African Network Travel and Tours put together two exciting tours, that culminated in viewing this unique total Solar Eclipse from a carefully selected spot in the mountains here in Ghana, West Africa.

My curiosity of the lifetime experience grandmother narrated to us on one of the nights she told us Ananse stories by a small fire, has been satisfied and more.
We the grandchildren had asked grandma to put more wood in the fire to brighten up our surrounding because it was dark and scary. This brought about her exclamation of - “Dark! This is not dark”, my grandma shouted, and then she told us about the total darkness that went over our village many years back.

Yes, it was on the 29th of March, 2006. The Solar Eclipse that cut across Ghana has come to pass. I was excited. Imagine you are standing on top of a hill in the bush in the middle of Africa, over-looking a Village. Next to you are people from different racial backgrounds - Togolese, English, Dutch, Japanese, Finland, Nigerians, Malaysians, Americans, Chinese and a lot of Ghanaians, both adults and school children all waiting to catch a glimpse of the wonderful phenomenon. The excitement on their faces and in the voices of newspaperman, radio commentators and television presenters and their crews was worth it all.

Explore Worldwide travel and tours came in with five buses full of tourists accompanied by the BBC television crew to film the Solar Eclipse and parts of Ghana. I am informed that the event will be telecast on BBC television in England in November 2006.

Also present among us was the well-known TV presenter Wesley Kerr, from England, and I believe it was his first time watching the Solar Eclipse from Africa with Africans. People brought along with them on to the mountain goats and sheep, fowls, dogs etc just to see their reactions when the Solar Eclipse falls.

As the moon started to go over the sun, the people started playing drums amidst singing, dancing and shouting. The birds and the animals started getting ready for the night. From afar, you could see the lights being lit in the village and darkness fell in the mountains and over Ghana.

After witnessing the the solar eclipse, I also have a story to tell my grandchild, Wessel, about the darkness that fell over our village just as my grandmother did.