Wa and the Wild (Upper) West

2 weeks in Wa for work went as follows; I was outside a shop and met a Canadian, exchanged phone numbers, and I found myself as a dinner guest with 3 Canadians, eating vegetarian crepes and drinking delicious wine!

I explored the town - the Wa-Na’s place (the local chief) where the armed military guard got extremely angry at me for not saying hello. I hastened out of there for the central mosque, colourful and hidden, this is a large Islamic area in Ghana - Fridays are amazing. Then to the markets where it is fun to look for jerseys or rejected clothes from your home town. Shirts and throw aways turn up from all over the world, Ghanaians wearing Australian school jerseys, table tennis shirts etc is quite amusing. Makes you think just how many charity or ‘fun’ shirts end up in strange places.

The ‘touristy’ attractions are mostly outside of Wa, in the only taxi in town we set off to Sankana, with my door constantly flying open along the way. Community entry custom means getting the chief’s permission to enter and explore the town; he was drinking at the local bar, so it was natural to join. Pito, the local brew, with a good head of fermented froth on it was shared. Interesting, I can’t say if I like it yet. 

In 'No Fear' the taxi - the door that kept opening

 Two men were summoned from the markets, to be our guides. They took us out into the fields, headed for the famous slave caves. The first cave...... it was hardly a cave. We looked around a bit confused, thinking it was a joke and laughing waiting for the punch line. Politely they explained this was the cave where the locals cooked - hiding from the captors.

The 'kitchen'

Further on through high grass was a large rock that was the lookout rock to see when the captors were coming and alert the locals. With high hopes for the actual caves fading, this helped when finding the cave had collapsed inside (or so it was said), so the cave that apparently housed thousands of locals hiding from slave captors looked like a little crevice that only a small child could fit inside. The journey, however was a whole lot of fun. One of the guides wanted to marry me until I told him I couldn’t cook the local food, what a turn off. I amused myself with asking silly questions such as ‘where are all the lions’ and didn’t expect the answer ‘oh! there are none here - only leopards!’ leopards!!! What! 

The cave that housed thousands of slaves....

Back in the bar for another half hour, thankyous to the chief were made and enquiries about our next destination. Noone had heard of the mushroom termite hills - even with the sign at the entrance to the town advertising them! Much denial ensued, including promises they were what we had just seen (!), finally it was decided to set off to the next town and see for ourselves.

This chief was out of town, so the second-most-important-man in the village sufficed for permission. Apparently it is the wrong season, ‘go and come when the dry season is here’. An interesting tourism approach. Reasons included ‘because of the wild animals’ and ‘you won’t be able to get there’, ‘you won’t be able to see them’, a little skeptical. Yet 2 guides came and we entered the walking track in the ‘No Fear’ (can-go-anywhere) taxi as far as possible. Thank goodness for the guides, helping navigate the walk through grass fields double my height with no tracks. In a large field with lower grass, I expected to cross it, but realised the guides were pointing to a little rock. The termite hill!! My expectation of these ‘mushroom shaped termite hills’ was big boulders THREE TIMES my size - It was up to my knee!! But it was a beautiful sunset and a nice walk; again, plenty of good chat, and our taxi driver loved posing for arty photos such as ‘a man lost in his village, thinking’ on top of the mushroom termite hills.

Children at the chief's house

The walk through the fields

The field with the mushroom hills

Amazing termite hills

Here is one of the termite hills! Can you spot it?

Milling About

 

'Man Lost'

 























The Wa-ventures continued with a reggae night at a hotel. The speakers were walls of noise, a full stage of instruments, so I expected big things. Rastas everywhere. But once it started and it was just person after person singing to a backing tape I was very disappointed. The main act finally came on at about 1am, and sang the same song over and over, and there was only a handful of people there. But it was quite the experience anyway.

 
A fantastic 2 weeks and insight into ‘growing tourism’, much more fun than being a tourist in a touristy place. The adventures will continue, I now know a little of the local language and some locals.