On our way to Mole, part 2

The final two hours to Mole is traveled on dirt road so pitted and rutted one suspects it’s intended to bounce the memory of asphalt from your memory. It is like we are driving on square wheels. You have to hold on to the seat back in front of you to keep from falling into the aisle. Clouds of red dirt billow into the bus. Shawn ties her bandana around her nose and mouth like a bandito.

In the village of Damongo, we drop off all but the obruni on our bus, which, including us, number maybe 10. The town is a patch of swept dirt at the side of the road encircled by a loose arrangement of a dozen mud huts.

It’s dead dark by now, and we watch goats scatter before our headlights. We are all hoping to happen upon some wild animal that’s wandered to road and squint into the distance out the windshield.

At one village, free of electricity, our arrival is the evening’s entertainment. A group of 20 gather as the bus removes some bags. They peer into the windows, one boy saying, “Give me 1 cedi.” When we leave, the entire lot of them is plunged back into complete darkness.

Finally, about 8 p.m., we reach the gate to Molé. A guard enters to collect the park “fee.” This amounts to 4 cedis (about US$4) per person, with an additional 2 cedi charge for those expecting to use their camera in the park. An excellent memory is apparently free to bring in.

The bus stops here for the night, we learn, with the driver staying at the hotel as well; he will return to Tamale in the morning at 4 a.m. It is really the only way out of the park each day.

We check in, Shawn and I getting a double room for 35 cedis. As we make our way to the room in the dark, we find a family of wild antelope dining and reclining in the strip of grass to the side of the one-story bank of rooms. They are far less interested in us.

All settled in the simple, rather institutional room, we join a group of others for a late dinner in the hotel’s restaurant; the Molé Park Hotel is the only accommodation option in the area. It’s a nice group made up of visitors from England, Holland and Finland. They explain that they saw three elephants that day, one only a couple of hundred feet away.

“And then we’re sitting around here later and a baboon stole my camera,” says John, a Brit.

“Excuse me?” I say.

“Yeah, I was sitting over there by the pool and I had my camera on the table and he just came up and took it. It was rather frightening to be honest.”

“Just … came over and took it?” I’m stupefied.

“Yeah. Simple as you like.” The rest of the group is laughing.

“That’s amazing,” I say. “Did you get it back? Had he taken any pictures with it?”

“No. But the batteries were new, so he has plenty of time I reckon.”

It’s an incredible story. We keep our eyes to the short wall separating the hotel grounds from the wild. In the distance stretches the vast park, dramatically illuminated by a bright, white moon. I keep waiting to see if I see a camera flash in the distance.

(Picture: One of the warthogs fond of roaming about the grounds)