Ghana

Two years goes quickly. It feels like only yesterday that Hannah and I landed at Kotoka airport in Accra, late in the night, wondering what life in Ghana would be like.

It wasn’t yesterday, of course; yesterday I was sipping a coffee in a trendy Berlin café, just around the corner from our new flat. The summer air was crisp compared to

Accra’s humid cloak; the pavement consisted of neatly arranged slabs, rather than an open sewer; the waitress came straight over to serve me, without having to be prodded awake first.

And yet I was missing Ghana. Berlin seems too calm, too organised. I miss the chaos: hawkers coming up to sell bead necklaces and phone credit; goats eating plastic bags and chickens pecking for seeds; the constant sounds of car horns and music; children playing in the streets; everyone smiling, whatever they’re doing.

Ghana was a wonderful home for two years. We visited a lot of the country – the geography geek in me was pleased that we spent time in all ten of Ghana’s regions – and were rewarded with some truly memorable experiences.

One highlight was Mole National Park, which compensates for its lack of big cats or migrating herds by getting visitors up close to its elephants. If you’ve never watched elephants mix up a mud bath before coating skin or playing together in a water hole, or had one look you directly in the eye from just a few metres away, then it’s worth visiting Ghana for this alone.

The bird walk and afternoon game drives were also rewarding. Our guides always managed to spot something special: a roan antelope through the dense bush or a colourful fruit pigeon hidden in the higher branches. Mole has plans to develop a luxury lodge, and the road from Tamale is being improved. Hopefully the park will maintain its understated charm despite these new developments.

Ghana’s main attraction is its tropical beaches. We explored much of the coast, from Beyin near the Cote D’Ivoire border to Keta Lagoon in the southeast. My favourite place was Green Turtle Lodge, a backpacker resort near Akwidaa – the perfect place to lie back in a hammock, drink beer with other travellers and wish you had thought of writing ‘The Beach’ first. Hannah’s pick was the more upmarket Fanta’s Folly near Butre, where the eponymous Nigerian owner serves delicious food flavoured with herbs picked from her husband’s garden. We also saw our one and only turtle in Ghana here. Closer to Accra, Till’s No.1 resort provided a quick weekend getaway from city life.

One of my motivations for moving to Ghana was to see the lesser-known parts of a country, something not always possible with shorter visits. The main outlet for this was the Ghana Mountaineers, a group of like-minded hikers gathered from across the world in Accra. We climbed Ghana's highest peak; we camped out under a full moon on Verandah Mountain; we completed Ghana’s own three peaks, Krobo, Iogaga and Osoduku; and we beat our own tracks through the hills of the Volta Region and beyond, literally in places: while many people visit Boti Falls, very few hack their way up the river to do it, battling snakes (OK, one sleeping snake), storms and the jungle on the route. Ghana has huge potential as a hiking destination; nothing too high or challenging, but fantastic views and a good infrastructure to get around easily.

If Ghana is easy to fall for, Accra takes a little longer to love. It’s a fast-developing city, with high-rise buildings going up on every spare corner of land, clearing the last few green spaces and trees as they go. Half-built concrete shells dominate the city’s skyline and as flats, hotels, offices and shopping malls come to life. Many of these changed little in two years, as the developers’ money runs out or they become mired in land disputes. Painted warnings claiming ‘land not for sale’ are a common sight, and anyone passing through Cantoments will see the red warnings on land: ‘Property of E.B. Tibboh – keep off’, although he never seemed to actually build anything.

Next to our flat in East Legon, an entire block of flats was constructed from scratch during our stay. As the bright orange outer panels coloured our neighbourhood and the vast satellite dishes were screwed on, the family living across the road sold simple meals of fufu and sauce to workers from the nearby repair yard and farms from their ramshackle wooden hut. The children, who worked there late into the night, sold me beer and tomato puree, insisting that I returned the bottles so they could get their deposits back. Every few pesawas counts for Accra’s poorer residents. And their simple business was a step up from those found in the poorest quarters, such as Jamestown.

Life in Accra had its moments, though. We enjoyed some fantastic food (none of it Ghanaian) in the capital’s many restaurants; I played football with former Ghana internationals at the British High Commission, and we watched the local derby, Hearts of Oak v Asante Kotoka, in the impressive national stadium; Hannah taught a former president’s grandson at Ghana International School; and on an unforgettable night at +233 jazz club, we joined our Canadian friends Andrew and Christie as part of a mass dance routine without being laughed off the floor by the more supple and rhythmic locals.

We also experienced an African election. After the build up, which saw the unexpected and widely mourned death of the president John Atta Mills, I had anticipated … what? Street riots? Tribal warfare? Perceptions of African democracy are probably tainted by those that make the news in the UK. But in the event, it was extremely quiet and democratic; there was more tension in the city during the two African Cup of Nations, in both of which Ghana made the semis. And lost.

There are many more memories: the primary school on Kpala island in Lake Volta powered by the playground roundabout; visiting the rice farmers in the Volta Region and hearing about the complexities of land acquisitions; experiencing the shrines and rituals of northern Ghana. Two years was long enough to enjoy the good things about the country, and we are leaving before the typically insignificant and indulgent expat frustrations – power cuts, heat stroke, traffic, bewilderment about the Ghanaian way of doing things –led to an even more unhealthy amount of Gulder beer being consumed.  

Hannah and I are both certain that we will return to Ghana, to visit friends, return to Mole and laze on the beach. But for now, as with half of the dishes listed on any Ghanaian menu … please, it is finished.

Hippos

A hippo

Weichau hippo sanctuary feels a long way from anywhere. We rattled along the bumpy, potholed road from Mole National Park for four hours before reaching the sanctuary’s visitor centre. Jo, our guide, showed us inside while KK, our driver, surveyed his mud-splattered car with the look of a man who regretted spending an hour washing it that morning. After paying the entrance fee, I asked Jo where the hippos were. ‘We have to drive; it’s another 22km along a dirt road’. KK didn’t look like he wanted to see hippos anymore; I was beginning to wonder myself.

We headed towards the Black Volta River, past the small communities who together created the sanctuary. I should have admired this remarkable community-based ecotourism project; instead I wondered when it was lunchtime and if it was too late to head for a hotel in Wa.

A young hippo

A dugout canoe was waiting on the river, which flows along the border between Ghana and Burkina Faso. We climbed in and were paddled upstream. And just five minutes later, we saw them. A bloat of hippos, submerged in the centre of the river. They rose one by one to snort out air, nudge each other or, on several occasions, fart loudly.

We pulled into the undergrowth on the Burkinabe side of the river and watched them. There’s something enthrallingly special about being 20 metres from wild hippos – about as close as I’d want to be. As each head appeared slowly, it was hard to shake the feeling they were keeping an eye on us, checking that we were keeping our distance.

The hippos have been protected since 1999, when the local communities created the sanctuary to generate a bit more tourism revenue in this quiet corner of Ghana. The scheme has been a success: visitor numbers have increased steadily and so, more importantly, have hippo numbers.

Our canoe

Numbers may get a further boost shortly. The hippos in Bui National Park, further along the Black Volta, are under threat from the new hydropower dam. Weichau sanctuary and Ghanaian wildlife groups hope they will move upstream. They will have to make their own way, though; no one has yet offered to move these giant, grumpy beasts. There are also doubts whether the land around Weichau could support more hippos. There’s plenty of space in the water – the problems will arise when they come on land to graze, threatening local crops.

Hidden in the shade, with the two young hippos now jumping on each other, it would have been easy to stay for longer. But tummies were rumbling; I illegally entered Burkina Faso for a quick piss, and we headed back to Weichau, leaving the hippos to enjoy their serene sanctuary.

*****

Ghana does tropical storms like few other countries, and the one during our night camping near the river was a classic. The lightning was so bright that the cockerels started crowing at 3.00am, thinking it was morning. We had to move our tent in the middle of the night to avoid a drenching.

Next morning, our charcoal burner was too wet too cook breakfast on, so we headed into Weichau village to eat. Jo took us to Yussif’s Tea Spot, whose motto is ‘Call in for all kinds of beverages’. As long as it’s Lipton Yellow Label tea. Still, at least Yussif acknowledged how lacking in flavour this shameful British brand is and put two bags into my plastic mug.

Mmm, Lipton!

Four of our six eggs had survived the storm and were soon being turned into an omelette. The tins of Heinz baked beans caused a problem, however. After explaining to Yussif that they didn’t go in the omelette, he then tried to fry them. It took a bit of discussion – Yussif was mute, so Hannah and I first had to explain to Jo how to cook beans, and he then signed this to Yussif. The expression on Jo’s face when he ate them was similar to my first fufu experience – people actually like this stuff? – but he ate them all, and Yussif’s fine breakfast restored our spirits after a wet night.

Mmm, beans!

Sipping my syrupy tea, I revised my opinion from the previous day. Weichau is a wonderful place and the local people deserve huge credit for their project. It’s well worth visiting – just don’t expect the journey there to be easy. And maybe leave the beans behind.

A tale of two villages

Cotton

There are an increasing number of village tours available in Ghana. These offer visitors the chance to experience rural life, see traditional crafts and peek into people’s houses. They often provide a fascinating glimpse into a part of Ghana that most people don’t see. But some are better than others.

Crockery sets

Zozugo village is located behind Asempa Lodge on the outskirts of Tamale. At the suggestion of the lodge staff, Hannah and I went on a tour before leaving for Mole National Park. Christopher, our guide, was wearing his school uniform when he collected us from the lodge. But despite his age, he was an excellent guide, explaining every little detail of his village.

We started at the village’s cotton tree near the mosque, from which the village’s weavers get their materials. He found a pod, cracked it open and explained how it was harvested.  

Next he showed us around a traditional homestead. One room was stacked from floor to ceiling with different crockery sets and cooking pots. These are owned by women, enabling them to accumulate wealth in a way that stops them from running away with it – so the men are happy. A little misogynistic? Maybe, but it also prevents the husband spending the family’s money on palm wine and pito.

We met the village’s oldest weaver, a smiling 98-year-old lady who showed us how to spin the cotton harvested in the village. We visited two women who process shea butter and sell it in Tamale. And then we visited the village midwife’s home, where the realities of rural life in Ghana seemed less cosy and photogenic.

Weaving cotton

Just four miles from Ghana’s fourth-largest city, a young woman was giving birth on a stone floor in a mud hut. The midwife was tending to her with a collection of herbal remedies, but there was no bed, no evident sanitation, and no emergency response if things went wrong. The rate of maternal mortality is still high in Ghana, and medical conditions in rural areas are a factor. It all felt a long way from the shiny clinics of Accra (and even these are only available to the fortunate few).

Shea butter

It was a confronting end to the tour, but it was still hugely enjoyable. Christopher was helpful, informative and friendly. As we shared a drink back at the lodge, he explained how the tour fees of 15 cedis per person are shared between the guide and the community. He then caught a tro-tro to school in Tamale while we headed off towards Mole National Park in our hire car.

***

Larabanga, situated just outside Mole, is better known than Zozugo. It gets far more visitors, being so close to Ghana’s most popular National Park. But much of its notoriety comes from the many guidebooks and websites that rate the village’s ancient mud-and-stick mosque as one of Ghana’s most disappointing trips. This is mostly due to the amount of hassle tourists receive from local people.

It was little surprise, therefore, when a smartly dressed young man approached our car when we arrived that afternoon. He introduced himself as Abe, Larabanga’s ‘official tour guide’. Without pausing for breath, or even asking if we were visiting the mosque, he pointed us towards it and told us where to park.

People in Larabanga are aware of their bad press. At the small tourist office, Abe explained how things had improved recently. He had noticed our Bradt guide, in which Larabanga gets slated for its pushy guides and hangers-on asking for money. ‘We have official guides now, to make things better’, he said.

So has the experience improved? It’s hard to say, having only visited once, but to me there is still some way to go. Abe knew a lot about the mosque’s history, but interspersed his tour with several references to how poor people in Larabanga were and how many visitors liked to give donations to the village. Not a direct request, but fairly unsubtle.

Larabanga mosque

Throughout our tour around the mosque – visitors aren’t allowed in –three of Abe’s friends followed us silently. They weren’t aggressive or pushy, but it was a bit off-putting to have them stood directly behind us the whole time. I asked Abe why they were with us. ‘They don’t have anything else to do’, was his honest reply.

As we wandered back through the village, Abe showed us kids playing games and picked a local fruit for us to try. He made a genuine effort to make the tour interesting, and his friends also relaxed a little, asking us about Ghanaian politics as we headed to our car.

And then it started. As I paid Abe the seven cedis each for the tour (half the tour fee for Zozugo) his friends started producing clipboards with sponsorship forms, asking for contributions to school fees, the village football team and other vague community funds. We jumped into the car and drove off quickly, as they continued to call after us. It felt very different to the morning, when we had shared a leisurely drink with our guide in Zozugo.

A plastic teapot

This is just my perspective, of course. Ask the people in Larabanga, and they would likely bemoan the fact that wealthy tourists turn up in shiny 4x4s, take lots of photos on expensive cameras, and then whinge online when they are asked for a very small amount of money. The midwife in Zozugo could reasonably question why I chose to write about the conditions she works in, rather than do something practical to help.

Still, tourism relies on recommendations, good reviews and word of mouth suggestions. I would encourage anyone to go to Zozugo; I would advise people not to bother with Larabanga. If Abe really wants to improve the experience for visitors to Larabanga, he ought to visit Zozugo and see how a community tour should be run.


 

Shrines

Bolgatanga is hot. It is doubtless many other things, but it’s hard to appreciate them in such intense heat. The stifling, windless air feels like it is slowly cooking you; plastic chairs burn your legs; the heat rising from the dirt roads passes through your sandals and warms your feet. To confirm, it’s hot in northern Ghana.

Shrines at Tengzug

Luckily the Sand Gardens hotel, on the town’s outskirts, has several large mango trees in its spacious grounds. After arriving from Tamale in a Flintstones-era bus – complete with holes in the floor for your feet – Hannah and I headed instantly for their shade.

Faced with these options – blistering sunshine versus cool shade – it was tempting to spend both of our days in ‘Bolga’ hidden at the hotel. But describing the drinking of various soft drinks in a hotel would make for a fairly dull blog (insert joke here). So early next morning, we slapped on the factor 50, bought loads of water and hired a taxi to take us to the nearby Tongo hills.

The chief's palace

The village of Tengzug is the site of several shrines. Ernest, our guide, met us as we arrived and took us to greet the village chief. After a smile and a wave from the big man, we climbed to the roof of his house to admire his compound. It’s reputedly the largest chief’s dwelling in Ghana – and he needs it, having 18 wives and 350-odd relatives to share it with. Valentine’s Day must take a fair bit of planning in Tengzug.

Various dead animals

We went to explore the small, mud-built houses, one for each family group. The dwellings are all built into each other and connected by a labyrinth of narrow passages. And outside each house is a shrine – a stone stump plastered with chicken blood and feathers, or occasionally decapitated livestock stuffed with leaves and various charms. They looked vaguely sinister but were also intriguing – it’s not every day you see a headless goat with leaves up its bum. 

Discussing Barcelona in the shade

Ernest then took us to the cave shrines among the ‘whistling hills’ – so-called because of the sound the wind makes as it passes through the rock formations during the Harmattan. As we walked, our conversation turned to the forthcoming Champions League games, and at the first shrine, Ernest’s efforts to inform us about his community’s traditions were betrayed by his love of football.

‘This is the donkey shrine, where people leave the skulls of their dead donkeys.’

‘Why do they leave the skulls here?’

‘To represent hard work by their animals. Tomorrow, you will see that Barca are still the greatest’.

‘Yes, but they struggled against Milan in the last round. Who comes to visit the shrines?’

‘People come from very far, from many lands. But with Messi, anything is possible.’

Donkey skulls

I could pretend this was frustrating and ruined the authenticity of the visit. But most people reading know that I am far more interested in football than rural Ghanaian traditions. By the time we reached Ba’ar Tonna’ab Ya’nee, the most important shrine at Tengzug, we had given up on local history and were fully focused on the shortcomings of the Ghana national team, particularly how the manager was a corrupt fool who favoured Ashantis.

A Tengzug kitchen

Ernest refocused sufficiently to remember tradition, so we left Hannah by a rock – no girls allowed at the shrine – and removed our shirts and sandals before climbing over the scorching rocks to the cave that holds the shrine. Inside sat the priest, wearing scruffy grey shorts and nothing else. Filling much of the cave was the biggest pile of dead chickens I have ever seen. I was asked if I would like to make a sacrifice, for wealth or to help my family prosper; I wasn’t sure of the vegetarian position on chicken sacrifice, so declined.

The priest then said something to Ernest, who translated for me: ‘He would like to know if you are a Barcelona fan’. Lying topless with two other men in a cave full of dead chickens, discussing Barcelona with a tribal priest, must count as one of the most surreal moments of my life (and I lived in Brighton for five years). I told the priest I supported Liverpool, wished Barca luck for their game against PSG, then made my way down to the relative normality of the Tengzug chief with his 18 wives and collection of leafy-bum goats.

The Whistling Hills

Sierra Leone part 3: Paradise

John Obey beach

Sierra Leone’s highest mountain is hard to reach, but its other star attractions are much easier to get to. Running south from Freetown are a string of stunningly beautiful beaches: dark green rain forest runs down steep mountains to meet golden beaches, with the surf crashing a few metres away. Add in a few lagoons, monkeys and palm trees and you have a taste of paradise; no wonder one of these beaches featured in a Bounty advert.

The question is: how long will it remain unspoilt? The Government of Sierra Leone recently reversed a law banning sand mining along the peninsula. Up to 200 trucks a day now leave the beaches loaded with their golden treasure, which is used in the building industry. This is already having a negative impact: one beach has already lost the sand bank that attracted surfers, and others are also under threat.

River Number Two beach

Perhaps a bigger concern is the tourism industry itself. The country’s civil war no doubt affected the country’s popularity as a destination (a small concern amid such atrocities, of course) but as the country develops, it seems inevitable that tourism will increase. Sierra Leone could soon rival the Gambia and Senegal as a West African winter sun hotspot, which will doubtless lead to more roads, more hotels, more people. The forested hills around Freetown are already being felled indiscriminately as the city expands. How long before the hills behind the beaches follow suit?

And yet there are signs that Sierra Leone may be choosing a different path to the mass tourism that has blighted other coastal regions. The few operations that have established themselves already are small-scale, community-run operations rather than ugly tower-block hotels. At River Number Two, the beach halfway along the coast that starred in the Bounty advert, the local community has established small lodges, a bar and restaurant, supported by a German charity, Welthungerhilfe. The development is low-key and does little to affect the scenery. While the pricing is a little ambitious - $60 for a 2-hour canoe trip seems pretty high in this poor country – the community are rightly proud of their achievements.

Tribewanted

Another interesting project is Tribewanted, a volun-tourism camp recently established at John Obey beach, a little further south along the peninsula. The camp was set up by Ben Keene, an Englishman, following a successful project in Fiji. The Tribewanted approach is to use the Internet, particularly social networking, to establish a ‘tribe’ of travellers looking for something different. Rather than just laze on the beach, ‘tribe members’ help with community projects, work alongside local people in the garden and kitchen. In short, they share the lifestyle of the local people rather than just popping in as tourists.

Tribewanted's kitchen

In principle at least. It’s perhaps unfair to judge a project based on one night’s stay, but there was little integration during my brief visit. At lunch, a Sierra Leonean woman cooked and served the food, which the (all white) tribe members ate and cleared away. During the day, most visitors sat in the hammocks or swam in the lagoon while the locals worked in the garden. And in the evening, the Leoneans drank and sang in their bar (a few metres away in the village) while the tourists – mostly NGO workers from Freetown who stay at weekends – drank and chatted in theirs.

Maybe that’s how it should be. The villagers of John Obey are happy with the extra income the project has brought to their lives, and probably don’t want to spend their evenings discussing the power cuts in Freetown or where else to visit in ‘Salone’. Maybe not all visitors want to drink palm wine or listen to reggae played on a slowly dying cassette player. And if Sierra Leone can establish more of these community-run, low-impact beach resorts before the chain hotels clear the forest (or the sand miners clear the beaches), then so much the better.

Sierra Leone part 2: Mount Bintumani

Arriving at Sinekoro just after midday, Kevin, Miriam and I were keen to make up for the time lost driving around the farthest corners of Sierra Leone. Not so fast … things are not rushed in this part of the world.

Sinekoro

First we had to meet the chief of Sinekoro and the village elders, to ask permission to climb Mount Bintumani and hire a guide and porter. The first part was easy; we were welcomed as the first visitors that year, the River Seli having only just dropped sufficiently to allow cars through. The second part not so: “They are all off in their fields; you will have to go tomorrow”. 

On the way

 This was not an attractive proposition in a village without any obvious supply of beer. Fortunately Alusine, our driver, once again came to the rescue. After a long discussion in Krio that involved most of the village and a lot of pointing, it was agreed that Hassan and Moses, two teenagers, would take us and we could leave straight away. We repacked our bags, watched by a crowd of excitable schoolchildren, and set off towards Bintumani.

Shortly after leaving the village and its farms we reached the rain forest that covers much of the Loma Mountains, of which Bintumani is the highest peak. The forest canopy was alive with bird calls and even the occasional howl from a monkey; always hidden from view but seeming close nonetheless. The sunlight glistened through the leaves and we saw colourful flowers and peculiar fruits. I marvelled at the experience of being in an unspoilt montane rain forest: the sights, the sounds, the smells.

In the rain forest

For about an hour. By then, my T-shirt was drenched, my heavy backpack was dragging me back down the steep slope, and the forest was no longer an environmental wonder, but rather a collection of spiky green things that caught my clothes, tripped me up or flicked into my eyes.

Hassan

And our first proper break provided little respite. Camp 1 is the first water refilling point on the path, making it an obvious stopping place, but it was also overrun with bees when we arrived. They buzzed around our heads and between our legs, around our drinks and food. One brave soul then made its way up my shorts. In case it needed clarifying, an angry bee in your pants is not a pleasant experience; after some frantic swatting and swearing, and one dead bee later, we set off once more on the steep path through the forest.

After four hours, I had had enough. Our guides showed little awareness of our exhaustion or heavy packs (they hadn’t offered to carry them), hurrying us along without a rest. Having finally caught up with Moses, I asked impatiently what the rush was. “Hassan is afraid of the forest, and I am afraid of the dark”, he told me simply. So much for our fearless guides.

Camp fire

They were no doubt as relieved as us to reach the forest edge, where the shoulder of the slope breaks abruptly into a clearing – Camp 2, our target for the day. It was instantly clear why people go to such effort to climb Mount Bintumani. The view across the Loma Mountains was unforgettable: the sun was setting behind an endless expanse of misty peaks that arose from the surrounding carpet of forest. I found a rock still warm from the sun, lay back and admired the spectacular scene below me.

Hassan made a fire, on which we were soon cooking dinner. We ate beans and drank tea with the calls of baboons, chimpanzees and antelope coming from the surrounding forest.

The Loma Mountains

*****

First glimpse of the summit

After a quick breakfast, Moses led the way to the summit. The route was easier than the previous day, across open grassland broken only by patches of forest in the small valleys. The grass is burnt each year – possibly by farmers, possibly by natural fires – and the charred clumps gave the landscape an other-worldly feel as we approached the rocky summit peak.

To the top

The Loma Mountains are protected, partly as a forest reserve but perhaps more by their inaccessibility. There is little logging or hunting in the forest and the region is still full of wildlife, albeit mostly hidden from sight. We saw a troop of baboons, several rock hyraxes and a lone buffalo grazing far below. But it was easy to believe that much more lives among the slopes and forests of the mountains, safely away from almost all human interference.

The final climb

That remoteness became apparent for a different reason as we neared the final steep climb through the rocks to the summit. Normally I would ascend such a climb with little concern, but I was suddenly aware that I was a long, long way from any form of help. A day and a half from Sinekoro; another bumpy day’s journey from Kabala, and I wasn’t even sure there was a hospital there. With some extremely careful bum-shuffling, in spite of a still-raw bee sting, I made it carefully up the slope and onto the summit plateau.

Regardless of how high, or how demanding the climb, the summit routine is always the same. A drink, a snack, a photo – this time complete with the Ghana Mountaineers banner Kevin had lugged all the way from Accra – and then back down.

At the summit

We picked up Hassan at Camp 2 and descended through the forest. Going downhill through the rain forest was no easier – leaf litter doesn’t make a good path – and my legs were barely functioning as we neared the village again.

Alusine was waiting for us, fairly impatiently. He hadn’t called his boss – or, more importantly, his wife – for three days, with no mobile coverage in the bush, and he was keen to get going. His nephew also looked ready to go home, and will probably think twice about offering directions again.

A plant

Caked in sweat and mud from the walk, I pondered whether we should get into his car before washing; I wouldn’t have let three such filthy people into my car. But then I wouldn’t have driven my car through the bush, across deep rivers or along narrow motorbike tracks. Alusine was clearly a more laid-back soul than me, or maybe it wasn’t his car. We waved goodbye to villagers of Sinekoro and piled in.

Bumping along the road, I looked back on our trip, not least the mistakes we had made. We hadn’t taken a map; our guides hadn’t brought any food or shelter (they shared ours); I hadn’t considered that Sinekoro would have no tourist facilities beyond a committee of elders to make things even more difficult. And the hike had taken us to an extremely remote location, without doubt the furthest I had ever been from civilisation. But if you go looking for an adventure, you can’t complain if you find one. And Mount Bintumani is certainly an adventure.

Mount Bintumani

Sierra Leone part 1: towards Mount Bintumani

Sierra Leone

Ever heard of Mount Bintumani? Neither had I until Kevin from the Ghana Mountaineers suggested a trip to Sierra Leone to climb it. After five minutes on Google I had discovered it was West Africa’s second highest mountain, an easy-ish climb, and you might see chimpanzees. That was good enough for me; I signed up.

What wasn’t mentioned on the Internet was how tricky it is to actually get there. The problems started before we had even reached Sierra Leone. The country’s embassy in Accra was reluctant to give us visas, asking for increasingly obscure bits of paperwork.

Assuming they wanted a ‘little something’, Kevin and I visited in person, but we had misjudged the ambassador; he was genuinely concerned for our safety. ‘’It’s a very long way, Mount Bintumani,” he told us. “Not easy to reach at all.” We perhaps should have listened to his advice a bit more carefully.

Even Freetown, the capital city, isn’t that easy to reach. For reasons unclear, the country’s main airport was built at Lungi, on the opposite bank of the wide and fairly turbulent Sierra Leone River, necessitating a bumpy boat ride to even reach the capital.

And upon arrival, we discovered our preparations had been futile. The hotel denied all knowledge of our booking, despite a print-out of their email confirming it; the car hire company had lent all its vehicles to a mining company. It was beginning to feel as if Sierra Leone wanted to keep its mountain secret.

Fortunately, Kevin’s friends in Freetown helped us find an alternative hotel and car hire company, and as we sat down for a beer on the Sunday night, watching the sun set behind Lumley Beach it felt like the worst hurdles were behind us. We were wrong.

******

The directions to Mount Bintumani sounded reasonably simple: drive to the town of Kabala, then take the dirt road for three hours through the bush to a village called Sinekoro. Our driver, Alusine, picked us up bright and early in the morning and had few concerns about the trip. His nephew lived in Kabala and would know the way, he assured us. We loaded our bags and set out along the mountain road from Freetown.

In the bush

The five-hour drive to Kabala was relatively uneventful. Alusine was clearly a disciple of the ‘horn first, brakes later’ school of driving, and Sierra Leone has its fair share of potholes. But the main hardship was his love of Phil Collins. Hour after hour, the 80s balladeer crackled his greatest hits out of the speakers, Alusine’s well-loved tape clearly wearing from repeated use. Once was ok; by the eighth repeat, I was going slightly mad.

So it was a relief in more ways than one to reach Kabala. After a quick lunch stop, we collected Alusine’s nephew and headed off. This is where the real adventure starts, I thought, settling back to enjoy the ride as our 4x4 lurched from side to side along the rutted dirt road. Soon after leaving the town, we were deep in the bush. The road wound its way through lush green forest, occasionally broken by villages of mud huts, from which children appeared to run after our car, waving.

The police station. Not sure where.

After four hours, three questions circled in my head: why is it taking so long? Why is Alusine’s nephew so quiet? And where is the bloody mountain? You would expect to see West Africa’s second highest mountain from a fair distance away, but there was no sign of any peaks on the horizon. Dusk was upon us and when we were stopped at an isolated police road check, it seemed like a good opportunity to get directions.

Four friendly policemen were sat listening to the closing minutes of the League Cup final between Swansea and Bradford – there is nowhere too remote for the tentacles of English football – and they showed us a large but basic map in their headquarters.

Spot Sinekoro pt. I

Spot Sinekoro pt. II

Note to others heading to Bintumani – there are TWO villages called Sinekoro. And we had gone to the wrong one, which was nearer to the Guinean border than the mountain. Thirty miles out may not sound far, but in rural Sierra Leone, it’s a long way. We took photos of the map in the hope they might help us and set off once again.

With darkness falling and still little idea where we were, we pulled into a village called Gberifeh (we found the name out later; no signs out here) and decided to camp for the night. Alusine asked the elderly chief if we could stay over and we set up our tents, watched by a large crowd of intrigued villagers. Despite having been hired for one day only, Alusine pulled soap, toothbrush and a change of clothes from under his seat; clearly this wasn’t his first time in the bush with foreigners.

Gberifeh

A crowd of children surrounded my tent, perhaps waiting for me to do something more interesting than just lie down. As a guest in their village it felt impolite to tell them to bugger off, but fortunately one of their mothers did the job for me, shooing them away. And after nearly 18 hours of travelling, I closed my eyes, trying to work out how we would find the mountain the next day and trying to get Phil Collins’ greatest hits out of my head.

*****

‘Off the beaten track’ is a cliché used with wild abandon by guidebooks (and indeed travel blogs) but never again will I use it lightly after our trip the next morning. Alusine had managed to elicit village-to-village directions from the chief, and we headed along through them, Alusine ticking off each one as we passed through.

Is this a road?

Three hours later we were halfway down the list but still no sign of the mountain; I noted that the petrol gauge was also approaching the halfway mark. My confidence wasn’t helped by the assurances we received in each village. Directions in this part of Sierra Leone consist solely of ‘not far’ and ‘go straight’; I asked Alusine to double-check with a passing farmer. 

"How de morning? Dey go op di mountain", he asked in Krio.

"Yes, yes, Bintumani dis way ", came the reply.

"How is de road?", he asked.

"De road is good", we were assured. 

Crossing the Seli River

I considered the single motorbike track and 45° slope ahead of us,  and the dropping petrol gauge; I concluded there weren’t really many options other than to keep going.

And then, five minutes later, through a break in the trees, we saw it … Mount Bintumani, straight ahead. Not exactly close, but visible for the first time, a mere day and a half into our trip. With renewed enthusiasm, we sped onwards, crossing the Seli River which cuts off the mountain during the rainy season. It took three hill starts and a lot of burnt clutch to get out on the other side, but despite the car lurching violently as its wheels skidded, we got through.

The last few villages were ticked off, and we pulled into Sinekoro – the right one, with the Loma Mountains rearing up just behind. It has taken nearly 30 hours, several wrong turns, Alusine’s skill behind the wheel, and nerves of steel to cope with Phil Collins on repeat, but finally – against all odds – we had made it to Bintumani. 

Another day in paradise with Phil