Exploring the Volta
Head east to the Volta Region and beyond to get a glimpse of a different Ghana.
HEAD EAST, AWAY from the busy streets of Accra and past Ghana’s industrial belt of Tema, you travel into a different Ghana. While many visitors head west to Cape Coast, Elmina and Takoradi – something that should be done – fewer leave the capital to the east. By heading in this direction, you’ll experience a Ghana that leads a slower pace of life, where old fellas congregate under giant baobab trees, where children join their parents fishing on the river, and where breezes cool the upland towns. Baboons feast on fallen mangoes, and the village roads are lined with mahogany trees, planted largely for shade but also because the bark can help with malaria. Teak trees are similarly plentiful (and have their own practical use, providing a red pigment for paint), as are tropical orchards, banana plantations and paddy fields. Accra, this most certainly is not.
But what else do you find as you head east? The Shia Hills begin their rise out of the land, encompassing the Shia Hills Resource Reserve, which plays home to at least 175 species of bird, 31 species of mammal and 13 species of reptile. That’s some list for nature-lovers to check off. Soon after, you’ll encounter the man-made wonder that is Akosombo Dam, which holds back the colossal Lake Volta, the world’s largest man-made lake. The dam was built just after independence and completed in 1963 with help from the US government, who took cocoa in return. The low water levels of Lake Volta mean the dam can no longer support the full energy needs of Ghana, Togo and Benin, so natural gas in the south and solar power in the north are now helping. Just before the dam is the stunning resort of The Royal Senchi; more budget-minded visitors can stay at Adi Lake Resort.
From the southern end of the lake longer, trips can be taken on the Yapei Queen, a boat that runs the length of the lake twice a week, a 24-hour trip from Akosombo to Yeji. Beyond Akosombo, the roads begin to rise, twist and wind. The vegetation becomes greener and thicker, the trees taller, the humidity more striking. Butterflies swarm across the roads and flowers fill the bushland verges.
We took our first trip to this region with Jolinaiko Eco Tours, a Ghanaian-Dutch-run tour company with a passion for eco-tourism and community development. We stayed up in Amedzofe, Ghana’s highest village, and climbed Mount Gemi, the country’s second tallest peak. The views from the top are expansive, to say the least. Lake Volta was shimmering in the west, and the hills that surrounded the peak were fading into the evening haze. Next, we headed south along the river to Atsiekpoe, where the tour company has built Cashew Village, a little collection of rooms around a courtyard, run by people from the local community. Tourism money goes to a community development fund, which in turn not only helps the building of a clinic but ensures the power stays on.
If you travel even further east, you’ll hit the route to Togo and Benin; carve north, however, you’ll reach the gushing Wli Falls, as well as Mount Afadjato, Ghana’s highest mountain. To explore the Volta Region is to see a different Ghana. Those vividly green uplands and welcoming villages stay with you – and you’ll always be greeted with a wide smile.
