Travels and Rain
Yes- that's right- RAIN!! In the middle of the dry season! Although we did have some last year as well- apparently it's called the 'New Year' rains, which only last for a couple of days and then it's all hot, dry (ok- humid would be a more accurate rendering of the climate here) and sunny until the rainy season (due to start May or June ish). I'd forgotten how loud the rain can be at nights, so the one night that we had a huge thunderstorm, I slept a lot less than I intended.Anyway, travels- a group of us went upline (upcountry) for the weekend a couple of weeks ago (pics on facebook-if you're not on there, let me know and I'll try to get round to putting some on my blog as well). We went to Sierra Rutile- a concession where rutile is taken out of the flooded ground, cleaned (several times), dried and then sent to somewhere that uses it (I think it's used for pigmentation in paints, but beyond that my knowledge is pretty limited). We were given a tour of the dredger- pulling up rutile plus a who lot of other gunk from the bottom of the lake, the wet plant (first stage of cleaning) and the dry plant (next few stages of cleaning plus drying the rutile and putting it in sacks. One of the people I was travelling with mentioned as an aside that it didn't look much different to wet cement in its soggy state and that they could see much of a difference as a result of the final cleaning processes, although admitted that it felt pretty different when finally dried and in the sacks. I'm sure someone who's a professional and actually understands the processes and the need for the rutile to be dry would be able to see many more differences than we did!
Anyway, that was just the first night and morning of the road trip. The second part involved driving (round in circles to start with) off the concession and towards the edge of Bonthe. From here speed boats picked us up and took us to Sherbro island (I'm still not sure if that is meant to have one 'r' or two, I'm sure someone will let me know if it's really important). This island is also known as Bonthe island because the Bonthe district is divided into two parts- that on the mainland and that on the island. On the island there are two types of accommodation available- the very up market (from 1o0USD per night) and the very basic (12,000Leones per night- that's about 2 GBP or 4USD). Since we were there as part of a celebration of my friend's birthday, we had opted for the more expensive option. It's the Bonthe island holiday resort and is apparently a really big place for 'big fish' anglers and if you go at the right time of the year you can get some pretty amazing catches of big fish such as tarpon. They have a chef from Benin and I think the French influence has ensured he's a very good cook- the food we had was excellent, particularly the fish!
In the afternoon (after a fantastic lunch), we went walking round part of the island for about 3hours, we went through the market, along the main street, past the church commemorating the Amistad and briefly visited the hospital (somewhat bare in terms of facilities). We also took loads of pics, particularly of the kids, who loved having their pictures taken and then seeing them on the backs of the cameras. Since (as far as I'm aware/at least for the part of the island that we were on) Bonthe island is surround by mangroves, there's not much opportunity for swimming, but there was a lot to look at and see. There's several colonial buildings on the island, I think it was quite popular among the first colonisers of the Portuguese, but was eventually eclipsed by the Freetown peninsular (probably due to the natural deep water harbour whereas the part of the island that we were on had too many shallows for the comfort of sailors). As such the mainstay of the economy of Bonthe island is agriculture and artisanal fishing. It lacks the beaches of the Western area to make it a popular tourist destination, but I think it will remain popular with the niche market of tarpon anglers for sometime to come. The accommodation at the holiday resort was excellent- very clean, it felt very fresh and well cared for, it also had hot water showers, so definitely a bit of luxury compared to the compound in Freetown. We spent the evening chilling out on the verandahs surrounding the villas in the resort and savouring the fact that we were a way away from Freetown and the freshness of the air.
On the next morning, after a delicious breakfast, we hired bikes and cycled over to the air field. There's an abandoned plane there, which was interesting to explore. My body reminded me that I hadn't cycled for years and that there would be serious repercussions to this unnatural exercise in the days to come. I also discovered that it's really difficult to cycle on sand- I'm sure most of you know this already, but since I very rarely go on a bike, this was quite a discovery for me! After another delicious lunch of fish, we departed the island along with some local handicrafts- most popular were the semi-reclining seats that several of the group had purchased (for an extortionate 3,000 Leones each!!). It was quite amusing to watch as these were then manhandled into the vehicles we'd brought with us so that they wouldn't fall or cause too much chaos as we headed back to Freetown.
We arrived back on the Western peninsula in time for the guys to watch one of the Cup of Nation's footie matches (might even have been one of the semi-finals) and then proceeded to Freetown and the awaiting showers, since however clean we were on setting off from the resort, a boat ride followed by alighting on a muddy beach, plus a 6 hour drive and a break in the dusty district capital of Moyamba always means you end up covered in red dust and dirt by the time you get back to Freetown.
It was a brilliant time! It also means that I have now visited every district in Sierra Leone (previously I had only been to Bonthe mainland and not to Bonthe island and several people felt that this was 'cheating', so now I can say that I have visited all the districts here. It was great to spend the weekend away with friend exploring new parts of SL.
posted by Nenya @ 3:36 pm
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