mole national park {ghana's yellowstone}...

{last thursday, we drove 12 hours to ghana's northern region to visit mole national park... }

  {this is what the road looked like for the final two hours...

  {this little guy greeted us as we entered the park...} 

  {we finally made it!...} 

 {the warthog that was standing outside our room the first morning...}

  {our first safari...}

  {baboons!...}

 {african kob...} {two males fighting...}

  {whistling duck...}  {white-backed vultures...}

  {guineafowl...} {red bishop...}

 {roan antelope...} {green monkeys...}

 {bushbuck...} {ground squirrel...}

  {male waterbuck...}

 {female waterbuck and baby...}

 {lined centipede-eater... poisonous} {savannah monitor lizard - look closely and you can see his head in the water on the left side...}

     

  {elephant dung...}
 {saddle-billed stork...}

{on day 2, we tracked elephants through the woods with our guide issah...}

    {footprints!...}

 {katie standing in an elephant footprint...}

{in the words of our dear friend, elmer fudd... shh... be vewy, vewy quiet... we're twacking elephants...}

  {first sightings!...}   

  {by the time we left mole, they were calling katie the the elephant whisperer...}

 

  

   {hammerhead stork...} 

 {stone partridge...}

 {elephant in the watering hole right outside our room...}

  {elephants on one of our safari drives...}

  {the view outside our room was beautiful...}  

 {burt snuck-up on this guy and he wasn't happy about it...}

  {hartebeest...} {red-flanked duiker...}

 {african buffalo... look real closely...}

 {katie swears she saw a hyena/lion/jackal, but there is no picture to verify this claim...}

 {the elephants bid us farewell on our way out...}

 {we were fortunate enough to see two leopards when we were leaving the park on sunday...}

 {our guide told us they've only been seen 4 or 5 times all year...}

{on our way home, we planned to stop at bui national park, where there was - at one time - a large hippo population... that was, of course, before they started building a dam...}

  {there would be no hippo sightings on this day... there hadn't been one in over a year...}

 {...and we declined an invitation to stay here...}

  {...but we did settle for a hike up sunset mountain...}

 {...and the view was incredible...}

{no road trip in ghana would be complete without... a shredded tire!...}