I experience a feeling of freedom
and release as we leave the busy, dusty streets of the city behind. The peninsula road is now familiar ground as we
pass through the town of Hastings with its now quiet airstrip, followed by the
bustling suburb of Waterloo, weaving through roadside stalls and dodging the
unpredictable moves of the okada
motorbikes. Beyond these old Krio
settlements lies the route that leads out of the Western Area and into the
provinces. I am excited to explore new
territory as this will only be the second time I have ventured beyond the
peninsula, but I am also nervous about the unknown road ahead.
We are on our way to Mount
Bintumani in the remote Loma National Park. The peak takes its name from the
female spirit that is said to live there and at just under 2000m, Bintumani is
the tallest mountain in West Africa. We
are a team of six and my housemate Ruth has kindly let us borrow her Landrover
Defender for the expedition, organised by my colleague Fiona. Once out of the city, the roads are quiet and
in surprisingly good condition. We make
good progress through the Western Area, passing through large expanses of open
countryside and the occasional roadside village. Every now and then, a burnt out abandoned
vehicle or a mangled barrier, serve as a reminder that these roads are fast and
dangerous and great concentration is required at all times when driving here.
The Team
We stop briefly for lunch in
Makeni, the capital of the North and 130km from Freetown. It is a busy transport hub linking the north
with the diamond mining districts in the Eastern Province and has benefited financially
in recent years from investment by iron-ore mining companies. There is a police check point a couple of
miles out of town and this is where we encountered our first problem of the
trip. Our vehicle was pulled over and I
was asked to get out. I was approached
by an angry immigration official who stated that he had signalled for us to
stop in Makeni but claimed that I had ignored him. In reality, he was not wearing a uniform and
I had not noticed him. He had flagged
down a passing motorbike and chased us to the check point, risking his life in
the process apparently! In addition, the
attending police officers discovered several other minor offences that we were
guilty of.
Following prolonged discussions
and profuse apologies on my part, I was let off with a reprimand and a friendly
warning. We shook hands, he offered me
his card in case there were further issues on the journey and the police waved
us off, looking bemused as to why we would wish to travel such a distance just
to walk up a big hill.
After a further couple of hours
driving through scorching heat to the music of Fleetwood Mac and the late David
Bowie, we reached Kabala; a small, pretty town situated beneath the imposing
cliff face of Gbawuria Hill. It is the gateway to the Wara Wara hills and
centre for cattle rearing in the north of the country. For us, it was a place to rehydrate and was
also the end of the tarmac road. From
Kabala to the Loma Mountains and Bintumani, there is a dirt track negotiable
only by 4x4 vehicles, motorbikes or by walking which was definitely not an
appealing option as there was still another fifty kilometers or so to go.
Kabala Centre
We drove on through increasingly scenic
terrain; lush green, tropical forest covering rolling hills punctuated by small
villages with names such as Koinadugu, Momoria Badela and, my favourite, Binty
Moria. Children ran out to greet us from
small thatched dwellings as we passed through; waving hands and shouts of hello
accompanied the rumble of the Defender’s tyres on the baking red earth beneath
us. The sun was beginning to set as we
reached the Seli River, about 30 meters wide and still flowing fairly fast, it
would be an impossible proposition in the wet season. A narrow, precarious rope and vine bridge
spans the river just downstream from the vehicle crossing point, this offers
the villagers a life-line to the outside world but the only way to get the Landrover across will be to ford the river.
As it is not my vehicle, I admit to being a little dubious about the
prospect. The options are to do a risk
assessment and carry on, or to turn back and walk.
After some debate, we decide that
the river is low enough to take the Defender across and Lamin, our guide, who seems
confident, volunteers to take over the driving.
With hearts in mouths, we traverse the river and pull out onto the steep
bank on the opposite side seemingly all in one piece. The dirt road then turns into a poorly
maintained track, so steep in parts that even the Landrover struggled with the
gradient and we had to get out to allow the vehicle to get up the hills on more
than one occasion. By this stage it was
well and truly dark and we were a long way from anywhere. We discussed pitching our tents next to the
track or even sleeping in the vehicle for the night but decide to continue on
in the hope of coming across a village.
Bridge across the Seli River
It is past ten and we have been
driving for 12 hours when we finally glimpse a light through the trees and the
forest opens into a clearing. With much
relief we arrive in the isolated village of Banda Kefalia, a small settlement
of a few hundred people. They don’t see
many vehicles here so there is a lot of excitement when we arrive, the
villagers surround the vehicle and we begin to get the impression that some
people in the village are less than happy to see us. Lamin takes Fiona to speak to the village
chief and they disappear off into the crowd.
Forty minutes later, they have not returned and we become concerned that
there may be a problem.
