The new volunteers by the way are called Amber and Jamie. Amber is American, in her early thrities, married (and has an amazing wedding story to go with this) and is in Ghana for three weeks. Jamie i2 23, from Perth, Australia, and staying for twelve weeks. They are both working at Happy Kids.
The Wli (Agumatsu) waterfall trip was next. It is about a 40 minute drive out to the bottom of the track from where you walk another 40 minutes or so to the bottom of the falls. The waterfall is the highest in West Africa and you can wade across the shallow water to stand underneath it, though you have to walk towards it backwards for the last 5 metres or so because the force of the spray is a bit blinding. You also can't stay under for too long since it feels a bit like somebody has turned up the knob on your power shower to 'blast the dirt off with no need for soap' level.
In the interest of amusing tourists like myself, somebody periodically comes along to frighten the bats out of the cliffs, where they are flapping about minding their own business, by whacking a large stick against a metal barrel. They swoop indignantly around the sky for a while until the noise stops and we all breathe a sigh of relief (or at least, I do).
After your 'swim' you get to walk soggily back down to the van, which I nearly had to do without shoes this time, because Akos had stolen and hidden them. This was not the only deja vu moment I had: there are nine bridges to cross on the way up (and down) and I found an exciting alternative route across the river at one of these on the way back. I resisted the urge this time though before I got to the part where I am properly sitting in the river and wondering how exactly I got there.
Julianna's family were here visiting last week and joined in with our excursions. Doting Ps, it seems you have been slacking in your parental duties! They also went independently to visit the monkey sanctury and, having conscientiously missed my monkey sanctuary trip in favour of staying at work, I tagged along with them. We went armed with plenty of bananas, which we stopped to buy on the way. We were nearly charged a fortune however, possibly because the stall owner, like many Ghanaians, didn't understand the currency, or possibly he thought, as many people do, that yevus are stupid enough to pay it.
We met the guide at the office and he led us along a trail through the rainforest, stopping (obviously), once we found some monkeys. This can take a while since many of the monkeys will settle nowhere near the tracks, but we were fortunate and found some after only a few minutes. They come and snatch banana quite brazenly from your hands (the whole thing if you don't hold tight) and leap about, squabbling amongst themselves, for a while until the bananas run out. The others were going on to Accra to catch their flight home, so I had to take a tro tro home - but it was definitely worth the risk.
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