Back in November, we used the last of our vacation time as
volunteers to travel to Guinea. We
traveled with 4 other volunteers overland from Gambia, through Senegal to the
mountainous region of Guinea. It was
great. Guinea is a beautiful country with
green hills and waterfalls everywhere.
The people that live there are Pular which are also in the Gambia but
slightly different. Traveling in West
Africa is difficult, especially for white people. In this area of Africa it is not at all
dangerous, except for the cars and roads.
We started the trip in Basse, an upcountry town in Gambia where there is
a transit house we could all stay at. We
tried to negotiate a car for the next morning and thought we had secured one
for a reasonable price. We arrived at
the car park the morning of at 6:30 to get a head start, however, no one was
around. We waited for an hour or so and
found someone who was in charge of the Basse – Guinea cars (there were all of
2). They did not remember the previous
nights negotiations. After extensive re-negotiations
and walking away twice, we agreed on a price (that was not a great deal for us)
and set off on the long journey.
Our
driver did not speak any English, and our French was pretty rusty and our pular
is non-existent. We made it through the
borders and ferry crossing in record time and reached the city we were going
to, Labe, in a mere 15 hours. The road
from to Labe, Guinea is probably one of the worst roads in West Africa. They are winding dirt roads that are just mudd
during the rains with wooden rickety bridges to cross, complete with a ‘wind up’
old ferry at one river crossing. The
only cars that travel there are huge trucks and station wagons that are
supposed to carry 7 people but actually are carrying 11 inside the car and as
many as can fit on top. It is a crazy thing to witness. When we arrived in Labe, it was 3 o’clock in
the morning, really cold, and we had no idea where we were or where we should
go. So we call a Peace Corps volunteer
in Labe at 3 o’clock in the morning, as a long shot. She answers, and has her host brother drive
her over to us and take us all in his car to a hotel. Incredible!
We sleep and the next day we head out to the village Doucki, a small
pular village in the mountains where we stayed at Hassan Bah’s camp. Highly recommended!
Pular Villages in the mountains
Vulture's Rock
Hassan Bah himself!
Our lodging at the camp
The Guinean Grand Canyon
Beautiful!
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| Careful |
Labe
Walking around Doucki
Swimming at Vultures Rock
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| Caves |
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| The whole group with Hassan |
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| The Deter! |
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| Climbing down mountains with waterfalls |
Hassan Bah is a fantastic guide, born in Guinea but moved to
Sierra Leon where he learned English and went to school.
He spent his younger days on a Spanish
shipping boat with Chinese men so he picked up Spanish and some Chinese as
well!
He moved back to his mother’s
property in Douki and started his ‘camp’ which is actually visited by a lot of
people from everywhere, and a lot of peace corps volunteers.
He is funny, entertaining, and gives you a
hiking experience you won’t ever forget.
The area is beautiful and we stayed there for 4 days exploring his many
trails.
Here is a link to his website
that Guinea Pc Volunteer made for him (he has actually never seen it):
http://hikinginguinea.wordpress.com/about/
While at Hassan’s camp, we met an interesting Belgium man named Deter
who went on all the hikes with us and even came with us to our next town that
we went to.
At first we were a little
annoyed at him as he didn’t really ask us if he could join us, but then he
redeemed himself by buying us all cokes – the way to a volunteers heart, free
anything made in America.
The hike that was
particularly memorable to us was called ‘chutes and ladders’.
This hike consisted of hiking up locally made
ladders through waterfalls.
It was
incredibly scary, and awesome!
It was a
long 8 hour hike and at one point in the valley portion of the hike we stepped
in about 4 different ant swarms at separate times.
Those Guinean ants were relentless!!
It was not fun, but watching everyone run
away through the bush was pretty funny.
At Hassan’s we hiked for 4 days straight with
some hikes being around 18 kilometers!
Indiana Jones
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| traditional Pula Putas |
On the way back we drove 15 hours with a motorcycle on top of our car
After Hassan’s camp we went to Dalaba and hung out with a
couple of Guinea volunteers. We were
able to see the town and this volunteer’s house which was really nice, in the
mountains, and completely different from lifestyles in the Gambia. In Dalaba we went to see more waterfalls and
just toured the small mountain town where rich Guineans build their houses in
the hills – nice houses. Like America
nice. It is kinda strange, but
beautiful. We left Dalaba and drove down
to a big city outside of Conakry called Kindia.
There, we went to an artisanal fair on a palm tree farm. The owner is named Chico and he has
established an organic farm that he hopes will attract tourists. He lived in America for about 20 years but is
Guinean. He was so nice! When we arrived he gave us free crepes, banana
chips, lunch, drinks, showed us around the farm and later asked us to stay for
a free dinner of bbq chicken and palm wine surrounding a bonfire.
Afterwards we went back to Labe to secure a car for our ride
back to the Gambia. Our ride back to the
Gambia took a little longer. We made it
through the mountain pass to the Guinea – Senegal border to find that it was
closed until morning. At this point,
everyone was out of money so we couldn’t really get a room, and the taxi driver
refused to take us there anyway so we didn’t really try. Instead, we slept on hammocks by the border,
inside the car, next to the car, and ya – anywhere we could find. Ben and I slept on hammocks and then I got
too cold and moved inside our car where I slept sitting up. The next morning at 6:30 our driver woke us up and hurried us
through the border crossings. And shortly
after we arrived back in the Gambia. All
things considered, a great and memorable trip!
