March 15-16: Visiting the Cape Coast Castle took a bit longer than expected, so we had to rush to make it to the entrance of Kakum National Park by 6 PM, as agreed, from where we would continue to our accommodation for the night. Bálint decided not to sleep in the jungle and randomly found a guesthouse in a small village about 10 minutes from the park. Surprisingly, it turned out to be quite modern. We said goodbye to him with heavy hearts because the villagers were very kind, and we also felt like staying there instead of in the middle of the forest. But everything had already been arranged.

We arrived a bit late, but luckily our guide waited for us. Then we had to wait another half hour, as he thought more guests were coming (though he may have just counted us twice, since we had been unsure whether we’d be three or four). The plan was to hike to the treehouse, drop off our stuff, and then take a two-hour night walk in hopes of spotting wildlife.

This is when things started to get strange and go downhill. We always try to write about our travels in a positive light and focus on the good, but it’s also important to be honest and share when an experience isn’t ideal.

Kakum is a small national park covered entirely by rainforest, home to monkeys, birds, elephants, and other tropical species. It’s one of Ghana’s most visited tourist attractions (Ghana receives far more tourists than most other West African countries), and it’s famous for having one of Africa’s three canopy walkways. We’d read that while the canopy walk is beautiful, it’s often overcrowded and less enjoyable, so we wanted to venture deeper into the forest. One well-known vlogger who recently travelled across Africa made a video about how interesting it was to sleep in the jungle, so we decided to try the treehouse experience ourselves.

After about a 15-minute walk from the parking lot, during which we could still hear music from a town party and see lights, we arrived at the treehouse—only to be told by our guide that he had forgotten the key. So we had to go to another treehouse instead. That one was farther away, so the walk there would count as part of our “night forest walk.”

We walked 15 minutes back to the parking area, where there’s also a restaurant. There, our guide started looking for a “bush rat,” which he eventually found near the kitchen. It was probably just an ordinary rat, as bush meat is common in many African countries, and we had already seen giant cane rats sold along the roads. By this point, we were growing uneasy, but still tried to stay hopeful.

We walked for nearly an hour along a paved path usually used by daytime visitors to the canopy walkway, with constant noise from the road and the party in the background. Then we turned off onto a trail, and after 10 more minutes we arrived at the treehouse. It must have been beautiful once, but now it looked completely abandoned. The “rooms” were in very poor condition, with mouse urine and mold covering everything, and the mattresses and pillows on the floor were chewed up. It was clear no one had stayed there in a long time.

Fortunately, our guide brought plenty of bedding, so we could cover the surfaces, and the three of us ended up sleeping on two mattresses under one mosquito net. At night, we really heard the sounds of the jungle—which under other circumstances we would’ve enjoyed—but we were mostly worried about mice crawling on us, which we could hear all night.

We set off at 5 AM to pick up Bálint at 6 from the parking lot, which was sold to us as the “morning walk.” Even now, writing this two months later, we still only have positive memories of our overall trip, and we booked tours everywhere we went. So it’s especially disappointing that we were scammed at a place already set up for tourism. We don’t know what happened—whether the conditions are always this bad or if the manager and our guide simply pocketed the money without registering us officially. But we were charged a lot to sleep in a remote, abandoned treehouse, and the trip to and from the accommodation was sold to us separately as guided forest walks.

At 6 AM, we went up to the canopy walkway with Bálint. At sunrise, with no one else around, it was truly stunning—and in the end, it made up for the night. Now it’s just a good story involving the infamous bush rat and our nerve-wracking jungle night.