cool. Oh, and finally we visited Umbrella Rock, which is this cool rock that over looks a valley and sort of sits on top of these other smaller rocks. Hard to describe, I climbed a sketchy 30 foot ladder to walk around on top of the rock. It was very neat. Since I was on top of the rock my pictures don't show it very well, but as soon as I steal some of their pictures, I'll put them up. My pictures should be coming along very soon too!
In other news, I wrote an essay this weekend and got a marriage proposal. It was pretty funny actually, cause my roommate, Carly and I made friends with this guy Nana who does work for my host parents sometimes, and he was over last night with two other guys doing some work and before they left they stopped in the dining room where me, Carly, and my host brother and the girl that helps around the house, Mesi were hanging out. They were asking Carly to take their pictures and eating the fruit my host mom had set out, when out of the blue (I think Mesi put him up to it), Nana comes over and starts saying how much he'd like to marry me and we're all cracking up. I let Carly handle the situation for the most part... She was trying to negotiate a good price for me, and we laughed, but he assured us he was serious and eventually got down on his knees. That's when my host mom walked in laughing and told them all to get out of the house. So it was amusing.
I've spent today mostly finishing my essay and "skyping" with my parents, and talking to Alice online! It has been lovely. Oh and I pounded fufu today, but I'm not good at it at all. But that's all, and my last task for today is to at least upload my pictures to my computer so I can put them online soon!
Posted by lib at September 21, 2008 06:07 PM