1 October 2001

Business Names of the Week:
Tell Me the Truth Hair Salon
No Weapons Communications (a place to make phone calls)
Who Knows Radiator Service
Death Has Won Art (a sign painter's shop)

Me and a Big Tree Aburi Botanical Gardens

Sunday morning I went on a trip to a botanical garden/park about 50 kilometers north of Accra. It required many tro-tros and a lesson in getting on a tro-tro in a remote tro-tro transfer spot. Basically, you have to befriend a big man and get him to identify the tro-tro you need before it stops, then have him shove you through the crowd. A "pusher man."

The botanical gardens were lovely--way up in the hills where it's green and jungle-looking. I didn't hike too far, for fear or getting completely lost. But I hiked far enough to suddenly look down and see my shoes covered with giant black ants, busy burrowing their heads into my shoes and working through my socks at my ankles, too. It hurt like mad! I must have looked funny to any monkeys in the trees (although there weren't any as far as I could see), jumping on one foot and then the other. I was lucky, though, because I wacked all of them off before any made it up my leg.

There were lots of wild and fascinating trees, but not too many flowering plants. The air was clean and cool. I finished the hike with a chunk of pineapple from a chop stand on the way down the road back to Accra.