Run to the Hills (Again)

Kilimanjaro it ain't.

The banana-hungry troop descends upon human and offspring.

Ghana is often referred to "Africa for beginners". It is relatively safe, English-speaking and it has beaches, jungle/rainforest and savannah all wrapped up in one little country. What's even cooler is that you don't need to go to the savannah to see some savannah. For Accra residents, an hour's drive to the Shai Hills Resource Reserve is enough for a taste of the Africa of one's imagination - and it is much more accessible than Ghana's main wildlife attraction, Mole National Park.

With vague memories of his experience as a backpacking student, Mr. O, Mrs. O and Little Miss, along with some friends, piled into the family vehicle and drove to Shai Hills on a Sunday morning, where the only traffic was locals on their way to church. Upon arrival, they squeezed in another passenger (the mandatory park ranger/guide) and went for the tour. To the delight of Little Miss, there was a troop of friendly baboons nearby waiting for bananas (also, a friendly banana-seller, keen to cash in on this niche market).

No Baby Björn required.

Somewhat more improbably, a pair of ostrich were fenced in for easy viewing. Ostrich are not indigenous to Ghana, but the liquidating Accra Zoo was looking for takers and so now one can see ostrich on the savannah without flying to Kenya. Plus, they seem as content as ostrich can be, with the nearest cheetahs several thousand miles away.

On the far side of the park, one can have a bit more of a safari experience and drive through the grassland, observing the local kob antelope and 175 species of bird (none were actually observed).

One could swear those ostriches were speaking Swahili.

Little Miss takes on the rocks.

In the caves. Not visible: thousands of sleeping bats.

The main attraction is the bat cave. In simpler times, the Shai people used the cave as an emergency base and shelter for women and children in times of intertribal war. When the British came to rout them in 1892, fun-time was over and the Shai were removed from the hills, forced to pay taxes like everybody else, while also living without a cave hideout like everybody else - except maybe Batman. Incidentally, the cave is host to thousands of bats.

The cave itself is accessible enough that Little Miss clambered up the path to it, until Mr. O decided the guano smell was getting a bit heavy for little climbing hands. Taking a cue from the baboon babies, she clung to him as they climbed a rather steep set of stairs and negotiated a rope ladder up a rock (not parenting at its finest, mind you). In addition to climbing a bat cave, there was also a beautiful view of the surrounding landscape for those who could climb to it. And all this on a three-hour tour. (yes, a three-hour tour)

While Ghanaian parks leave much to be desired from a tourist standpoint, Mr. O reckons that Shai Hills upped its game since his previous visit: the fees were a bit more ambitious (a park cannot reasonably be operated on 3 cedi a visitor) and there appears to be an attempt to diversify the experience (there are now three caves open, birdwatching excursions, hikes, camping and rock climbing offered to visitors).

The view from the top.

At the least, it makes for a great opportunity for Little Miss to see monkeys AND flex her climbing muscles. Planning kid-friendly outings in Ghana is always a crap shoot. In a country where children are an afterthought, tourism facilities catering to families are fairly lacking. Driving several hours to a waterfall to stay at a secluded lodge can be worth the effort, but not if one has to contend with a bored and frustrated child in an enclosed space the entire time. So parents tend to pick their battles. Thankfully, Shai Hills was no struggle at all.