Wli Waterfalls - Beauty of the Mountains
The Wli Waterfall is one of the largest waterfalls in West Africa and beautifully located – deep in the mountains of the Volta region, close to the Togolese border.
It consists of an upper and a lower case, both of which can be seen from a distance from the nearby village of the same name. Immediately in front of it, however, only the impressive lower case shows itself, for the upper one you have to take a small hike.
On the day of our trip to Wli we started early in the morning in Accra and reached our destination just before sunset. Due to the fact that the route is relatively long, we were travelling by public transport and the sun in Ghana always sets shortly after six, it was quite close to the time of arrival to take a hike. Once in Wli, you have to register for it, as usual in Ghana, in the Tourist Info and get a guide for the way provided. Of course we wanted to see the waterfall on this day, but the way there through beautiful forest, along the small river that feeds out of the waterfall, was almost worth the trip alone. Here you can enjoy a wonderful green tropical nature, which creates a wonderful landscape panorama with the mountains of the surrounding area. For the way to the waterfall, follow the course of the river through the tropical forest and cross the small watercourse again and again over partly slightly adventurous bridge constructions. After some time, a view of the rock face emerges, from which the waterfall finds its way down elsewhere. This was perfectly illuminated for us by the setting sun and at second glance numerous flying dogs could be seen, hanging on the rock bathed in deep orange for the dawn of the twilight.
From this exciting sight it was only a few minutes to the actual reason of the trip – the Wli waterfall. And now that we were standing directly on foot, the immediately came the realization: a better time for arrival could not have been chosen. The waterfall itself was also illuminated by the setting sun and even produced some rainbows at the right angle. So there were numerous worthwhile motifs, but of course there was a need for haste in order to capture this light efficiently. As a result, unfortunately, there was no time in the lake that forms the waterfall here yet to take a refreshing dip. But shouldn't be a problem, because we had planned to spend the night in Wli and the next day we also took the hike to the upper case. So we made our way back to the private accommodation and were already looking forward to the next day.
The night itself was a bit restless, due to the numerous goats that were kept right around our accommodation and who felt not tired of loudly drawing attention to their presence all night. The next morning there was a veil of fog over the mountains of the region and the sky was very cloudy. As far as no problem is a problem – clouds in these latitudes of the earth are not the worst for a planned hike. Unfortunately, about an hour later, the clouds decided to send their rain intensively and long-lasting towards the earth. In the hope of improvement, we nevertheless made our way to the waterfall with our guide and waited for the rain to subsides. Unfortunately, he did not make any corresponding institutions and so we had to pull unfinished things from there again. So that was the price for the wonderful moments the previous evening. But to experience the waterfall in such a tropical rain, still had something nice despite all the annoyance and so there is definitely a reason to come back again.