Guinea to Guinea-Bissau

When I try and recall what I’ve done over the past two weeks, what mostly stands out in my mind are the bumpy dusty roads, hiking in the Fouta Djalon highlands of Guinea, and a whole lot of swimming in rivers and waterfalls (in a futile attempt to wash off some of the dust and grime from my body).

Of course, there has been a whole lot more besides. After crossing the border from Sierra Leone into Guinea, we headed towards Conakry, the capital city, spending a night camping about 20km away. As is often the case, it was a long day as it involved a border crossing and we only arrived just before darkness. A post dinner dip in the river under the moon and the stars was most welcome since, whilst the campsite did have western style toilets, it didn’t have showers. And actually the toilets didn’t flush either. What you have to accept in West Africa is that not much works as you might expect. For example, if the toilet did flush, then the chances are the electricity wouldn’t work or the door wouldn’t close. Just have low expectations and then you won’t be disappointed!

The main purpose of our visit to Conakry was to obtain visas for Guinea-Bissau. This was a simple process because the Embassy didn’t require us to complete reams of paperwork or make any pretence that they would be assessing our applications in any way. All they wanted was the money, our passports and a passport photo, and a visa was duly issued. Whilst in Conakry, we also made a visit to a refugee school. The civil wars in countries such as Liberia and Sierra Leone led to many fleeing to other WA countries to seek refuge. The school was quite an eye-opener as it was based in a dark dank concrete high rise building where you could barely hear yourself speak due to the noise of traffic below.

From Conakry, we headed up into the Fouta Djalon highland region of Guinea. Spectacular scenery and slightly cooler nights made for a pleasant change, although the roads were, as always, dreadful. As we head towards the end of the dry season, there is just so much dust. Passing another vehicle leads to the truck being swathed in dust but it is also unfathomable to close the windows because of the heat. 

There were some fabulous hiking opportunities in the Fouta Djalon. One of my favourite places was a village called Doucki where we stayed in little thatch roofed round mud huts. Superb walks abounded with stunning views, vine ladders, scrambling over and jumping off rocks into rivers and waterfalls. We also had a nice break from cooking off the truck as the village provided meals for us. Not that Guinea has been challenging from a food shopping perspective as the fresh fruit and vegetables in the markets have been fantastic. Meat is always a bit more difficult to source and we did have an interesting time in one place trying to purchase chicken since only live ones were available. Trying to explain in French that you want chickens that have been killed and plucked to people that presumably buy them live and then just slaughter them as and when they want them was tricky. We did ultimately get chicken for dinner - very skinny ones but chicken nonetheless.

We have now left Guinea behind and are in the tiny country of Guinea-Bissau which only has a population of approximately 1.7 million. G-B is a former Portuguese colony although fortunately French is also reasonably widely spoken, otherwise communication would be difficult. G-B uses the CFA as its currency as do a number of other West African countries. Guinea, however, has its own - the Guinea Franc - and I am not sad to see the back of that. The largest note is 20,000 francs which equates to about £2. You are very unlikely to come across these notes (not quite sure why they don’t print some more), so normally you have even smaller denominations which means that you need a bag to carry your money around in rather than a wallet because so many notes are required to make up any sensible sum of money. 

We’ve spent just four nights in G-B. The first night at a bush camp just after crossing the border. For a country with such a small population, it took a very long time to find somewhere to camp that night as ideally we don’t want to be too close to a village since a bunch of white people setting up camp for the night does tend to draw a crowd! Then a night camping by Saltinho Falls (more swimming in rivers) and now two nights in the capital Bissau. As a city, it is totally different from any other West African city that we’ve visited. Much quieter with a lot less hustle and bustle, and lots of crumbling Portuguese colonial buildings. Our hotel is in one such building and I’m rather enjoying sitting out on our balcony watching the world go by below. Making the most of the wifi and air conditioning today - it’s a mere 39 degrees centigrade outside. Off to Senegal tomorrow….

Liberia to Sierra Leone

Six weeks gone and six new countries visited. The first leg of the trip is now over after arriving in Freetown yesterday afternoon. A day to regroup and say goodbye to those that are leaving us and meet the new passengers joining us on the next leg from Freetown to Dakar.

We’ve had some fabulous beach time in both Liberia and Sierra Leone which boast some of the best beaches in the world. Palm trees, golden sand, crystal clear warm seas and very few people - in fact, it is very easy to find stretches of coast line that you can have entirely to yourself. The Sierra Leone beaches are particularly spectacular with forest covered mountains meeting the ocean (the name Sierra Leone meaning Lion Mountains). These countries are both hidden gems which will surely one day have tourist industries. After their turbulent pasts, they were both starting to get back on their feet before ebola struck. It has been fascinating particularly to visit Sierra Leone, a country that I always think of as prefixed by the words “war torn”. Whilst most West African countries have had civil wars, Sierra Leone’s was particularly brutal in terms of the nature of the fighting, its child soldiers, the methods of killing, and an estimated one in three women and girls raped. It is shocking and hard to comprehend what these people have lived through. In a small village on the banks of the Moa River, a young man who took us on a walking tour of Tiwai Island described how, as a child, their entire village was burnt and the many times they had to run and hide in the forest to escape the fighting. Three of his siblings were killed during the civil war.

Tiwai Island is a conservation area that is home to 11 different species of primate and numerous birds, as well as the very elusive and nocturnal pygmy hippos. Suffice to say, we were not fortunate enough to find any of those, but we did see Red Colobus monkeys, Diana monkeys, Campbell’s monkeys and the Sooty Mangabey monkeys (who even knew that there was a monkey known as the Sooty Mangabey?!). It was a special experience to take an early morning walk through the forest to the sounds of the monkeys and the birds in the trees above.

The roads in Sierra Leone have been the worst yet. I feel as if I have spent several days of my life driving along single vehicle width dirt roads bordered by dense jungle on either side, although in fact it was probably only two days. The “main road” from the border with Liberia was particularly slow usually only covering about 10km (6 miles) per hour. So yes, it is entirely possible to run faster than that, however the heat, the dust and the humidity might slow you down! Sierra Leone has a rainy season and what the locals call the baking season. We are currently in the baking season which is probably just as well because the roads would all be completely impassable during the rains. Seemingly, there is no happy medium between torrential damaging rains and insufferable heat here… Will be making the most of my air conditioned hotel room today as we head out of Freetown tomorrow to cross the border into Guinea.. which means guaranteed sitting around at the border for several hours in the blazing heat for no apparent reason..the joys of travelling in West Africa!

Cote d'Ivoire to Guinea to Liberia

This could be a long post as we had only just reached Cote d’Ivoire when I last wrote, and since then we’ve been to Guinea and are a few days in to Liberia.

When I last wrote we were in Yamoussoukro, the capital of Cote d’Ivoire, where a former President built a basilica to rival the Vatican in Rome. A stunning building yet totally out of place. One could question where the funds came from to build such an incredible structure but apparently it was “a gift from God”!!

From Yamoussoukro, we had a day long drive before finding a bush camp in a logging clearing. The forests of Cote d’Ivoire are seemingly being felled at quite a rate. Next stop was a remote village, with no running water or electricity, where we watched a stilt dancing performance. We had quite a welcome with the whole village turning out to greet us and never leaving our sides. An audience of at least 100 watching us eat meals, wash up, put our tents up, brush our teeth, etc, etc. To be honest, you couldn’t even go to the toilet in peace as the pigs follow you into the bushes and are rooting around your feet ready to provide a clean up service!! 

Time to leave Cote d’Ivoire behind and head to Guinea. The roads heading towards the border crossing were nothing more than dirt roads and got progressively worse the closer to the border we got. As you may recall from my previous post, we had to get special permission from the Prime Minister to cross this border. Consequently it took a while to get to the border because we got stopped at several police check points and even taken to the police station whilst they checked the validity of our document with the authorities in Abidjan. We finally made it to the border at sunset with the intention of camping at the border. The Cote d’Ivoire officials let us through to the Guinea side although they couldn’t stamp our passports to confirm our exit because they didn’t have a stamp to hand! Then the Guinean officials couldn’t be bothered to process us unless we paid a bribe and didn’t want to grant us permission to camp there for the night either. So we were rather stuck in no-man’s land between the two borders. However, a river runs between the border so whilst negotiations continued, we took the opportunity for a much needed wash and cool down. Ultimately we were allowed to camp the night and the Guinean officials said they would process us in the morning. 

Another waiting game the next morning as it was all obviously too much like hard work for them to bother stamping our passports, so they sent us on to the next check point. Here a very serious border official spent a couple of hours meticulously recording all our details into his ledger before we were finally stamped into Guinea officially and could get on our way.

Our time in Guinea was just five days in the south east corner as we will be returning to other areas of Guinea later in the trip. We spent two nights in the town of Nzerekore camping in the grounds of the best hotel in town - which sounds way more glamorous than it was. Access to showers limited to the outside showers by the pool, but at least there was a pool and a chance to unwind after a busy few days on the road. We also went dancing in the hotel nightclub which was lots of fun but probably the sweatiest place I have ever been. They don’t sell drinks - it really is just a place where people go to dance but the floor is wet from sweat - kind of like dancing in a sauna actually….!

Every day of this trip, it just keeps on getting hotter and hotter. I have never known such relentless heat and humidity. On leaving Nzerekore, it was time for a bit of activity with a walk to visit a vine bridge. Amazingly, bridges are built entirely of woven vines across huge rivers. We also went trekking in the forests of Guinea to see chimpanzees which was a highlight. They are now becoming increasingly rare as their habitats are under pressure from human impact. Such a treat to see them in the wild. We had a young male hurling sticks at us from a tree so clearly he wasn’t quite as pleased to see us!

All in all, I really enjoyed Guinea and look forward to returning. They really don’t get many tourists and we were met with huge smiles and hordes of children running out of schools to wave as we drove through villages. Dreadful roads but beautiful lush green forests which makes a pleasant change from the dry dusty flatness that we saw so much of in Ghana and parts of Burkina Faso.

And on to Liberia. Once again, terrible roads to get to the border and I seem to recall several hours of waiting around to complete our exit of Guinea - clearly they didn’t want us to leave because it took them a ridiculous length of time to let us through. I would love to have photos of some of these borders but photography at border crossings is strictly prohibited. Most of the borders are signified by a piece of rope across the road, a corrugated roofed hut or two, and a bunch of men wearing a motley selection of combat clothes, some wielding the odd AK47.

Liberia seems to be slightly more ebola aware than other countries as we had to wash our hands and have our temperature taken - luckily we were all recorded as “healthy” in the book. Unusually, there was also a female customs official who was very determined to do her job fully and for the first time, the truck was searched - not in any way a proper search but they made a token effort of opening a few bags! Interestingly, Liberia is the only African country that has a female Head of State. This might imply that Liberia is slightly more advanced than other African countries but far from it. Liberia, “land of the free”, is where the Americans freed their slaves who then, knowing no other life, went about enslaving the indigenous population of Liberia. Ultimately this led to a very unhappy state of affairs and a 20 year long civil war. The US pour in a massive amount of aid to Liberia but seemingly to no avail. The capital, Monrovia, is full of UN marked vehicles and this is the first country where we aren’t greeted with open arms. Liberia has no tourism to speak of so a bunch of white people are initially treated with some distrust. That said, it is a beautiful country. We headed up into the hills for our first night and had the most spectacular views over Cote d’Ivoire / Guinea / Liberia. Swam in a beautiful lake the next day, and some waterfalls a couple of days later. Shower opportunities are infrequent to say the least so any form of swim / wash is always a highlight! Now off to the beaches of Robertsport on the coast of Liberia and frantically rushing to complete this before we depart Monrovia so I will leave it there for now..