Kuma-Kunda

After our stay in Lome we headed up to the mountains where the were rumors of hikes and butterfly gardens. Have you ever cut your way through a rain forest using nothing but a butter knife in the search for insects? It was a fantastic stay. Our guide was great, the village was all too sweet, and the mountains were breathtaking. And there's nothing quite like a motorcycle ride through rain forest roads.

All these paintings are made using leaves... you'll see.

Slap this fern on you!

And get a cool fern tattoo. 

Rubber!

There was this sad moment where I thought about all the 

people who lost life and limb over something so simple. 

The grasshopper whose face looks like an African mask.

Our first butterfly!

Up in the mountains. 

Natural sand paper.

You can actually do some serious damage with that stuff.

Pretty.

Pineapple! In its natural habitat. 

This was once a green leaf.

Crush it up and you get red paint.

That's how they make those paintings.

Inside of this bark is orange.

Painting.

Hurray for butterflies.

Oh gosh.

At this point I was just impressed with his insect

whispering abilities. What a pro.

Crazy rain forest disease.

That is my friend being all graceful and stuff in that tree.

Just moments before I tripped on a vine and fell out of said tree.

How????

On the upside, I can now say I tripped off a waterfall in Fiji and out of a tree in Togo.

We found avocado and mango in the forest and feasted.

Using the same butter knife used to cut through the forest.

So multi-functional!

Orange lichen? Mold? Fungi??

This is what I mean by cutting our way through.

Our guide used nothing but his butter knife.

Do you see any real path?

Yeah, me either.

And I have the scratches to prove it.

Cool picture of grass.

Psyche!

That stuff cuts you like a razor.

How crazy is that?

It felt like one of those stretchy ball things.

Do you know what I'm talking about?

Does it get better?

The answer is no.

Moral of the story is that the only thing better than a hike through the rain forest is a guided hike through the rain forest. He showed us so many cool things. Lots of things that aren't shown here too because it was more fill-your-head-with-cool-facts stuff than anything visual. We got to smell the plant that gives us black licorice! So many things I never knew came from the rain forest!