Flying Oborunis

April 24, 2011

Here it is. The cliché “I went abroad and did some extreme activity that involves jumping off some tall structure” post. My method of choice was paragliding and my structure was Kwahu Plateau.

We left for the Eastern Region mid-morning on Friday because we were told the festival was only an hour away, so we figured that was plenty of time. Eight hours, a bus, and two tro-tros later, we made it. Ghana loves Easter, let me tell you, because the whole weekend was the liveliest I’ve seen anyone in Ghana since I arrived.

We wandered around Obo for a while looking for hotels, which were all booked, as we had been forewarned, but I’m not entirely sure how that works, considering every time we tried to make arrangements, we failed miserably, but I guess it’s the oboruni factor or something. I wasn’t worried, and I was actually quite content staying with one of the 80 billion random people who had offered their homes, but some of my fellow travelers were not quite as amused by that option.

When we were in Accra looking for the correct bus to Nkawkaw, we met a woman who led us all through the city to get us to the right starting point. She had given us the name of her sister (biological? Who knows. Everyone is everyone’s sister, so it could have been some random lady she had gone to pre-school with 40 years earlier, but we accepted it nonetheless) and her phone number, because she lives in Obo, so when we were stuck with no options, I gave Auntie Acos a call. I started talking, and before I could even explain the whole situation she asked me “where are you? Where are you? You want to stay at my house? I will come pick you up.” Quite a welcoming little lady, if you ask me!

It turns out we were able to grab a hotel room, so unfortunately we did not get the pleasure of staying with Auntie Acos, and boy was she upset. She called three more times that night (“You don’t want to stay with me? Why? I want to be your friend” and “I am making dinner for you. Where are you? I want to show you the sites”) and once the next day, but we never had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Acos. Next time, I suppose.

That night we went to join in on some of the festivities at Ohenenana, where there was music and dancing and kebabs galore. For some reason we were basically the only oborunis we saw all night, which surprised us given the nature of the festival, but in any case we attracted more attention than usual. The best comparison I can come up with for the whole affair is that it felt like a Ghanaian Fourth of July, minus the independence and the fireworks. Granted, those two things are a large part of the Fourth of July, but all the same kind of celebration and excitement was there.

Saturday was paragliding day, so after a fun night that ended in with our taxi driver momentarily abandoning us for a quick little fight, we woke up and headed up the mountain. We got there around 8:30 or 9:00 and weren’t scheduled to fly for a while, so we hung out and watched the others before us. It was literally a cliff cleared for this event, so there was basically a hill about 50 yards long leading down to the face of the cliff, so you run down it and once you hit the end, you better hope your parachute has taken off. Luckily, mine did, so Alan, my Norwegian pilot, and I had a lovely little ride. Immediately off the cliff we saw all the jungley trees, so that was really cool, and as we got out a little further, we rode over Nkawkaw, where we had come into town the day before. My pilot and Hannah’s were good friends, so we got to play around with them a bit, and at the end, we did some twisting and turning and things I don’t actually know how to describe, because I don’t actually know what my physical orientation was at any point, but it was quite cool. Quite nausea-inducing, as well, but I ignored that part.

At the highest point I was 1200 meters above sea level, and at the lowest point, I was, well, on the ground. All in all, a successful adventure. Happy Easter!