Ghana – Northern Region + Mole National Park

We again awoke early for another travel day to fly from Accra, Ghana to Tamale Ghana, and then a 3 hour drive to Mole National Park. We originally booked a flight on StarBow Airlines, but one of their planes crashed and they have suspended all flights. So we had to take African World Airlines, which you cannot really book ahead of time unless you are in Ghana. So we had Alena's awesome connection, Aunty Rose, buy us tickets ahead of time (which was amazing!!!) Our flight experience turned out to be great, except our luggage didn't quite fit as a carry-ons 😳, which we didn't realize till we were on the plane, but we made it work... A short 50 min flight later we were in Tamale!

We took a cab to downtown Tamale where we could get transportation to the National Park. We quickly found a helpful taxi driver who helped us buy snacks and told us he could take us to Mole for a good price. As we were loading our bags into the car, some children can up to the car selling frozen treats. Alena knew what was happening so she picked out a delicious ice cream treat for us eat as it was over 100 degrees and we had a 3 hour ride with no air conditioning. As we drove through Tamale the roadsides were filled with little stands and colorfully dressed patrons.

Our long hot ride ended in at the Mole Hotel, with our cab driver demanding us to pay more than we agreed on in Tamale. All taxi rides in Ghana are pre-negotiated and are not metered. We were not having any of his crap, so I aggressively told him off and he finally sulked away with the agreed upon amount. After a sour start to Mole we were soon welcomed by a family of warthogs with adorable little babies! See video of them below:

We finished off our first night in Mole with a gorgeous sunset view from our chalet.

Our complex here is infested with all kinds of lizards. These black and yellow iguanas are pretty sweet and quite large!

You walk around at night and the lizards and these big frogs scatter everywhere!

Started out the morning walking safari with some baboons.

Made our way to a big watering-hole where we found our first elephant! The watering-hole also had some Nile Crocodiles floating around.

We probably spent a half hour watching the elephant play in the mud and water. Check out the video!

Got a close up shot. And no that is not it's tail...

View from the Savannah/watering hole area back up to where we are staying.

All safaris must be guided with an armed ranger for protection.

The avocados here a great so I had to make a little avocado toast for lunch!

We did an evening safari by Jeep. Not quite as fun as walking in the savannah but we did see a lot more animals.

A Black and White Colobus Monkey checking us out.

Our safari guide let us get out of our Jeep to get closer to this pair of elephants we spotted.

One of the elephants was shy and tried to hide in a bush. It was a little too big!

There are very large termite mounds all over the place. Some are well over 10 feet tall! We thought this one looked like the Disney castle.

We ended our tour with another baby warthog spotting! Looks like they were just leaving the Sunday evening service.

An elephant came to join us for breakfast tea one morning!

The beauty of this place has captured us. There are three things that never get old to look at: elephants playing, lightning lighting up the night sky and beautiful sunsets!

The Mole hotel was pretty awesome. Even had a pool to cool off in!

We ended up adding two nights to our stay in Mole we loved it so much!

We were sitting, watching the sunset when a momma and baby baboon snuck up and sat right next to us! It was kinda scary but also really amazing to sit and watch them so close.

Alena with her best crocodile impression.

A herd of 7 male elephants came tromping up to the waterhole on our last morning safari.

We sat there for almost 2 hours watching them play.

Elephants have giant feet.

On our last day in the Northern Region we visited the Larabanga Mosque. It is the oldest mosque in Ghana and one of the oldest in West Africa. The Northern Region of Ghana is heavily Muslim with mosques in every town. We had a lovely tour guide for the mosque, who told us the origin story of the mosque and the Larabanga village. Non Muslims are not allowed to enter the mosque, but we were able to gaze inside an open door.

One of the many villages we passed on the long Tro Tro ride from Damongo to Tamale.

On our flight back to Accra we were served my favorite snack yet, meat pie and cold apple juice!