Wli Falls, and the one that was dry

We went to two waterfalls in Ghana on the same day, and the first one taught us
something about the second.

Boti is the famous one near the capital, twin falls that come together in the wet
months into a single sheet of water. We turned up in the dry season. What we found was
a handsome gorge, a lot of steps, and not much water. Nobody had misled us; it simply
needs the rains, and we were months out. It is the kind of thing you can only really
learn by standing at the bottom of it.

So we drove east with lowered expectations, and Wli was the opposite in every way.

It sits near the Togo border in green hills that do not look like the Ghana we had
been driving through. You walk in along a shaded path, crossing and recrossing a
stream on footbridges, with the noise arriving well before the view does. Then the
forest opens and the whole thing is in front of you: a single column of water off a
cliff with the trees crowding in on both sides, and enough spray coming off the pool
to soak you where you stand. It is generally counted the tallest fall in West Africa,
though Nigeria has a rival claim and I would not fight anybody about it.

We had been in the cars a long time by that point, in a country none of us had warmed
to. Standing in the cold spray at the bottom of that cliff was one of the genuine
highlights of the whole rally, and I did not expect to be writing that about Ghana.

The lesson is simple enough and it applies to both: the water is the attraction, so go
when there is water. Wli runs year-round. Boti does not.