Freetown – Sierra Leone

Refreshed after a full night sleep, our second day in the capital started with the whole group jumping into a hired school bus that drove us to the Liberian embassy to apply for visas. Half the group were still coming to terms with the previous five weeks, missing others that had left, suspicious of us newbies, and most likely a little resentful that we had turned up and disrupted the whole group dynamic. It will pass, it always does once the new social order settles, and as people began to come out of their shells there were promising signs of good times ahead. Later in the day most of us piled into taxis and headed to the chimpanzee sanctuary, one of the main attractions in Freetown, and only of interest to me after reading a story about when a group of chimps escaped the sanctuary, beat a taxi driver to death, and ran off into the surrounding forest never to be seen again. As soon as I got in the car I knew trouble lay ahead. The hotel security guard was struggling to wave down enough taxis and so rang his mate who promptly arrived in a very nice car indeed. We were told the price would be 150 leones, about five pounds. Now, leones are a little difficult to work at the moment because the central bank reset the currency, shaving off several zeros. This now means that there are 50 leone notes in circulation, and 50,000 leone notes in circulation, both the same value. Not that it mattered at this point in time because when we arrived at the chimp sanctuary, the driver wanted $150, which was impressive, even compared to the mardy taxi driver a few days before. We paid 200 leones and left. The chimps were alright. They were angry and in the habit of lobbing rocks at anyone who dared look at them, but who can blame them? Chimps don’t belong in cages, but then without the sanctuary it’s likely chimps will disappear far faster. The bigger story was getting home. Somehow about 10 people greedily crammed into the back of Landcruiser that obligingly agreed to take people back to the hotel, leaving three of us wondering what the hell to do. Apparently, a taxi was waiting at the bottom of the hill to take some people back but that was more an assumption than a fact. A 15-minute walk delivered us to the main road and as Sierra Leone so often does, gifted us with a wonderful person who would enable the story to finish on a high. The old gentleman sat in his rusting yellow taxi had arrived back at 5pm exactly as asked, by people who then found alternative transport. His only concern was that his original passengers weren’t the people asking for the ride now, and it took a few minutes to convince him that the others had safely returned to the hotel and it was in fact us desperate for a ride, and what a ride it turned out to be. You know what’s coming, it’s 5pm after all. Yeap, that setting African sun, coming and going through the softening haze as we weaved through the hills back into the city, windows down, cooling wind in our faces, the smell of wood smoke and traffic fumes, the hustle and bustle on every street, God it’s good. Arriving to the hotel the driver asked for 150 leones, we paid up 200 leones that made him happy enough to pass on his details. By the time we leave the city we should have got this taxi pricing thing pinned down.  

It took balls of steel to tell Rut I would be travelling for the first five weeks in Africa with Amber, a newly acquired travel buddy I met in Kyrgyzstan. When Amber spontaneously doubled into Amber and Jen on the second day in Freetown, I was thankful Rut was over 10,000 miles away when informing her I now had two new blonde best mates. Best mates is a strong statement but based on our first adventure together it’s clear I have at least two great people to travel with over the coming weeks, a fact more important than you may realise unless you too have been thrown together with an eclectic bunch of overlanders. The maiden adventure I speak of was an African classic starting with the simple want of going to the beach for the day. Sierra Leone boasts some of the best beaches in the world in my opinion and I was more than excited to get back to River No.2 after an 11-year absence. The three of us piled into a tuk-tuk, flirted our way through military roadblocks, and 45 minutes later we had arrived at the beach. It was bitter-sweet. The beach was how I remembered, endless off-white sand sloping down into a beautiful surf, and almost void of people. Perfect. But behind us told a different story. When I last visited, the hills were covered in forest, a trip up-river could be done where one could swim in the waterfalls and generally get lost in nature. Now it was all gone, the trees replaced with a patchwork of bare land and ramshackle houses serviced by a newly built road that stretched all around the river to its narrowest point so as avoiding the need to build a bridge but causing greater damage. I’m probably more bitter about the bridge for personal reasons which we’ll get to in a moment, but back down on the beach we swam, we sunbathed, we walked, we had a laugh, and we had some beers and a great feed for lunch sat on the beach under the shade of a tree. It was soon 4pm, we had had a jolly nice day and we strolled passed reception at our lunch spot in the confidence that we could walk back up to the main road to catch a taxi or tuk-tuk that would take us back to town. One hour later, with the typically epic African sun setting at an alarming pace over the Atlantic Ocean, we found ourselves walking along the unnecessarily bloody long aforementioned road having not spotted a single means of a way home. It was time to hitch-hike. A flatbed truck carrying bags of water (plastic water bags are the new plastic water bottles in West Africa) came around the corner, Jen stuck out a thumb, and two young lads sat on the back happily allowed us onboard. We were saved, not that we were ever in trouble, although we were running out of daylight and ideas, but this is Sierra Leone and the people, to put it mildly again, are brilliant. In between negotiating marriages, we basked in the setting sun, amusing ourselves with the looks from passing locals, themselves amused by us happily perched on the back of the truck. I fretted about how much to tip, too little would have just been pointless and rude, too much may also have been deemed rude, after all they stopped because they were kind spirited, not because they saw an opportunity for cash. Dropped on the edge of the city we easily picked up a tuk-tuk and headed into the centre by which time night had fallen and the streets had erupted with crowds of noise and colour; a beautiful chaos before the curfew enforced calm at 9pm. It took an age to work through the traffic, people, and roadside market stalls but we didn’t care, it was impossible not to enjoy the moment. The evening ended with a few more beers, not at the hotel, but a little local bar next-door that sold beer at a fraction of the price. The whole day couldn’t have been a more perfect start to our trip. This is Africa, it doesn’t always go to plan, but in countries like Sierra Leone you will always end the day happy and with a story to tell. To share it with two other like-minded people simply adds quality and endless laughter to the moment. The Blonde Squad was born.

6^th December 2023