Hey everyone,
Good news...a new internet cafe just opened up here in Makeni, and the connection is supposed to be a lot faster. We'll see, but so far it seems to be good. Sorry for the lack of communication. Here's what I did for Easter...
Easter ExpeditionSix o’clock Thursday morning found us all groggily getting out of bed in Freetown, Sierra Leone, where we had all decided to meet and begin our journey. We had just received a call from “Jeeps for Hire” that our vehicle would soon be arriving. When it showed up, we were not too surprised (but still a little upset) to find out that it was too small for the six of us plus a driver. They brought another vehicle, but it had a hole in the muffler and needed to stop by the shop first for a quick welding job. What was supposed to take thirty minutes turned into nearly two hours. We argued with the company owner for awhile about business ethics and the need for a discount for our wait, but nothing was accomplished. We left the shop without the vehicle and went in search of a “Potopoto” (van taxi) that could take us to the town of Mattru Jong. We finally found one and were able to leave Freetown at 11:00 am, 4 hours after we wanted to be on the road. Seven hours later we bumped into Mattru, all of us sore from the long, dusty ride. We were able to find some food (canned beans and bread) and a cheap place to stay; complete with no running water, no electricity, and big spiders.
Friday morning found us searching for some breakfast which we finally found at a small cookery. A woman had set up a small “restaurant” under a thatched roof next to her house. We ate some spicy groundnut soup and rice for breakfast that set our mouths (and some of our stomachs) on fire. We traveled down to the dock and found that the boat for Bonthe Island would be leaving at 11 o’clock. We found some shade and waited while a few of us played Euchre (I found out that Canadians play a pretty mean game of Euchre).
The boat ride was fantastic, and in a sense felt surreal (the whole trip actually felt surreal). We were in a fifty foot river boat that was loaded down with all kinds of supplies for the island as well as people. A few women spent the majority of the time cleaning fish at the front of the boat, which made the whole boat have a slight fish smell. The little motor on the back propelled us down the river for 4 ½ hours, stopping at different fishing villages for supplies, and we finally reached the town of Bonthe at five in the evening.
The town of Bonthe is a little strange (like many island towns), but at the same time very peaceful and enjoyable. It used to be a British colonial settlement, used for the trade of goods coming down the two rivers that converge at this point, as well as for the trade of slaves. Goods and slaves would be brought to the island and then sent off to Europe and elsewhere. There we still a lot of colonial houses and buildings that decorated the island, although they were all run down and some even in ruins. There were skeletons of small ships everywhere. It was a strange place to try and figure out. It was too late in the evening to make the long journey around/across the island to the beach, so we found a small, run-down Catholic guest house to stay at. My room had a large hole in the ceiling through which bats were flying in and out, so I dragged my mattress into a room with one of the other guys and left the bats to enjoy the room to themselves.
Our goal was to get to a beach and camp, so we started to ask around for different beaches. Before we left Freetown we had looked up a satellite image of Bonthe Island on the internet, and we could see there was a large beach on the opposite side of the island (facing west across the Atlantic Ocean). We knew there were two ways to get there, either by foot or by boat. Boats were too expensive to take on the several hour ride around the island (no one else was going there, so we would have had to charter a boat), and we were told by several old men that it was impossible to walk across the island. So we gave up on asking the old men and started asking teenage guys.
The first two guys we came to, Alpha and Musa, said they knew how to get across and that they would accompany us as our guides. They showed up at our guest house at 7 o’clock Saturday morning and we set out, but first we wanted to get some machetes to take with us. There are no big stores on the island, so our guides took us to the local blacksmith, and we watched for two hours as he crafted us two “cutlasses” (they call machetes “cutlasses” here). It was pretty awesome to be able to sit there and watch the process, especially with the lack of modern equipment. A great cultural experience.
Our hike took us 4 ½ hours, and though the island is flat the scenery was spectacular. We hiked through sandy-grassland, deciduous forest, swamp, and rain forest. We kept a steady pace but took time to enjoy the many different sites. We passed through four to five small villages and took time to greet the chief at each village we passed through. I’m sure it was a strange sight for many of the small kids to see six white guys tramping through their village. The most interesting part of the journey was when we came across to small swamps where there was no way around. We stripped to our underwear (we didn’t want leaches in any inappropriate places), and carried our packs over our heads for the 50 meters or so. We felt like quite the adventures and all of us had a great time.When we finally arrived at the beach, we were overjoyed and amazed. We felt like we were early explorers seeing the ocean for the first time. The beach was fantastic and a suiting reward for our long trip. As far as you could see in either direction there was nothing. No big hotels, no speed boats, no tourists, only the beach and one or two small fishing villages. The villagers came to greet us and we spent the next several hours talking with them and swimming in the ocean. The beach was a little steep, so if you weren’t careful, the waves could really pound you into the sand. We enjoyed the afternoon/evening on the beach and then bought some big mackerel fish from one of the fisherman. Talk about fresh seafood!
We found a fresh water pond not too far from camp, but unfortunately the water filter we had brought was not working. We did have a big pot, so we had to boil our water before we could drink it. With the heat, the water did not cool down very quickly, so we ended up drinking a lot of warm water. We slept that night in a small, unfinished palm branch house that one of the fisherman was constructing. The small walls were up, and the sticks were in place on the roof, but he had not put the thatch on the roof yet. We hung our mosquito nets inside and had to sleep three to a net (very cozy). We woke up in the middle of the night as someone was trying to reach in with a stick to grab a pair of pants. We chased them off and the rest of the night was uneventful.
Sunday morning I woke before the sunrise, snuck out to the beach and enjoyed watching the Easter morning sun rise with splendor. As I stood next to the ocean, I sang a few Easter songs, and the waves chimed in as the background vocals. It was a pretty fabulous morning, and as I thanked the Lord for the reason for Easter, I also prayed for friends and family back home. The rest of the guys soon joined me on the beach and we had a cool swim before starting breakfast (plain rice and peanuts).
We left camp at about noon, which was a brilliant move on our part as it is the hottest time of day. We decided to take a different route back home to see a little different scenery. We walked through an open grassland spotted with palm trees for what seemed like hours. The temperature was soaring over 100 degrees, and we were all feeling the effects of a slight lack of water (because the filter broke). We stopped for a rest under some shade only to find that a Puff Adder (a deadly type of viper) had also decided to stop for some shade in a shallow hole not too far off. We kept our distance but managed a couple of photos without disturbing it.
We ended up hiking across the island in a slightly different direction than we crossed it before, and ended up at a small village on the other side. We found some local fisherman who were willing to take us in their canoes back to Bonthe. We spent the next two hours being ferried through beautiful mangrove forests while our lower backs cursed us for being hunched over in a shallow dugout canoe. It was a fantastic change of pace and was relaxing to be able to just sit and watch the different birds as we passed through the maze of waterways back to Bonthe. We arrived back in Bonthe in the evening and enjoyed a good meal and were even able to find some cold water. We were walking on air as we had done what many people had told us was not possible or we were crazy for attempting. We were adventurers, explorers, conquerors!
Monday was a long day as we took both the 4 hour boat ride back to Mattru, and the 8 hour car ride (this time to back here to Makeni) in the same day. We arrived without too much of an incidence (although a spring did break on the van, but we improvised), and we were all thoroughly exhausted and ready for a good nights sleep. Five days, two long drives, many boat rides, a couple nights of lodging, and two guides led us to believe that we had all just been to the most remote beach any of us had ever been to before. And we managed to do it all for less than $120 a person. Not too bad! Would I recommend it? Definitely!
