Monkeys! Baby Monkeys!

Puppies are cute. Kittens are cute. But they got nothin’ on baby monkeys. My second day in Amedzofe involved a side trip down the mountain to the little town of Tafi Atome to visit the Monkey Sanctuary. About 300 mona monkeys call the Sanctuary home, and come out to play with any visitor. Ok, maybe any visitor that just happens to be holding a bag of bananas that they’re willing to share. I arrived late afternoon, after a series of misdirections that took me about 2 hours out of my way, but within minutes none of that mattered. The monkeys travel in family packs, and about 2-3 dozen were within sight in minutes. There were quite a few babies in the batch, about 3-4 months old. Incredibly cute! With a banana firmly in hand, the monkeys will come right up and use their little fingers to scoop bits out from the peel. A few times I wasn’t holding on tight enough and an adult snatched a whole banana right from me. But the babies would grab onto my hand and hold on while having a snack. One jumped right up onto my arm!

I’m very glad I saw the day through and got to the Monkey Sanctuary that day, because the next day was pretty much a bust. Woke up to a view of nothing but clouds and fog. The rain came and went all day, very heavy at times. At one point a few of us at the hotel tried to take advantage of a break in the rain to go climb Mt. Gemi, but the weather didn’t cooperate. Luckily, we were only at the base of the mountain, and right by a memorial garden with a large gazebo. We holed up in there for almost 2 hours waiting out the storm. Once it cleared again, we knew better – back to the hotel, leaving Mt. Gemi for another day.

On Sunday I decided to leave the mountain and head out for a full day’s journey to Kumasi. The trip took about 10 hours total, including 8 hours between two tro-tro’s. Kumasi is Ghana’s second largest city (after Accra). It’s a busy busy city, traffic is congested throughout the day, and the central market area spills out for several more blocks of people just selling everyday goods off the sidewalks. It seems to be more modern than Accra, and a recent initiative to get street signs on every street (yes, the things we take for granted) seems to be working. But even “modern” cities in Ghana have issues – the power went out for a good portion of the city around 6:00 this evening. Luckily, my hotel has back up generator power. Again, things we take for granted…