Instead of going to our volunteer placement, we took the morning off to go on a hike up the Likpe mountain, just a 20 minute drive from our house. Our program driver, Makafawe, describe the mountain hike as "somewhat physically challenging, but very do-able and only an hour walk up and then an hour back down". I'm going to go ahead and say that that definition was completely misleading. It was easily the hardest, most physically demanding thing I have ever done, yet so rewarding overall. We got to the base of the mountain and waited to be introduced to our tour guide. All of a sudden, this seemingly 12-year old boy wearing shorts, a t-shirt, flip flops and carrying just a flashlight showed up in front of us and proceeded to introduce himself as our guide. We just went with it. Come to find out later, he was actually 20 years old and hikes this mountain roughly three times a day. At the time though, it was pretty funny thinking that this small child-like person was our safety net for this hike.
We started walking up this wide dirt road and within minutes I was already sweating. The entire walk up the mountain was unreal; so hot, sweaty and exhausting because of how terribly steep it continued to become. Once we were off the dirt road we ended up hiking up these rocky paths through the African brush. I was honestly dripping from head to toe and could feel my heart beating in my ear drums. Over an hour later, we emerged from the brush and into this beautiful green meadow area that reminded me so much of the hills from the Sound of Music. This meadow could not have come at a more perfect time. There was a rope swing that we were able to swing on and we just relaxed for a bit, overlooking the beautiful country scenery. Being at the top of a mountain like that and gazing for miles was such an incredible sight and reassurance that this adventure was well worth the sweat and heat. 
Once we were well rested, our guide explained that the next step was to kind of walk around the top of the mountain and traverse through 6 different caves in the process. This part was absolute insanity. We were free-hand scaling the walls of these caves, crouching low to crawl our way into them and using shoddy ropes as our support to ascend and descend the caves and dense forest grounds. I've never done anything like this though and it was so extreme and exciting! The final cave was the best - we climbed this extremely steep wall into the darkness of the cave and had to blindly feel our way to the top of it. We literally had to follow the light to make it out. The entire series of caves were such a blast.
After the cave portion, we walked down the mountain to a waterfall where we were able to cool down and relax. We all just ran in at once, in our clothes and all. Easily the most refreshing waters I've ever felt, and so necessary at the moment. 4 hours later from the start of the hike we were finally finished, and each of us was so proud of what he had accomplished together :)
This evening we learned a style of dancing called High-Life, that has been a traditional style of dance and music in Ghana since the 19th century. We set up speakers out in the front lawn and learned the different steps and body movements of High-Life dancing. Once we learned about that, we moved onto something called Hip-Life, which takes the traditional musical tones of High-Life and adds a sort of hip-hop style to it. This part was a blast. Neighboring kids came and danced with us and we had a mini dance party in the lawn :) Such a great way to end the day.
Tomorrow I'll be back at the hospital! Until then.
Dedi te nu nye nuto, (I'm exhausted),
~ Sarah
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