Mole National Park

Josephine, Philip, Maria and our guide Adam in front of a group of African Elephants.

July 21-22
Half of our three hour drive to the Mole National Park was on a bumpy, red clay road, bordered by some of the loveliest villages we have seen so far. Many of the mud homes had designs of lines and dots etched into their walls. The majority of the remote villages that we passed had power lines and bore holes (wells), yet the tall cell phone towers beside them still looked out of place in the tranquil setting. Generally when you approach a village on the road there are handmade speed bumps to slow vehicles down. This road had speed bumps, huge pot holes, ruts, and the occasional cow and goat sunning themselves on the road. We finally arrived at the park and checked into the Mole Motel.
Mole is the largest national park in Ghana. The savannah woodland park is home to 93 mammalian species, 33 reptiles, nine amphibians and 300 bird species. We went on two safaris and were fortunate to see kobs, bush bucks, ververt monkeys, water bucks, baboons, warthogs, crocodiles, striped ground squirrels, patas monkeys, a nile momltor lizard, a mongoos, a saddle bill stock and elephants. Did you know that elephants only have two enemies- people and soldier ants?
A number of baboons frequent the Motel hoping to steal food from people eating at the outdoor restaurant. We were told that they only steal food from women as they are afraid of men. As we walked from our room to the restaurant we saw a baboon open the door of an unoccupied dormitory and go into it. He came out empty-handed, and ran off to try his luck by the pool.



These two African elephants have just come out of the water. All African elephants are black. The reddish brown elephants in the picture below have covered themselves with soil to protect their skin from insects and the heat.

The baby baboon is sitting on its mother in this group of baboons

A bush buck