Water, water everywhere
... except where we need it. Well, that's not entirely accurate- we do have water in the house at the moment, tho' this is mainly in large barrels that were recently acquired to ensure we wouldn't have a problem with the drought that is evidently anticipated by several people here. To add to the expected lack of water, one of the main pipes bringing water into the city from the reservoir sprung a leak, hence decreasing the amount of water available in the city. Having said that, some people here definitely haven't heard of showers, or if they have then they don't undertake them particularly regularly ;-(
Another place that would've been useful to have water would've been under our boat last weekend. A group of us went to Turtle Islands (beautiful and definitely desert island type places) to spend Easter there, taking advantage of the long weekend. It was lovely to get away from Freetown to somewhere quiet- no mobile phones ringing and a lovely opportunity to relax on the beach and read. Some people also played cricket- we had so very eager volunteers to help in the fielding, with the local kids vying to be the one who brought the ball back to the bowler. Some of the had impressive throwing abilities too- much better than mine, but I'm just glad I didn't actually manage to throw the ball backwards rather than forwards- yes, my abilities to throw a ball really are that bad! ;-)
Anyway, having water under our boat.... due to various technical difficulties, we arrived at the islands later than anticipated and right at low tide, meaning we had to get out and push the boat off the sandbank and into the deeper channel that led up to Paradise Island (at least that's what I'm told the island we were staying on was called). The accommodation was variable- some people had tents on the sand, some had mattresses in tents and 4 of the girls (because guys really don't like the idea let alone the practice of sharing beds) got to share 2 double beds. In some ways this was good, because guys would not have fit the beds (one of the girls being 5'2" complained about hitting her feet against the end of the bed most of the night) and definitely would not have managed to avoid touching the mosquito nets.
Having arrived on the Friday afternoon, we enjoyed fish and rice (something of a staple) and then chatted round the campfire in the evening and into the night. The breeze kept sandflies and mossies away. On Saturday afternoon (after a slightly different lunch consisting of chicken and chips), I went fishing, well, to be slightly more accurate, I piloted the boat round an old wreck while some of the guys went fishing. We caught Barracuda and Bonita, the latter looks like a small shark and really fought to avoid being caught but in the end it meant we had plenty of fish for supper.
The trip back on Sunday morning/early afternoon was much less eventful, but it was brilliant to go along the coast of the peninsula and watch the gathering storm clouds (apparently the wet season doesn't begin until May but I'm not sure if anyone told the weather that this year). We arrived back in Freetown somewhat more tanned but also with more bites (Saturday night not having favoured us with a breeze and therefore we'd been liberally attacked) having all had a relaxing couple of days in Turtle Islands. Having been assured that there were no longer any turtles in the islands, I was to surprised to actually see a turtle, tho' I think it belong to some of the locals.
Labels: fish, turtle, water
Adventures in the Jungle
A group of 4 of us went to Outamaba-Kilimi national park last weekend, since we had Monday off as an extra bank holiday (this seems to be a good time of year to get extra days off work- this week is only 3 days long because it's Good Friday at the end of the week). Anyway, we had a few adventures up country that you may (or may not) want to read about- if the latter you can just look at the pics.
A monkey investigating a car in Makeni, where we stopped on the way to and from the national park.
Kids saying hi at the ferry that we used to cross to the area where the national park is based.
So, the O-K (Outamba- Kilimi) national park. We went up on Saturday, arriving at about 3pm (after a 6:30am ish start), it was really hot and humid when we arrived and all we wanted to do was chill and relax (basically that's all we did do). Then one guy cooked up a brilliant thai curry (with very few chillies so was actually really nice for me). We had to use an open fire that we made because the gas canister on the mini stove we brought with us was empty (oops), but apart from getting one frying pan and one saucepan covered in soot etc, was really delicious and absolutely fine. Enjoyed the night around the fire and they turned in to bed fairly early. Up by 6:30 and cooked bacon sarnies for breakfast, then left the camp at about 7:15am to start the trek into the national park, just as we were leaving I remembered that we hadn't picked up any sweets so went back and picked them up, we had about 3 litres of water each. We then went walking through the park, tho' didn't see much wildlife to start with- loads of the forest has been burnt down hence destroying a lot of the habitats for the animals. Was a good walk even tho' our guide didn't seem to be able to find the way to get to the lake, which was annoying since we knew there was a tree house there that you could sit in to watch the animals as they came down to the lake. After a lot of wandering and enjoying the walk we came to a large clump of bamboo, where we took pictures, and one of the guys sat down on a bending piece of bamboo and bent/broke it even further. After moving on and wandering down to the river we decided to give up on the idea of finding the lake and head back to the camp. 3 hours later we found ourselves back at the bamboo again, which was slightly worrying, especially since we'd been told we'd be back at the camp by 2pm in the afternoon and it was already 2pm and the guide didn't really seem to know where he was. This was worrying because we were all getting quite low on water, and then someone remembered that they had packed their iodine tablets in their rucksack- this meant we could drink water, so long as we found our way back to the river (the bamboo was fairly far away from the river). The guide then had some difficulty in finding the river, so using basic navigational techniques such as the sun and a watch (having managed to leave compasses back at the campsite, since we had trusted the guide knew where he was going), we headed south-south west towards where we believed the river to be, deciding not to take our guide's suggestion of taking a possible hunting track to a possible village where he may have had relatives. Anyway, at about 3pm, we found the lake which we had been promised by the guide was 'only 15mins away' about 5 hours earlier. This also meant we found the treehouse overlooking the lake, as well as the river feeding into the lake, where we were able to fill up our waterbottles, add iodine and neutralising tablets and sit down to relax knowing that we weren't going to be dehydrated in the hot afternoon sun.
At 4pm, we decided that we were too tired to head back to the camp that evening- especially if we were to get there before dusk, when the hippos would come out of the river to spend the night on the land, also we weren't 100% trusting that our guide would know the way back to the camp since he'd earlier assured us that he knew where he was going and was adamant that the clump of bamboo we'd found twice was actually two different sets of bamboo- until we showed him the pictures to prove it was the same place. So the guide headed back to camp promising that he would send some of the other guides with a canoe that evening if they were back at the camp (he would probably have been too tired to come back to get us), if not then he would head up to get us first thing in the morning.
The lake from the tree-house after we'd just arrived in the afternoon.
We had plenty of deet, sugar (thanks to the sweets I'd remembered) and water and having had bacon for breakfast was good because it was about the saltiest thing that would could have eaten. So we settled down for the night in a 7x7ft (just wide/long enough for 4 people to lie down 'coffin' position) treehouse/platform with raised edges, safely away from any potential hippo resting places. we saw a chimp come down to the water to drink, also we'd already seen a deer that day, some hornbills and several other birds
Dawn at OK National Park- it occurred a bit to late for us to see if the large animal we'd heard washing/drinking in the lake at 4am in the morning had been an elephant (very rare to see in the park) or a hippo.
We were severely attacked by mossies, despite all the deet and I think I only slept for an hour in total. We spent about 14hours in the treehouse and at 7:30am our guide turned up. We then went down to where he had moored the canoe and got some brilliant photo op's with a bull and his harem of female hippos enjoying the morning waters. After that, we headed back to the camp-up the river and saw a fish eagle? (well something like that), several other birds and chimps in the trees, the river was really calm and serene and we arrived back at the camp at about 9:30am, where we made more bacon and then packed up to leave. The journey down to Makeni went fine and then onto Freetown and a good wash (no showers at the campsite tho 'they did have pit latrines)- we were absolutely filthy from the night spent in the trees and didn’t want to wash in the river because of the risk of Bilhazia! Just to let you know- the iodine tablets worked really well and none of us took ill as a result of drinking river water- a real relief.
The bull hippo watching us on the edge of the river.
So all in all a pretty eventful adventure, but nothing bad happening, just a good story afterwards and some memories of what we really ought to take with us next time we go on a ‘morning hike’!
On a slightly different note, it seems as though the national park is being fairly swiftly destroyed as locals burn down more and more of it. We couldn’t work out the reasons for this because the land wasn’t being used for farming, which would be the normal reason for burning land. It’s a real pity because it’s reducing the habitats for the animals- particularly the water buffalo and chimps that others have seen when they’ve been to the park in the past and although it’s a shame we didn’t get to see more wildlife, it’s more of a pity that such a beautiful area is being senselessly destroyed and the animals that live there either end up as bush meat or have to move on elsewhere.
Labels: adventure, hippo, jungle, mosquitos, treehouse, trek, water
