Aburi & Oboadaka Falls

Today is Ghana's Memorial Day when they remember the guy who helped them gain freedom as a country.  Can't remember his name.  It is September 21, 2021.  The mountains of Utah are turning colors and we decided to enjoy the holiday (and the first day of Fall) by going to Aburi and seeing the Oboadaka Falls.

Aburi is north of Accra about fifty minutes without much traffic, in the mountains, and always green because it rains there all the time according to Yao.  Yao is Gabriel's brother-in-law.  Gabriel works for the Church and works with the Woodbury's who are the Area's humanitarian missionaries.   We have traveled a lot with them recently.

Gabriel and the Woodbury's picked us up at our apartment compound this morning and we headed up.

The Aburi area is a welcomed change from Accra.  There are mountains covered from top to bottom with vegetation.  Little villages here and there beyond Aburi.  Aburi itself is pretty big.  We drove on dirt roads, mostly good as we got closer to the Oboadaka Falls.  Along the way we drove past pineapple fields like this.

I had to take a picture of these little tiny pineapples.  And, yes, it brought back memories of picking pineapples on Molokai in the summer of 1971.  We also walked past fields of corn and ground nuts (peanuts). This is a plant the Falls caretaker said we could pluck up and examine.  That's Gabriel holding the plant to show the roots where the peanuts grow.

Here is a picture of the Falls caretaker's home and family.  His name is Mohammad, her name Matilda.. We had to park by their home because the road was impassable there and walk a quarter mile or so to the gate.  Mohammad has the key to open the big gate.

The mom was cooking corn on the cob on the coals and shared it with us.  Very kind.

Here are the falls with pictures of Gabriel, Yao, the Woodbury's and us.

A long walk down to the falls on these uneven steps.

Yao and Gabriel.  Gabriel walked out to the falls and got behind them.  It looked fun.  Before our mission we were told to just not go into the water because we could catch a bug, so I wasn't tempted.  And, I didn't have shorts on, or my swimming suit. 

The Woodbury's really aren't giants.  They were standing a bit in front of us.

After visiting with Mohammad and his family, we drove back to Aburi to have lunch at this place, Bachelors Food and Bar.  The chicken and rice was really good.  Our Ghanaian friends each had foofoo.  We treated our two guides.

So, that is our Memorial Day adventure in Ghana.

October 2, 2021

The Woodbury's and us took some friends today to see the Falls.  the Olsen's, Despain's, Derr's and Eastmond's.  They all loved the place as much as we do.  The Falls are beautiful.  We saw more visitors there today than two weeks ago.  The place isn't super well known, but getting more and more as time goes on.  

We took Mohammad and Matilda a big bag of rice.  The Woodbury's gave them some too.  They really appreciated it.  As we were leaving, Mohammad stopped on his motorcycle and said he was going to town to buy oil so they could cook the rice.  We were going to do that and forgot!  He was very happy and thanked us again.

Here are a few more pictures of the Oboadaka Falls.