-Andre Gide-
With last minute bucket showers, a last flurry for the
toilet facilities (no flushing but using bucket water to flush-but we are not
fussy) we were preparing for the unknown for the next 3 days. Sam had prepped us last night with
information that we were going to be bush camping for the next 2 nights,
possibly an emergency camp for a third night if required, depending on road
conditions. Sam and Zoe are good at
talking to the locals and truck drivers about road conditions, it is just
unfortunate that they all have a different opinion of the roads, and so far,
majority of the times they have all been wrong, so we can only take the advice
with a grain of salt and we just have to find out on our own accord on what the
roads will be like. Sam was doubtful we
would make the Sierra Leone border crossing today but that was our destination for
the day and we would just see how far we would get.
With all that in mind, we stocked up on yet more dry
food, preparing for the worst case scenario, and we would certainly not run out
of food for the next 5 days. It was the
boys turn to set forth and go with Sam for the food collection. While they were out, we sat at the petrol
station and watched the locals go about their morning in Faranah. A lot of the shops were still closed for the
second day holiday of Tabaski but there were still a lot of people around. The petrol station was also busy with just the
one pump working; bikes would pull up, wait a few minutes and then get 5L, pay
and be on their way. In between the
bikes there were people lined up with 10L yellow plastic jerry cans, that would
get filled up and then from what I have seen, those jerry cans are taken and
dispensed into smaller 1L bottles that are found in small ‘garages’ in all the
villages, which are basically a wooden structure that holds the said 1L bottles
which are found dotted all around the country.
Because the money is all large denominations, even just to buy 5L of
petrol costs around 35,000GFA (7AUD) and that consist of 8 notes, just for
that. So needless to say the petrol
attendant was walking around with 2 bricks deep of notes in his hand, and it
was that wide that his hand only just fit around the wad. It made me wonder if he would be a target for
a robbery, but with it so busy and I am sure he would know a lot of the people
filling up, it just may not be an issue here.
We had some onlookers for the time we were parked, a lot of kids and
even though they didn’t ask for anything, I think they were hoping that we were
going to give them something, which I would LOVE to do, but in the long run it
just will not help thinking that it is okay to loiter around western cars and
hope that they will be given something.
It is a tough line, but it is for the good of everyone. The boys returned and we now have a lot of
tinned meat, tuna and pasta to get us through and it is nice that Rich enjoys
cooking, so he has been Masterchef for the dinners and he is happy with the
stock supply-so if he is happy-then I am sure that we, as the consumers will
also be happy.
At 9am, we departed Faranah and it was now time to get
back to ‘overlanding’ and out pioneering job ahead of us. We were to travel 14km on tarmac road and at
9.30am, we turned off the main road and back onto dirt tracks. The difference with this dirt track was it
seemed like it had been recently graded and in most spots it was probably
better than the tarmac road that we had left.
This was going far better to plan so far than we could ever have
imagined. But let’s not jinx ourselves
just yet. Once we had turned, Ian came
back to us all and one by one said that if the day did pan out to be difficult
roads and should the unfortunate thing happen and the truck does roll, he said
to not try and get out, as you will be crushed by the truck and to grab the
side of the seats and get in a brace position.
It was really good advice and as ominous as it sounds, we do need to
have a little think on a contingency plan if things were to go pear
shaped. Ian finished with ‘I don’t think
it will happen’ but it is all about precaution and let’s hope that it won’t
come to anything like that, but that is how unknown this section is.
We were passing through small villages that looked
totally excited to see us passing by and they were all super friendly and at
10am, Ian saw some local donuts like the ones that he had purchased a few days
ago, so he asked for the truck to stop so that he could buy 10 of them to share
with us all. Apparently the female
seller almost died when Zoe said that they would take 10 of her fresh made
donuts. At only 500GFA a pop, 5000 for
all ten is only 1AUD for them all!!!!
How can you pass up a snack like that and add to that the village
turning up to check out the whiteys in the big truck, seriously there would
have been over 100 people at having a look at this unusual sight, which
reinforces just how many tourists come through these parts-zilch would be my
count.
We haven’t had internet for nearly 10 days now and I am
getting a little antsy to hear word from home and to catch up on the local
news. We really are oblivious when you
are on the road and have no outside contact with the world, at all. The world could be ending and we would be
wrapped up in our overlanding cocoon and not know, which if that was actually
the case, I would probably want to be left in the dark anyway. My Kenyan Airtel sim card doesn’t work in
Guinea, but if I really wanted to I could purchase a Guinea sim so I could get
some text messages out, but I just can’t be bothered, so I shouldn’t complain
about not being in touch with the world, but I also have a backlog of blogs
that are waiting to be loaded and not to mention the hundreds of photos to also
load to Facebook, but with the itinerary looking the way it is, the chances of
getting on the net before Freetown next week is looking slim to non-existent and
this is just how it is here, but it still sucks after 10 days.
You wouldn’t believe it but at 10.30am there was a police
checkpoint that actually turned out to be the customs check for Madge to be
cleared out of Guinea! Imagine our shock
and total surprise that we had made it this close to the border, when we didn’t
think we would be getting here till at least tomorrow morning, if not tomorrow
lunch time. Insanity. After the paperwork was checked, the officer
then came in the truck with us for the 10 minute ride to the next village for
the rest of the paperwork to be completed.
We were on the outskirts of the village, but stuck out like a sore thumb
and in minutes we had around 15 children all smiling and I asked if I could
take their picture, which was an enthusiastic yes, I pulled out my camera and
got some great candid shots of kids being kids.
The longer we sat there more kids were walking/running to us to check
out what the big truck was and it was cute that they were making such an effort
to see us. Zoe came back on board and
said that we were supposed to have the truck stamped out back in Faranah, where
we had just come from, but they let us go this time and I bet you 100 bucks
that Zoe charmed her way out of that one for sure. The officer that rode with us was left at the
police station and we then drove through the village to then clear us out of
the country. We hit another security
block, where our papers were checked, again, and as they were taking their
sweet time, the kids had all run down, plus an additional posse had joined in
and there would have been over 40 kids now all wanting to have their photo
taken. Because I was so close to the
police officers, I didn’t want to pull out my camera, but a cranky officer
looked at the kids and they scattered and when he looked up at me I asked if I
could take a photo and he just shrugged his shoulders as if to say I couldn’t
care, so I did snap the kids and they loved it and I got some great shots.
We were cleared to pass and 15 minutes later we were
approaching another checkpoint which wasn’t that unusual except for the Sierra
Leone flag that was blowing on a flag pole next to the only small
building. Um surely we weren’t at the
Sierra Leone border? We hadn’t been
stamped out of Guinea yet. Sam got down
from the truck and spoke to a guy, which was tucking in his shirt as we pulled
in and the other was putting on his shirt and indeed we had made it to the
border without being stamped out of Guinea.
I was a little concerned purely for the fact that we do actually go back
into Guinea in a few weeks’ time and it could cause an issue, but Zoe said it
is nothing we can’t talk ourselves out of, and that coming from Zoe is probably
right, anyone else and I would be a little dubious, but Zoe, no, I have seen
her in action, and wasn’t too worried after that. Immigration here didn’t take long and we
weren’t required to get out of the truck here, and all in all it was yet
another easy border crossing. There were
a few bikes that were going through while we were there; otherwise there wasn’t
another stitch of traffic at all. I
think it may have been the quietest border I have ever seen.
WELCOME TO SIERRA LEONE
We have now left French speaking land and back into the
land of English for the next 2 weeks. My
bonjours of the morning have now turned back into hellos and how are
you’s. Finally I will be able to
converse with people again, well at least for the next 13 days, before we head
back into Guinea. The road we were now
on looked like it hadn’t been used for weeks, maybe months and certainly by big
traffic like ourselves. Some of the
larger trees were slapping the windows as the road was not that wide and
certainly not as well cared for either, so the going was a little slow at times
and we even had a few ‘muddy’ moments where the ‘truck’ crew, Ian, Zoe and Sam
had to get out, the shovels also came out and a few maneuvers were done so that
we didn’t get stuck on the way. The
small villages looked a little different from Guinea, the mud huts that they
lived in were larger and had small verandahs around them where they stored
stock and provisions from the elements.
The village people also seemed to be happy campers and every single
person we saw and waved to waved and smiled back, every single one and the
helpfulness and friendliness has been overwhelming. I am not sure what I expected of Sierra
Leone, but I may have had a perceived idea that it was going to be a hostile
place after its recent civil war and too be honest I think I may have been a
little brain washed by people. When I
told people where I was going there were a lot of worried expressions, some
‘good-lucks’ and it then filled me with apprehension. So to enter the country and have all the
locals seem happy to see us and not a single person was hostile, it just surprised
me to say the least and I think that the country is going to surprise me
further and I will hopefully prove that it has been tarred with a certain brush
that I hope to help eliminate in the coming weeks.
Knowing little about the country as a whole, I took the
time to read the Lonely Planet today and it gave me more insight into the
troubles that they have had and it with it being so recent, right up there with
the Rwandan Genocide 10-15 years ago, it really makes you wonder as I look at
people that are over the age of 23, what they saw during the civil war, were
they the boy soldiers, what do they remember and how did they move on. It was a brutal 10 years, and these people
lived through it and if they didn’t experience it first hand, they for sure
would have known people or had family members that were affected to some extent
and I am looking at these young people and just wondering how they forget such
atrocities. I was 23 when all this was
happening a world away from me in Australia-it makes the mind boggle for sure.
It was starting to lose light and at 5.30pm we decided we
had to start looking for our camp site for the night so that we could get the
tents up before it got dark. It was
difficult to find somewhere as there wasn’t much land that hadn’t been used for
farming and under water, mainly rice fields and in some places there was no
room from the drop of the road either.
We found a place that had long grass, was far enough away from the village
that we had passed that we wouldn’t get too harassed by inquisitive locals and
after shooing some of the local cows away, we pulled in and set up camp. For some reason Zoe and Sam decided to also
put up the awning, which seemed a little crazy at the time as the sky was clear
of all clouds but ended up being a good thing as it did rain later in the
evening and also the next morning as well, so it was worth the hassle it takes
to put that thing away. In the long
grass there were little grasshoppers that were okay as we tapped in the tent
pegs but there were also other critters but they didn’t seem to be biting us,
so we just carried on and probably too late we applied bug spray in the vain
attempt that we weren’t getting bitten.
Ian and Sam also took the time to build a fire and it was cranking
along, until we started to see lightening in the distance and soon after dinner
we were going to lose the fire as the heavens opened up and it absolutely
bucketed down rain!! It was out first
fire of the whole trip too which was a shame, but we may get another chance
later on.
Chef Rich was back on deck tonight and as he had all the
help that he needed with the prep, I sat on the truck and pumped out some more
words for my blog. I take any
opportunity that I can take these days as I really want to try and be up to
date when I get to Freetown in a few weeks’ time. I was looking forward to corned beef hash
(mash potato with tinned meat) and baked beans and as a weird combination as
that sounds, when it was served it was delicious and it is another example of
just how fussy we are NOT when we are camping/bush camping when it comes to
eating. As the weather had turned just
as we were packing up dinner, the fire was out due to the rain, so we decided
to do a movie night on Madge instead. As
we were in Sierra Leone, we decided to put on a country appropriate movie and
watch Blood Diamond and in hindsight it may not have been the best selection of
watching boy soldiers with Uzi’s when we were bush camping in the middle of
nowhere. The imagination has a lot to
answer for sometimes. I had seen the
movie before, so I sat at the back of the truck and blogged with my head torch
on and just listened to the movie while the others sat at the front and Sam
plugged in the laptop into the trucks speakers for the surround sound
effect. It was a great way to spend a
bush camp evening with the rain falling, we were just missing some popcorn and
pop top ice-creams to complete the night, but I guess we can’t have everything.
So this was a VERY GOOD travel day indeed. We thought to even be at the point we were
tonight would have taken us 2 days, and another bush camp at least, so we were
going to make it to Kabala a day and a half earlier than expected and we have
basically made up the day we lost when we crossed out of the Ivory Coast. So welcome to what will be an interesting
time in Sierra Leone and I have to say with the half day that I have spent in
the country so far I have enjoyed, it had a great vibe and I really am now
looking forward to the remaining time with the smaller group, learning more
about this misunderstood country and its terrible history and its challenging
time it now has to rebuild a devastated population.
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