A VERY red Red Button Moment!

“Mom!! You remember that photograph of me with my dreads? While we were on the Africa trip and where I sit with my feet in the water in front of a waterfall??? Your photograph of the red button is exactly there! The button is sitting on the same rock I was sitting when that photographs was taken!! THAT is the waterfall I had said I hope you will definitely go to!!”

It is the day after I had posted some photographs on Facebook – it was rushed, internet was available for just a short while and I so wanted to share a handful of the many special moments with everyone – and in particular the experience we had at the Kintampo falls; surely the highest of the highlights of my trip so far; a magical red button moment. Nici had seen the photograph and sent me this text from Australia.

Back in 2002-2003 my three children, Marc, Nici and Pierre – and my eventual son- and daughter-in-law, Mat and Sacha – did an overland Africa trip similar to this one I am doing. Their trip was shorter than mine and followed a different route – they went zig-zag across the continent from Gibraltar to Cape Town. When they did their trans, there wasn't the technology that we have – they did not have mobile phones, texting, digital cameras, Skype, Facebook or Google Earth. In fact, there was hardly any internet access anywhere along their route and emails and blogs simply did not come into the picture.

However, they all have scrap books of their trip but these contain mostly beer bottle labels, copies of passport pages, drawings, maps, receipts for white river rafting and bungee jumping, notes, post cards and no more than about a dozen photographs.

But -- one there is one photograph, taken of Nici during their trip, which has been in the back of my mind, stored lovingly for the quiet moment when I need a warm smile. And, when I decided to embark on this journey myself and then finally planned the trip, booked my ticket and started telling people about it, that one single image of Nici was always in my mind, and my thought was that somewhere on my journey through Africa I wanted to find the place where that photo was taken – or experience the feeling the thought of that photo has given me these last nine years. I had no idea where the photo was taken – in fact I thought it was either in Uganda and/or at the source of the Blue Nile – and why there, I don't know,. But it wasn't really important because what I did know was that it was a magical place- a vision – a memorable moment I was looking for rather than geographical location – and that was what I had hope to find during my ten month journey.

When we drove into Ghana, for reasons mentioned and briefly discussed in another post, I did not think that magical moment would happen in this country. And then, one cloudy, cooler afternoon we drove the winding road up to Kintampo – up into the highlands of north-eastern Ghana. We parked the truck under the trees and walked down to where a staircase starts on the edge of what looked like a forest. Down, down, down the stairs went, the sound of crashing water getting louder and louder – and there, after the last turn on the staircase, the first glimpse of the waterfall. It was beautiful! It was breathtakingly beautiful. Not the highest, not the widest, not the most spectacular waterfall, I am sure, but high enough, wide enough and spectacular enough in its crystal clearness and sparking cleanliness to be utterly stunning.

The whole group spent the rest of the afternoon (– and even at dawn the following morning, before our departure), swimming in the pools below, climbing up against the strong shower in under the overhanging rocks to sit in that magical spot behind the crashing falls where the sound is muted and the world is glistening green and nothing matters but the here and now. The boys quickly found a perfect slide down the side where you could let the power of the water shoot you down at a frightening speed and where you could beat the falling water in its race down to the pools below. In their excitement and rush to repeat this joyride down the falls again and again, almost all of them, at one stage or another, slipped on the smooth rocks and came down a painful cropper, Randy being the one to sport the biggest and best bruise ever.

So, when next I had an opportunity to get to internet and posted one quick article on our progress and – because it is so much quicker – a few photographs on Facebook, I had to include a couple of pics of the waterfall – and in particular of the the red button I had left on a rock at the falls. If ever there was a most perfect and magical Red Button Moment, it was my afternoon spent at the Kintampo Falls. Without knowing that this was where Nici's photograph had been taken – but sensing subconsciously that this was the moment I thought I would spend a year travelling through Africa to find – I had in fact found Nici's magical spot in Africa!

Coincidence?

Mmmmmm

I think not.