A Tale of Three Cities

Editor's note: I started writing this post shortly after my return from Liberia-Guinea to Freetown, but it fell onto the back-burner. With my next major trip (Morocco) a mere week and a half away, I figured I'd better finish blogging about the last one. Enjoy.


A seemingly universal pet peeve among everyone I know that has spent time on the African continent is being asked the question, "How is Africa?" Personally, every time I hear it, I have to suppress the overwhelming urge to utter a snide remark along the lines of ...

"Well, Somalia continues to muddle along as a failed state, with more developments in the rampant piracy off the country's coast almost daily. Hm, let's see. Jacob Zuma is expected to be annointed as President of South Africa in the coming week despite a spotty record marred by allegations of corruption, fraud and even rape. On a lighter note, Kenyan women are getting creative in looking for ways to address the political impasse in the country, by withholding sex from the country's men. Oh, and don't even get me started on the mess in Zimbabwe with Bobby Mugabe ... What's that? You lost interest? Oh."

Of course, I don't say this. 'Cause the question is usually uttered as a harmless inquiry into my life and responding in kind with a sardonic attack would be less than genial behaviour. I usually go with something a tad subtler like, "Things in Sierra Leone are going really well, thanks."

Still, the question does kind of bother me, as it implies that this vast continent is more or less the same throughout. It's akin to asking someone in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, "Hey, how's North America?" They're probably not equipped to give a comprehensive answer. The Democratic Republic of Congo alone is about the size of all of Western Europe.

All that being said, as I embarked on my March trip to Liberia and Guinea, I perhaps hypocritically expected the capital cities of these two nations to resemble Freetown in many ways - especially Monrovia. After all, like Freetown, it is the capital of a small, coastal West African nation, with an almost identical climate, seeking to recover from the same war that haunts my current city of residence.

And certainly, there are similarities. But it still struck me that my brief stays in Monrovia and Conakry yielded interesting contrasts to my current hometown.

Let's start with Monrovia. This is, quite possibly, the strangest city I've ever been to. Monrovia was hit much harder by the war than Freetown, and it still bears considerable scar tissue from the fighting. Bombed-out buildings play host to squatters on a nightly basis. Hell, the only souvenir I ended up departing Liberia with was a money clip fashioned from a bullet shell. The city's not exactly all kittens and flowers.

But what immediately struck me about Monrovia was the juxtaposition. Yes, there are a lot of buildings that have yet to be renovated after the war, bullet holes scarring their brick exteriors. But right next door, you often find an amazing restaurant with a dapper interior.

This is one area where Monrovia annihilated Freetown: food. Though I spent only 36 hours in the city, that was about 34 more than I needed to conclude that the restaurant scene dwarfed Salone's. First of all, there seemed to be a far greater selection of food types available, including steak houses, sushi joints, Indian food and vastly superior Lebanese cuisine.

In the brief stopover I had in the city, I ate at three restaurants that boasted interior decor polished and chic enough that they were more suited to hip North American cities like NYC or Vancouver than war-ravaged West Africa.

The catch with all this decadence, of course, comes down to coin. Monrovia is damned expensive. The high incidence of swanky settings nestled among the rubble can be traced directly to the still-large UN presence in the city. And UNMIL (UN Mission in Liberia) is doing a fine job of driving cost of living through the roof.

For example, Rebecca is paying more than $600/month in rent. Admittedly, her place boasts some amenities I don't have in Freetown: 12 hours of guaranteed power, air conditioning, running water, and hot showers. But her place is also smaller than mine and definitely not three times better (I pay less than $200/month all in).

Another by-product of the sustained UN presence in Liberia is that Monrovians are far more accustomed to white people. Whereas I found Guineans to be very similar to Sierra Leoneans in their constant attempts to get your attention and/or sell you something, Monrovians were much more indifferent. Rebecca said she thinks there's a sort of pride about not treating white people as something special or otherwise out of the ordinary.

And so, as I wandered the streets alone after meeting the Liberia JHR crew over lunch, I was delighted at the sense of anonymity I felt. That's not to say, however, that Liberians are in any way unfriendly. Anytime I asked for help, someone was more than happy to provide it.

When I had a bit of a rocky entry to the city, it was not only my guardian angel Rosetta who demonstrated great concern. Shortly after I arrived safely at Rebecca's compound, she received a call from a man I'd shared a cab with, who was simply double-checking that the white man from Freetown had found her okay.

Such a phone call would no doubt happen in Freetown too. But not like this. Satisfied that I was okay, he never called back. In my first week here, I made the mistake of giving my number to an aspiring hip hop artist named Sugg whom I met on the street. He called about four times daily until I simply stopped answering.

My friend gave a guy her number one night and received 13 calls in the next 12 hours, beginning at 6 a.m. Sometimes, Sierra Leoneans are a little too friendly, so perhaps it isn't surprising that the relative anonymity I experienced in Monrovia came as a welcome reprieve.

Among my wanderings in Liberia, I visited the one-room National Museum, which was home to many a traditional mask, some interesting photographs (though mostly taken by Westerners in Liberia) and paintings of varying degrees of quality, mostly circa 2006. Though interesting, I found the museum visit simultaneously slightly depressing, as it highlighted the total destruction of war; it's not just infrastructure that needs to be rebuilt, but also the country's culture and historical memory.

In general, despite the brevity of my stay in Monrovia, I feel as though I got a pretty decent feel for the city and, outside of the above-mentioned demeanour of the locals and vastly superior food, I think the biggest difference from Freetown was the city's safety, particularly after dark. Whereas I wander Freetown alone at night without giving it much of a second thought at this point, no white people do that in Monrovia. Even locals are horrified when a Westerner so much as considers it and no one tries to defend the city from its reputation for theft and armed robbery.

Interestingly, though on paper it's a recently overthrown militant narco-state, Guinea's capital, by contrast, felt completely safe. In general, Conakry blew me away with its comparable development.

The city boasted pretty legitimate highways, complete with on and off ramps and even solar-powered street lights! The roads were reasonably well-maintained and nearly twice as wide as those in Freetown, and some even included sidewalks lined with trees. Conakry gives you room to breathe.

In Freetown, a compact urban space designed for 300,000 that currently accommodates close to two million, the city is constantly on top of you. There just isn't real estate to operate and one's sense of personal space gets eroded pretty quickly by the city's smothering blanket of activity.

Even the clincs in Guinea, which I had a chance to sample more than I would've liked, were night and day with Freetown. In Conakry, I sat on one of those plastic-covered raised beds with the butcher paper laid out on them, just as I would've in any doctor's office in North America. In Freetown, I had my wound treated sitting in a lawn chair in the corner of an office so small that the door had to be held at a strategic angle just to gain entrance. Solo B, my nurse, squatted on the floor.

On my first day in Guinea, when I walked into the N'zerekore gare voiture where all the taxis set off from, I was floored by the organization of it all. There were signs to indicate which city a given vehicle was headed for and they even had tickets to indicate proof of purchase! At the time, having just come from Sierra Leone and Liberia, I joked, "Who needs democracy?"

The development I witnessed in Conakry made it seem less and less like a joke, and more like a serious issue to grapple with. But at the end of the day, Guinea is still only 167th of 179 on the Human Development Index and I'm not optimistic it will get much better without a more democratic government taking hold. Militant narco-states might be able to out-develop a pair of war-ravaged fledgling democracies in the short term, but I'm not ready to declare it the superior governance model just yet.

And certainly, Conakry was by no means perfect. Their cuisine scene may have put Freetown to shame, but Liberia still held the distinct advantage there - though Conakry wins on affordability. It also - quizzically for a country whose population is about 85% Muslim - had the best beer of the three countries, with Guiluxe edging Liberia's Club beer, while Salone's Star beer ranks a distant third.

Truth be told, aside from the beaches being a poor man's Salone imitation, the only area where Conakry really failed to impress was in its public transportation. Put bluntly, Guinean taxis suck. I'm quite convinced they divided the city's population into groups of 1000 and chose the least knowledgeable, least intelligent person in each group - and then gave him a cab (I didn't see any female drivers). In nearly four days in the Guinean capital, I encountered only one cabbie who seemed like he'd ever been in the city before.

Of course, all these observations are merely first impressions and I spent precious little time in either Monrovia or Conakry. To compare them to Freetown is patently unfair on my part, and perhaps explains why this post probably comes off as disparaging of Freetown. That is certainly not my intent. Most days, I'm quite fond of this place and it's entirely possible that griping about its shortcomings is just part of the charm. Patrick's only been back in Canada for a few days and has already told me he misses the city.

I guess the point of all this spouting off - beyond simply creating for myself a written record of my impressions of the respective cities - is to illustrate the point that it is almost always folly to expect similarity in a continent shaped by so many differing factors. While it's true that Conakry, Freetown and Monrovia are capital cities in three neighbouring countries with strong ties, they are nonetheless the products of very different histories, and none have even the same Western connections.

Salone was a colony/protectorate of the Brits. Guineans speak French for a reason and it's, you guessed it, because they were a French colony. This influence was unmistakable in both the city's eateries and architecture.

As an interesting aside, Guineans are very proud of their independence - they were the first French colony on the continent to assert it - and don't particularly care for the French. Bryna and Craig got themselves into some hot water when they walked in front of the Presidential Palace - a major faux-pas - but were fortunate to be nabbed by a guard that loved Canada. He actually said, "You're lucky you're not French."

As for Liberia, it's strongest Western ties - generally exploitative in nature - are with America. The link is in fact so deeply embedded that US and Liberian dollars are completely interchangeable; it is not uncommon to pay for a meal using American money and receive change in Liberian, or even a combination of the two.

So, yeah, Freetown certainly has more in common with Conakry and Monrovia than Ottawa or Havana. But they were hardly the same and I suppose it's an indication of my nascent worldliness that I expected them to be in the first place.


Another editorial interjection: I hardly took any photos in Conakry or Monrovia and none of them particularly lent themselves to the body of this post. But since people generally seem to get excited about seeing photos, I've included a couple from each city below. The first two are from Monrovia, while the last three were taken on Conakry's coast.

West African travel trials

After my post about the recent Liberia-Guinea overland trip, I would understand if my readers felt a strong pull to retrace my journey. Indeed, I'm tempted to urge anyone and everyone in that direction, so amazing was my experience.

But I also recognize that such unconventional travel itineraries aren't likely for everyone, and my last post certainly focused solely on what went right about my trip. In reality, West African travel is also inextricably linked to the type of dangers, delays and disappointments that would drive some travelers to the brink.

In the interest of full disclosure, and to avoid becoming the type of travel writer that morphs every experience into the type of 'quaint' or 'charming' experience that the travel industry so adores, here's a sampling of some of the less savoury aspects of my journey:


1. Bribes and scam artists: All in all, I expected to pay more bribes than I had to, but corruption and its attendant hassles are still omnipresent in this region. The border crossing between Sierra Leone and Liberia was lined with a mind-boggling number of checkpoints - I'd guess 15 - and the passages between Liberia-Guinea and Guinea-Sierra Leone were not much better.

Even within Guinea, we frequently had to present our passports for inspection; it was the equivalent of being stopped four times on a trip from Waterloo to Ottawa.

The reason is simple. Most men and women in uniform make a living on the money they extort from travelers. Many of them are probably long overdue for their last official paycheque and, to be fair, I managed to get through most checkpoints without parting with my cash.

But no matter how insignificant the amount, I think I will always be off-put by anyone who feels a sense of entitlement for rendering either poor service or no service at all. For me, it's a matter of principle, not practicality. Which is why I found our trip to Iles de Los a tad frustrating.

Craig, Bryna, Patrick and I chartered a pirogue to the island for the day. By local standards, we paid our boatman very well to do so. And yet, within minutes of arriving on the island, he was already asking how much longer we'd want to stay and insisting we leave within two hours. Even after I'd clarified that in exchange for our fee, we would dictate when the boat left.

Then, after we did leave within his preferred time-frame, he had the nerve to add six paying passengers to our chartered boat, and drove at about 5 km/hour to conserve fuel.

When we made a small show of the fact that we shouldn't have to pay our full fare given that he hadn't upheld any of the tenets of our agreement, he gave us a downcast look of astonishment as though we were heartlessly trying to deprive him of his livelihood. Angry, I removed myself from the situation and left Craig and his fluent French to negotiate, but the man ultimately got his full fare less a dollar.

To be clear, the whole thing cost something like $27, split four ways. The money was not important to me. Especially on vacation, I'm not one to let money be a deterrent in what I do and I'm quick to tip anyone who delivers the service they've promised and does so well - even more so in a society where that's such a rarity. But I find it extremely frustrating when someone knowingly tries to rip you off just because they think they can.

That's probably why I was so impressed with Rebecca's moral stand against a group of corrupt guards in Guinea. As we rolled through their sleepy and entirely redundant security checkpoint around midnight, a soldier informed us we didn't have the proper papers to pass through and would have to pay a fee of 30,000 Guinean Francs (roughly $6).

Rebecca disagreed, correctly pointing out that we had all the necessary visas and proof of vaccination. She even had a personal letter from the Guinean Embassy in Liberia. The following conversation ensued:

Soldier, with impressive firearm in hand: "Get out of the car."
Rebecca: "Why?"
Solider: "Get out of the car."
Rebecca: "No."
(Repeat, at least three times)

Seeing that Rebecca was not threatened by his authority, the soldier simply left us to languish. A stalemate ensued, and after an hour of sitting there, the soldier let us through. I think our driver gave him something small, but given that it was far too late for us to do anything other than crash anyway, I was proud of my travel buddy for sending the message that foreigners can't constantly be made to hand over money just because someone feels like having money handed over to them.

All that being said, I did admire their creative tactics for extorting money. While crossing from Sierra Leone to Liberia, there seemed to be three preferred methods, all of which were more nuanced than the blunt orders of "Give me five thousand" I'd been inundated with in Kenema.

The first tactic hinges upon a quick perusal of your "particulars" (passport), followed by a welcome and the assertion, "You are my friend." The logic seems to be that friends share: "My money's your money, your money's my money, but since I have no money, mostly just your money's my money. Hey - speaking of which, give me some money."

The implication of not being corrupt is also popular. Under this strategy, upon finishing their inspection, the officers make a big show of how they're not going to extort any money from you: "No, sir, not going to ask you for money. Of course, should you decide independently that you'd like to reward this noble behaviour, we wouldn't be opposed - and hey, would you look at that? I still have your passport. Funny, that."

But I think my favourite approach was that of the more subtle officers. After writing down the details of your passport for no discernible reason, these officers resort to obvious statements and expectant body language, awkwardly saying things like, "Well ... this is the office."

I like to respond by feigning ignorance that they would even expect a kickback, saying something like, "Yeah, it's really nice. Hey, thanks for all your help" as I reach expectantly for my passport. Sometimes, surprised by your seeming ignorance of a widely-understood practice of corruption, they'll simply hand it over with a confused look.


2. Delays, delays, and more delays: In West Africa, patience is not a virtue; it's an absolute necessity.

Obviously, myriad checkpoints and bribe-thirsty officials can cause slowdowns, but they're unfortunately only one form of delay. Most others concern methods of transportation.

Since we didn't have our own vehicle, we were left to get around exclusively using public transportation. The thing is, taxis and podas do not leave until they're full, and they can often take hours to fill. What's more is that you'll never really know for sure how long this process is going to take.

As we waited on our poda from Lola to N'zerekore to fill up, the driver told us it would be 10 minutes. After 40, I asked him why we hadn't left yet since we had more than the 12 people he said we needed and his definition of 10 minutes was quickly losing credibility. He simply laughed. We ended up waiting 90 minutes to depart.

And even when they do leave, there's no guarantee that means you'll be reaching your destination anytime soon. Guinea is, as far as I can tell, one giant vehicular graveyard. Though every vehicle on the road in Sierra Leone looks poised for its untimely end, I have miraculously yet to experience a major breakdown on Salone roads. In less than two weeks in Guinea, I was party to four, even though the roads are generally better.

And, perhaps because the odds of actually reaching one's destination are anyone's guess, you have to pay upfront in Guinea. This policy brought about a rather heated exchange on the road from Mamou to Dalaba, a trip that should be easily doable in an hour. After an hour and a half during which our car had not exceeded 20 km/h and our driver had stopped, ostensibly to fix it, a dozen times, I was fed up with him.

Rebecca and I removed our stuff and flagged down another car. We then demanded at least a partial return of our fare, given that it had been taken on the pretense that our driver had a serviceable vehicle with which to take us to Dalaba.

There's something thoroughly frustrating about attempting to express anger and disgust in a language you don't really know, and I eventually resorted to yelling in an English-French hybrid (though I managed "Tu est un criminel!" and "Ton voiture est merde"), assuming my agitated voice and wild gesticulating would effectively convey the idea that I was less than thrilled with his service. But it got us nowhere in terms of a refund.

Ultimately, the only real way to ensure the timely departure of your vehicle is to either pay for every seat, which gets expensive fast, or take motorcycles, which comes with a whole host of other concerns - but we'll come to that in due time.


3. Welcome to Monrovia: Partly as a function of the above two points, including an incompetent motortaxi driver that showed up an hour late, a 40-minute squabble with corrupt Liberian DEA officials, and navigating around both a fatal truck accident and a bridge under construction, my best efforts to arrive in Monrovia before sundown on day two of my adventure went unfulfilled.

To further exacerbate the situation, 45 minutes spent attempting to contact Rebecca for directions to her place, as per our agreed-upon plan, had proved ineffective (I would later learn she'd been tied up with a phone call from her parents) and my taxi driver wanted to know where to let me off. Thank God for the kindness of strangers.

One of the women I'd shared a taxi from the border with took especial interest in my predicament and, in a show of impressive altruism, got out on a street corner with me, insisting as though I were her own son that she "couldn't just leave me in the streets". She called her brother, who came and picked up all her luggage, and then continued to phone Rebecca, eventually getting through. But not before I became quite conspicuous in downtown Monrovia.

Almost immediately after exiting the cab, an older man who was sitting against a brick wall began insisting on seeing my passport, lest he take me to immigration. My newly-minted guardian angel, Rosetta, told me in no uncertain terms not to show this uncredentialed man my passport and informed him that she'd witnessed me go through customs (though that was stretching the truth, since there had been no one at the customs office when I came through and an official there waved me through sans search).

A crowd gathered. Though I didn't really understand their Liberian-English discussion, as the crowd grew to 20, I got the impression most of those in it were on my side, but nonetheless felt uneasy as I backed up the steps of a closed storefront until my back was quite literally against a brick wall.

Fortunately, at this point, Rosetta got through to Rebecca and whisked me away into a cab. Shortly thereafter, I arrived to Rebecca's compound and gave Rosetta $25 for her trouble, as well as my sincere and profound thanks.

My friend Josh recently questioned how you can "really get to know yourself without being alone and afraid from time to time." After my experience rolling into a city of ill repute after dark, I feel as though I've met my quota for fear-inspired self-enlightenment for a while.


4. The Koladou Vine Bridge Incident: Though perhaps not as disastrous as The Spaghetti Incident, I have little doubt this episode will go down as one of the most memorable parts of an all-around memorable trip.

Having arrived in Kissidougou at around 1 a.m. the previous night, after a day of elephant tracking in which Rebecca and I had sustained ourselves on a loaf of bread with cream cheese, we were understandably exhausted.

As such, we allowed ourselves the rare luxuries of sleeping in and consuming a solid meal, agreeing to have a relatively low-key day. The plan was to visit the Koladou vine bridge, which - according to our trusty sidekick, LP (Lonely Planet) - hung above some rapids. But little Koladou would prove to be an elusive little spot.

After hiring a pair of young motorbike-taxis who seemed to know the village we spoke of, we set off in the early afternoon. They did not, in fact, know the village we spoke of.

To be fair, though, Guinea has done a really bad job of naming its cities and towns so as to avoid confusion. Almost everything ends in "ou" and places like Korodou happen to be in the same vicinity as our sought-after destination of Koladou.

After much discussion with a wide assortment of Korodou's natives, who seemed to take it as no affront that their town was not our intended destination, we set off and, after another three or four missteps, a broken-down bike, and about three hours, we finally found little Koladou.

The village came out to celebrate. Our arrival, it seemed, was the event of the year.

To get an idea of how far off the beaten path we were, let me just note that Koladou was only 30 km from our jump-off point of Kissidougou and yet virtually no one there had heard of it. The so-called road to Koladou was about 2 m wide in some places and wove between the huts of neighbouring villages in others.

Within a minute of our arrival, we found ourselves surrounded by Blafrickans young and old. We explained that we wanted to see the river, and they helpfully set off to show us the way. All of them.

As I paused halfway across a fallen log over the river to take a photo, I was hurled squarely into the surreal, turning to see a line of people stretching back across the log to the riverbank and up into the bush.

Ultimately, Koladou was a disappointment - well, sort of. The rapids were nowhere to be seen along this alleged river, which in reality was little more than a slow-moving stream. And as I looked at a wretched tangle of vines crashing haphazardly into the middle of the stream (below) and it sunk in that this was the landmark we'd just exhausted hours in search of, I'd be lying to say my spirits didn't dip a little. But my disappointment was fleeting.



What Rebecca and I found on that day was by no means what we'd set out to see. My hopeful visions of a mammoth vine bridge suspended dramatically 100 m above roaring rapids were hilariously off-base.

But rather than allow that disappointment to become a source of frustration, we just smiled meekly and reveled in the process instead, knowing that our day had nonetheless been a unique and memorable experience that simply yielded rewards of a different kind - in the grins and laughter of young children, rather than the raw power and beauty of nature.



It was on days like this that I was especially grateful to have as awesome a travel partner as Rebecca. I think most people would have become grumpy or angry on a journey with so many wrong turns and unfulfilled expectations.

But travel in West Africa cannot be truly enjoyed without persistent positivity and unflappable flexibility, and Rebecca possesses both attributes in spades. I will be forever indebted to her for not only suggesting this trip and doing most of the organizing, but also for being an absolute joy to share it with.

We had so many good conversations along the way that I would argue no one I've met since leaving Canada knows me better, and I'm pretty sure I could place her in a room with any 10 randomly selected friends and she could have them all identified and provide detailed stories about them within five minutes. Turns out I talk about my friends a lot. Weird.


5. My accidental African tattoo: For all the trials of finding Koladou, returning to Kissidougou would prove just as difficult.

Rebecca and I both ride motorcycle taxis far more regularly than most expats. To travel extensively in the remote parts of West Africa, one pretty much has to cultivate such a familiarity. But many people still question our wisdom on account of our willingness to use this method of transport, and the return to Kissidougou would illustrate why.

Though my driver was actually better than many of the other ones we'd used on the trip previously, even the best riders are occasionally bested by roads as non-existent as the one to Koladou, and so it was that I had my very first motorcycle accident.

Fortunately, we were traveling at low speeds when the bike struck a large rock and sent us both to the dirt, meaning no broken bones or meddlesome head injuries. In terms of structural damage, I merely re-aggravated a bad ankle sprain that I sustained and then worsened during the Selects' epic playoff run of '08.

Last fall, I stubbornly played through the injury with the help of painkillers and frequent icing, and I wasn't about to let it slow down my vacation plans now either. In spite of myself, I managed to soldier through many hours of fairly intensive hiking through the slot canyons, waterfalls, and otherwise rigorous terrain that characterized the four days immediately following my accident.

Alas, the tumble also yielded a more serious, surface level injury. When we took our spill, my right leg was pinned under the bike, with the white-hot exhaust pipe searing into my tender flesh for close to ten seconds, leaving me badly burned.

Once my driver got the bike off my leg, I leaned back and closed my eyes in pain, looking up just in time to see him pour something into the wound. Screaming at him to stop administering what appeared to be motor oil, I sent him to find Rebecca and bring her back. While I waited, I passed the time taking photos of the gruesome injury.



Fortunately, Rebecca had medical supplies on hand and, exercising caution and care that could only be described as antithetical to my normally cavalier attitude towards my own well-being, I sanitized my hands before thoroughly cleaning the wound with alcohol swabs - an exercise that's always good for discovering creative new twists on the profane.

Upon reaching Kissidougou, we purchased iodine, gauze and medical burn patches, with which I would attempt to stave off infection until I reached Conakry.

The moral: even in the sweltering heat of midday in sub-Saharan Africa, never get on a motorbike without long pants.


6. An ankle the size of my waist: Three days after my fall, it was time for Rebecca and I to part ways, as she returned to Liberia and I set my sights on Conakry. Finding myself with a day's grace before I was supposed to meet Bryna, Patrick and Craig there, and knowing that waiting a day would allow me a relatively hassle-free trip in a taxi shared with the five Americans I met in Doucki, I decided to cast my lot with a septet of snake-bitten Yanks for the intervening day.

This was a group who had encountered rotten luck at every turn of their journey from Dakar to Pita, via Mali-ville. They were running a downright impressive rate of broken-down vehicles that hovered around 80%. And their spirits were understandably sagging.

But they wanted to do a day trip to les Chutes de Kambadaga and, having only given it a cursory glance in a fly-by 15-minute stop the previous night, I thought giving it its due reverence seemed like a day well spent. It wouldn't take long for my hitherto excellent fortunes to turn sour.

We were on the road only briefly before vehicular impropriety struck again, and when it became clear that the vehicle wouldn't be restarting anytime soon, we decided to walk the rest of the way to the falls.

Unsure of where I'd be spending the night, I had all my possessions strapped to my back, which made for an exhausting 2.5-hour hike, though I had some good conversations about South Africa with Mark from Boston and about travel more generally with the unshakeably positive Virginia from New York.

About half-way to the river, our posse was joined by a 23-year-old Guinean with a gun slung over his shoulder. As far as I was concerned, this man gave off no threatening vibes, and I reasoned that he was on his way to do some hunting, but some of my American cohorts became uneasy.

In the end, he would prove an invaluable guide in aiding us to access the third waterfall and when we asked how much money he would expect in exchange, he brushed off the suggestion, saying something to the effect of, "We are all part of the universal brotherhood of humanity" to explain his lack of economic opportunism.

I thought it was a poetic illustration of the fact that, in spite of rampant Western concerns to the contrary, the overwhelming majority of strangers are well-meaning and helpful sorts.

With the help of our perceived executioner-cum-helpful guide, we arrived at the base of a spectacular waterfall and I once again found myself exercising an atypical show of restraint, sitting on the sidelines as my new friends all went for a dip in the refreshing waters, leery of facilitating a serious infection.

My attempt at caution failed miserably. Stepping across a seemingly stable stone path, one rolled loose and sent me into the shallow waters. My foot was soaked, as were the cell phone and camera in my pockets. I jumped from the water and quickly removed the memory cards and batteries from my camera and cell, and set them aside to dry, but I assumed the worst. It was my turn to be dispirited.

Luckily, neither was damaged and I didn't lose any photos of my trip. But I was not so fortunate with my burn. By the time I arrived to the guest house in Conakry the next night, limping badly after a 'Welcome to Monrovia'-esque arrival into the city, my ankle was as swollen as it's ever been. My Freetown colleagues reacted with understandable revulsion as I unwrapped the gauze to reveal my wound.



Now, before I'm inundated with a chorus of concern from my dear readers, let me assure you that I have been very diligent in tending to this injury. I sought out the best clinic in Conakry the next morning and shelled out $50 for a consultation, a sadistic scrubbing of the wound to deal with the infection, and a six-day treatment of Oxacillin.

Since returning to Freetown, I have made daily visits to Connaught Hospital's top medical man, Solo B, for changes to the dressing, and more than two weeks after the accident, I'm starting to see some progress. Visions of a gangrene-necessitated amputation are fading quickly from my paranoid mind.

And, as many friends here have pointed out, the burn looks likely to result in a scar that bears a striking semblance to a map of Africa. If that's the most dire long-term implication of my trip, then at least it was cheaper than a tattoo and comes with a considerably more badass story.


Frankly, in terms of potential deterrents to travel in West Africa, I could go on. Both Rebecca and one of the Americans we met, Albert from New Jersey, contracted malaria, for example. Though I worried I'd suffer a similar fate, having not had the option of sleeping under mosquito nets most nights, I seem to have dodged that particular bullet (knock on wood).

And then there was the bizarre situation Rebecca encountered the night we spent in Dalaba, in the home of a friendly local man named Monsieur Barrie. In a typical show of African hospitality, he had his wife prepare us dinner and breakfast, and put us up in a large room that I presume was normally his own, with nary a mention of recompense. At least from his lips.

The next morning, our host's dimunitive wife walked in on Rebecca in the outhouse and begged her for money, pleading that we not mention it to her husband. Reasoning that she'd probably been expected to feed us without any increase in her food budget, we happily obliged, and she scurried off to hide the cash without delay. Although strange and uncomfortable, it was the type of experience you just can't get at a five-star hotel in Las Vegas.

Ultimately, vacations in non-tourist destinations are a lot of things, and 'easy' is definitely not one of them. But in spite of the trials that often go hand-in-hand with such travel - and in some ways, even because of them - I think traveling in unspoiled locales is a profoundly rewarding experience.

There is an immense thrill in pursuing adventures that you know very few people will ever undertake, such as coming face-to-face with Bossou's chimpanzees, who receive only about 50 visitors per annum.

That said, I don't hate conventional travel destinations either. Times Square, for example, is about as touristy as it gets and, while I'm glad I spent minimal time there when I visited NYC in the summer of '07, I'm also glad I saw it. For me, it carries a symbolic significance as a representation of North American excess and its flashy, style-over-substance ADD culture.

More generally, I think one can learn a lot of interesting things about our society based on the tourism destinations that we make popular. In the end, I think I'm merely an advocate of accumulating as many experiences as possible and maintaining a positive attitude regardless of what you encounter.

But if you've got West African travel on the brain, pause for a second and reflect on whether stumbling blocks like those outlined above would ruin a trip for you. Hopefully, the answer's no and you'll have the unique pleasure of visiting an area that has yielded my most rewarding travel experience to date.

Trip of a lifetime

... And I'm back. I arrived home to Freetown two nights ago after an absolutely exhausting yet intensely rewarding vacation to Guinea and Liberia. I would be remiss to even attempt to fully encapsulate the awesomeness of this experience in one post, but here's a taste.

In the past 2.5 weeks, I have:

1. Traveled by foot, motorcycle-taxi, shared taxi, poda-poda, and even with a bunch of SL soldiers in the back of a RSLAF military truck, covering hundreds of kilometers a day. I hit three West African capitals, from Freetown to Monrovia to Conakry and back to Freetown, stopping in a number of small Guinean towns and villages along the way (N'zerekore, Lola, Bossou, Seredou, Macenta, Kissidougou, Mamou, Dalaba, Doucki, and Pita).


2. Spent an afternoon tracking wild West African chimpanzees in Bossou, eventually finding eight of the area's 13 known primates.


The photo below is the best shot I managed, taken as the smallest of the chimps took to the trees and swung towards us.


I'm still not sure whether he merely enjoyed having an audience or was testing to see if I would back down and bow to his authority over the territory. I did, but I was so enraptured snapping photos as our friend strode along the branch, causing it to bend down towards me (that photo is taken sans zoom) that I only heard our guide call twice for me to back away. Rebecca later informed me he'd said it six or seven times.

3. Visited the Pont Naturelle, a naturally occurring rock bridge in the middle of a small stream.



Here, we chilled briefly and wound down from the exertion of our chimp tracking with some Skol beer, the most prevalent brand in Guinea.



On our return to Lola, we bypassed Mount Nimba, the country's highest peak.



4. Downed a local concoction consisting of gin and Guinness (in the interest of an early morning start, I took only two shots in my beer, as opposed to the standard four) in the only bar in little Lola over a conversation in an entertaining mish-mash of French and English, while the men of this predominately Muslim nation reacted with horror when Rebecca proved the unthinkable - that a woman can, in fact, drink Guinness.

5. Tracked wild elephants in the Foret Classee de Ziama, near Seredou (pictured below), though not until after a delay brought on by our "guide" showing up an hour late, reeking of palm wine (at 7 a.m.).



Fortunately, he hired a new guide and while it was frustrating that the initial guy refused to pay this new guide in spite of the fact that he'd been well paid to render essentially no service, it was nonetheless nice to have someone competent helming our five-hour trek through dense forest.



Using a machete, he expertly cut a swath through the jungle-like brush and, when our palm wine drinkard started in fear as we crossed paths with a snake, he adeptly wheeled on his heels and sliced the serpent in half.



In the end, we did not catch a glimpse of the elephants, but the experience was still absolutely worth it. We spent the last three hours of the trek hot on the trail of at least one elephant, as evidenced by fresh tracks (below) and a steaming pile of dung, which our guide estimated was about five minutes old.



I'd guess we came within about 30m of the mammoth mammals, as we could hear them quite clearly. Alas, with dried leaves coating the forest floor, the elephants heard us as well and stampeded off whenever we got close, leaving us with nothing to show for our efforts except for wet shoes from wading through marshes.

Well, that's not entirely true. Wearing shorts in an effort to minimize the torrents of sweat I'd unleashed during the chimp tracking, I was also fortunate enough to have shredded legs from the thorny brush and a cornucopia of bites from the frequent onslaught of red ants. Still, the thrill of the chase was amazing.

6. Took a day trip to les Chutes de Ditinn, a breathtaking waterfall that had to be at least 80m tall. I can only imagine what it must look like during the rainy season, when our guide said the pool at the bottom gets about 20 feet deeper.





7. Spent an afternoon chilling in hammocks with a middle-aged Dutch musician named Henk who was in the midst of a two-month trip through Senegal, The Gambia, Guinea and Mali, before sleeping in a traditional Peul mud hut.



8. Tuned out the voices around me as I stared out across a breathtaking abyss of slot canyons on a moonlight hike of spiritual proportions, the wind swirling around me providing a tranquil soundtrack for the spectacle.

9. Became friends with a group of five American college juniors studying abroad in Dakar, while undertaking a rigorous hike through "Guinea's Grand Canyon."


Though I've never been to the actual Grand Canyon, hiking these slot canyons in the Fouta Djalon region certainly yielded its fair share of awe-inspiring views, such as the one pictured below, in which Dantel from the Bay Area peers over the edge of an immense cliff face.


We also stopped by a pleasant waterfall, where our guide, the infamous Hassan Bah, chilled out in a scene straight from The Jungle Book.


And to top it off, we checked out some of the area's caves (pictured below, featuring Henk) and hiked up a cliff face so steep I think it qualified as borderline rock climbing - all while I favoured a sprained ankle (more on that in the next post), Rebecca limped along on a twisted knee, and Emily from Tennessee battled heat exhaustion.



10. Experienced a very "small world" moment upon leaving our new friends in Doucki, only to encounter seven of their colleagues when we checked into a hostel in Pita, where we relaxed and shared travel experiences over Skol beers and rum and Fanta.

11. Crossed a rickety bridge in the vine-style, as part of a day-trip with this second group of Americans to the impressive, three-tiered Chutes de Kambadaga.





12. Feasted on a little slice of Paris in the heart of downtown Conakry. Though the name of Le Conakry may be uninspired, the complete reverse is true of the menu. For the unbeatable price of $9, I dined on a delectable three-course lunch of avocado vinaigrette, veal, and creme caramel au rhum (heavy on the rum), with a Flag beer. Good luck finding that in Freetown.

13. Sampled Guinea's stellar music scene, which easily ranks among the best on the continent, with an intimate night of world-class jazz at Chez Francis.



Sitting in the shade of tall trees as waves crashed onto the beach just feet away, we were among the 20 or so people treated to a performance by veterans of the Conakry nightlife scene, including one singer whose resume boasts a host of international appearances, the Montreal Jazz Festival among them. Again, not something that's readily available in my current hometown.

14. Relaxed on the beaches of Iles de Los, after a 45-minute ride in a pirogue (dug-out canoe). Okay, so beaches are one area where Freetown totally wins, but when you cite chilling on beaches like the one below as one of the major disappointments of a trip, let's just say you don't have the biggest problems in the world.



15. Did it all for less than $700.


Have I mentioned lately how much I love my life?

And I'm out ...

... for two weeks, give or take.

As part of my JHR contract, I'm granted three weeks of vacation time throughout my seven months. Thing is, I haven't yet touched mine, in part because of the anxiety I mentioned in the last post about missing the Special Court's RUF verdict.

And, to be honest, I think I need a vacation. Though I'm pretty confident I haven't allowed it to show outwardly, I've definitely found myself more easily frustrated in recent weeks when things at Kalleone don't always go smoothly.

So, dear readers, I'm afraid we must part ways for a brief but torrid love affair with other past-times. Hopefully, the comparative glut of content over the past week, and the knowledge that I'm out gathering more interesting tales to tell, will be enough to tide you over.

Through the magic of delayed posting, I'm actually already in Liberia. Pretty nifty, eh? Yesterday, after running a wildly successful workshop at Kalleone on concise script-writing (Go figure, eh? Not likely something many people would accuse me of being an expert in), I hopped a taxi to Kenema, in the south-east of Sierra Leone. Man, that was good times (I presume).

This morning, I made the rest of the trip to Monrovia, where I've met up with the Liberian JHR contingent and my friend Rebecca, the American student who was living with Bremen and Kevin in 19 Smartfarm's lower flat when I first arrived in SL.

From Monrovia, we have the skeleton of what I hope will be an exciting trip north through Liberia and into Guinea, meandering our way northwest to the capital, Conakry. From there, I'll head south (solo by this point) and return to lovely Freetown and the rest of my contract.

Am I stoked? Yeah, I'm stoked.

The hardest non-story of my life

It's not every day that I'm arrested by an AK-toting soldier in a country that's just been overthrown in a military coup.

In fact, it's probably safe to assume that Dec. 29, 2008 will be the only day in my life where that occurs.

Last Sunday, after much deliberation and discussion, I left Freetown and set out for a place called Yenga, a small town at the confluence of the Guinean-Liberian-Sierra Leonean border.

Five days after the coup hit Guinea, I was en route to a disputed territory that has been occupied by Guineans since around the end of the Sierra Leonean civil war - even though I wasn't yet entirely sure where that place was, Yenga being too small to merit mention on any of the maps I could find.

If anyone in Sierra Leone was feeling the impact of the Guinean coup, I was convinced it would be the people of Yenga - and I would be the only journalist in miles. Admittedly, I was pretty pleased with myself.

Of course, I was also slightly anxious about what I might encounter. For there to be a story, there would also have to be some tension, maybe even a little instability. Throughout the trip, I again found myself lost in the type of professional daydreaming that I wrote about two posts ago.

After a brief stop in Makeni, Sheik and I loaded ourselves into an overburdened taxi for the five-hour drive to Koidu. As we progressed further east, the landscape grew hillier while the roads grew increasingly rough.

I felt a pang of unease each time we passed the shelled out remnants of a vehicle in the ditch, now just mangled frames of rusting metal, and remembered that the most likely cause of death for a Westerner in Sierra Leone was not a ruthless criminal or warring soldier, but a mundane car accident.

Realistically, these vehicle shells were no more common in the provinces than they had been in Freetown, but something about the remoteness of my current location gave it all a more menacing quality.

Nonetheless, we arrived in Koidu with pleasantly little excitement and it quickly became clear that this trip would give me a better appreciation of the war's legacy. While Freetown was largely sheltered from the civil war until the last couple years, the eastern regions were both the starting point and heart of the conflict, many of the rebels having initially entered from Liberia.

Koidu is the fourth-largest city in Sierra Leone and the biggest in the Kono District, which is the heart of the country's mining operations. The land is rich in diamonds and minerals, and stunning in its beauty. Many houses still bear the scars of war, charred frames not yet rebuilt from the incineration they experienced at rebel hands.

Sheik and I checked into our hotel and, weary from the day's journey, he went straight to bed. I grabbed some dinner and a couple beers over pithy conversation with a pair of middle-aged Americans that claimed to be in the "sunscreen business", but who were undoubtedly among the foreign miners looting the land while leaving precious little of the spoils for the people of Salone.

They told me how boring the town was, and I couldn't help but feel that they'd be laughing at me as soon as I retired to my room, baffled that any journalist would think there was a story of international interest to be gleaned from this sleepy mining district.

The next morning, Sheik and I hired a pair of ocada (motorbike) drivers - one Guinean, one Sierra Leonean - to take us to Yenga. They said it would take about three hours, and I again felt a glimmer of hope, reasoning that three hours was an eternity on these roads and no American miner would likely have known even if there was an all-out war raging at the border.

Anxious to get to Yenga, I didn't even pause for photos as we negotiated yet another beautiful part of the countryside. Tall trees dotted the mountainous landscape as we traversed dirt "roads" that few cars could dream of navigating, the skin on my knuckles quickly grating away as I held tightly to the small metal handle along the bike's rear.

We passed through myriad towns of tiny thatched-roof structures, walls optional. I felt strangely presidential as I waved at small children while we whirred through these hamlets, reactions ranging from stunned silence to gleeful exuberance. My driver, Solo B, explained that they see white people only once or twice a year - usually when something bad has happened or is about to.

Around 1:30, we arrived to a river and Solo B explained that we just needed to cross it and go for another hour or so and we'd be in Yenga.

"Beautiful," I thought. That should leave us about four hours to get the story and we'd be back to our hotel in Koidu, where I'd left my laptop and other heavier belongings stashed under the bed to make the journey less strenuous.

We loaded the bikes into the canoe and made the crossing in a matter of minutes. And that's when things got significantly more complicated.


We were met on the shore by a Guinean soldier, and it quickly dawned on me that the river was also the natural border between Sierra Leone and Guinea. This was a very bare bones, one-man border checkpoint.

As instructions were translated from French to a local Guinean dialect to Krio and finally to English, my rudimentary grade 11 education in Canada's other national language was enough to leave me wondering what was getting lost in translation. Sheik explained that he was a student who had offered to show me the countryside and we were just on our way to see the border.

After a methodical rummaging through of our gear, the soldier, his AK-47 propped against the same tree roots he was sitting on, seemed thoroughly unconvinced - and rightfully so, given the Le 1.1 million, JHR business cards, and recording equipment he'd uncovered in my knapsack.

"What's the real reason you're crossing into Guinea?" came the soldier's translated question, and I looked to Sheik as I walked to the riverbank and sat down. Our Guinean driver took up the cause, to no avail. Five minutes later, I was hurriedly ushered back into the canoe and deposited back in Sierra Leone.

At this point, it was explained to me that the soldier had been convinced, the obvious trappings of a journalist notwithstanding, that I was a mercenary for hire. He'd arrested all four of us, planning to take us to his superiors in Conakry.

I was immediately pleased not to have been privy to this knowledge prior to finding myself safely back on Salone soil, where the image of myself as anything remotely threatening remained thoroughly amusing.

Solo B had quickly offered the soldier a Le 10,000 bribe to allow us to return from whence we came. The fact that a suspected mercenary and three grown men could buy their freedom for less than $4 was not lost on me.

As we debated the looming question of our next move, I learned that to get to Yenga without crossing into Guinea would take us until well after dark. Crossing through Guinea shaved hours off the trek and, while they could probably get Sheik in reasonably simply, my skin colour would preclude my entry without, at the very least, a proper Visa.

"But I have a Visa," I said. "I gave him my passport, with my Guinean Visa in it."

Of course, the soldier was illiterate, a fact that should have occurred to me sooner. This, I was told, changed everything. Solo B knew another crossing we could try and we were back on the bikes in no time.

Having learned from our first experience, we stopped a mile short of the next attempted border crossing and I did something absurdly trusting and, potentially, remarkably stupid. I handed Solo B, a seasoned veteran of this crossing that was sure not to be hassled and a man I had known for about five hours, Le 1 million (about $350) and our recording gear. We agreed that we would pretend not to know him, and he would stop and wait for us a mile past the checkpoint on the Guinean side.

I repeatedly questioned my sanity as I handed over the wad of cash. I also removed the JHR business cards from my wallet and cast them deep into the forest.

We approached the river and went through the standard police checkpoint on the Salone side. It was the third or fourth I'd experienced so far in the journey, and just as painless as the rest. No bribes were necessary, no stories fabricated. We were journalists and we were headed to Yenga, Sheik stated matter-of-factly. No problem.

The head officer offered to be interviewed, and I smiled to myself as I remembered reading three months ago that this was a country that didn't value press freedom and was antagonistic towards journalists.

Instead, my overwhelming experience in the provinces aligned with Sheik's assurance that police and military were terrified of journalists, which, as far as I'm concerned, is a very good sign. It indicated that there is an expectation that journalists will be happy to make their corruption public and there will be repercussions. That's huge.

We began to cross the river, with a word of warning that Guineans weren't as accommodating towards reporters. Solo B had already passed out of sight on the other side.

As we arrived on the bank, we were quickly ushered into a small tent for interrogation. Translation was again an issue, but after about 40 minutes, we were allowed through with only a Le 20,000 bribe, which Sheik negotiated down from the Le 100,000 asking price. We climbed a hill and I hopped onto the waiting bike of Solo B, issuing a silent prayer of thanks that my brazen behaviour had not yet bit me in the ass.

But though we now found ourselves on an arid road, we were not yet out of the proverbial woods. After a half hour on the bikes in Guinea, me casting nervous glances at every soldier or otherwise authoritarian figure we passed, Solo B discovered that his front tire was flat. Fantastic.

I was in Guinea. No one knew I was in Guinea. I had no reception on my cell phone, and I no longer had functioning transportation. I was, for lack of a better term, fucked. And what's worse, it was completely and utterly my own fault, my current predicament the result of my insatiable desire to find this story.

Of course, I'm writing candidly about this less than a week later, so things clearly worked out okay. As it turns out, Solo B is pretty much the best ocada driver ever. He whipped out a toolkit, sealed the flat and had us back on the road in less than a half hour, my internal self-flagellation only outwardly manifesting itself in the occasional worried glance towards Sheik.

And so, caked in the omnipresent red dust of the region, we pulled up to the border crossing to Yenga, our holy grail, around 6:30 p.m.

Funny thing about that: the border closes at 6.

Much discussion ensued, ultimately ending with the payment of another Le 20,000 bribe - Guineans love their bribes, I was quickly learning - and we were back across into Sierra Leone, albeit a portion of SL occupied by Guinea.

As fading light turned to firelight, Sheik and I interviewed Salone police officers, the tribal chief and those affected by the occupation. We went to nearby Koindu and interviewed the Officer-in-Charge for the area.

In the end, Yenga was pretty boring.

The Guinean coup has had no discernible effect on the area. The border was closed for an hour on the day of the coup. Cross-border trade continues unabated.

In fact, throughout the day's epic adventures, it had become increasingly clear that, at least in the east, the Guinean-Salone border is a very fluid one. Often times, these tiny villages have far more interaction with their neighbours across the water than any of their own countrymen and women.

At the point at which we crossed into Guinea, the officer we interviewed explained that only one car a week left the border to visit other towns in Sierra Leone, while many people crossed the river daily to go to market in Guinea. And here too, as in Yenga, relations had been unimpeded by the coup in Conakry.

Of course, ultimately, this is great news. As a human being, I'm thrilled at the seeming pervasive calm where I'd expected something of a powder keg. It gives me real hope that the Guinea situation will not re-ignite regional instability; that maybe the progress being made in West Africa can continue to crawl along.

What it doesn't give me is a story. And so, as a journalist, I'm slightly disappointed.

As the day drew to a close, Sheik and I found a very basic guest house and caught about four hours of sleep, awaking at 2:45 a.m. to begin the long trek back to Koidu (not to be confused with Koindu, which we were leaving).

For the next eight hours, we rode more or less without rest. At 4 a.m., we passed through a town shrouded in darkness, save for a glow of light and the hum of chanting coming from one building. Disturbed by this eerie display, I asked Solo B what was going on and he said they were at church ... at 4 a.m. on a Tuesday.

I remain skeptical. In all likelihood, it was one of the many secret societies in the country, where female genital mutilation is practiced as a rite of passage for young girls.

An hour later, we rolled into Kailahun as the day's first call to prayer rang out from the city's mosque, a few people slowly passing us on their way to the first of five daily prayer rituals, and I internalized just how unfit to be a Muslim I am.

Continuing in the darkness, we sped along paths at times no wider than a couple meters, jungle on both sides of us, and crossed a ferry at sunrise.


Eventually, mercifully, we arrived at the door of our hotel, just after 11 a.m. I'd spent 15 of the last 25 hours on the back of a motorbike. My knuckles were already scabbing over, my hindquarters felt raw, my hips ached, and I could barely walk.

But we weren't done. We grabbed our belongings and hopped aboard an aggravatingly slow taxi to Makeni, smoke escaping from the dash throughout the agonizing seven-hour drive.

Our driver, whose livelihood is based on making this very trip daily, somehow managed to run out of gas 10 miles out of town. Sheik absolutely lost it on the guy, flagged a taxi and insisted that our driver pay the fare to take us into Makeni. He then continued our already 15.5-hour travel day on to Freetown, while I decided Makeni would do for the night and met up with my colleague, Craig.

As I stumbled into a restaurant called Ibrahim's, telling Craig a story that I imagine will quickly establish itself in my personal canon, I realized that I'd subsisted for almost two days on five bananas, an orange (which, oddly, are green here), a piece of bread and a solitary bottle of water.

This might account in part for the fact that I've lost between 10 and 20 pounds over the last 2.5 months, though my paranoid streak insists that a tapeworm is the more plausible explanation.

All in all, it was an eventful three days. I covered five of the country's 12 districts. I went from Sierra Leone's western-most city (Freetown) to its eastern border, and beyond.


And after all this, I had to write an email to the Toronto Star, the paper I was planning to try to pitch to, to inform them there was nothing worth pitching.

I regret nothing.

Christmas in Salone

I think I can say without hyperbole that 2008 marks my most unique Christmas to date. And while it didn't especially feel like Christmas, it was still thoroughly enjoyable.

While I understand my friends and family in Canada enjoyed that much-coveted white Christmas, the only white aspect of my holiday was the plethora of pasty crackers that surrounded me at beautiful Lakka Beach. The temperature reached the mid-30s, probably eclipsing 40 degrees Celsius when the humidity was factored in.

Not exactly what I think of when I think Christmas.

On the morning of the 24th, after my brief efforts at sleep were generally thwarted by mile-a-minute considerations of the potential an unstable Guinea could have on the region, I rushed to meet Bremen and Leah, a pair of recent graduates of Rhode Island's Brown University, for our agreed-upon 11 a.m. departure for Lakka.

I was late - a lateness owing to a last-minute visit to the Guinean Embassy, where I managed to procure a travel Visa with remarkable ease. Unsure of what might happen to Salone's neighbour to the north during the next 48 hours and the impact it could have on my ability to get travel documents after Christmas, I wanted to leave my options open in case I decided to try to freelance about the situation.

Still, Bremen, Leah and I managed to arrive at Lakka Beach just after noon, and I spent a delightful afternoon in my tropic paradise catching up with Bremen, getting to know Leah (who lives in Kabala and I've only met once or twice), and interrogating a 29-year-old Peace Corps volunteer named Kimberly, who was vacationing from Guinea and said she'd quit her job if they didn't send her back.

She seemed confident Guinea did not possess the type of culture that would lead to a bloody civil war, but said even if it did, she would return to fulfill her recent promise to adopt the five-year-old daughter of a Guinean friend that died of cervical cancer. In other words, she was yet another expat with an interesting backstory.

Gorgeous beach notwithstanding, this was not helping me turn my attention from Guinea, as exemplified by this excerpt in my writings from two evenings ago:

Christmas is hours away and I can't get visions of Guinean soldiers out of my mind. I'm staying in a single-room beach house with four twenty-something American girls and I'm thinking about ... Guinean soldiers. Which some might say is enough to classify me as either a perversely dedicated journalist or a complete fucking idiot. Yet I can't shake this feeling that unless I board a plane to Conakry, my journalism credentials are fraudulent.

Conveniently - though completely coincidentally - three or four of the other places on the beach were occupied by other friends in the Salone expat scene, among them my JHR colleague, Craig, whose mind was equally adrift in visions of foreign correspondence.

As the only two guys in a group of 12-15 Canadians, Brits and Yanks, we escaped the alarmingly high estrogen levels for an exploration of the coastal shoreline, which included being wished "Season's greetings!" by a group of noticeably stoned, football-playing rastas who expressed their well wishes by throwing wet sand at us. Whether this is a local custom or a joke at our expense remains unclear.

We discussed the obvious allure of diving into a potentially volatile conflict zone and the subsequent cheesy pick-up attempts such journalistic machismo would lend itself to.

"You know, when something like this breaks, there's no time to think. You just go," Craig explained to his imaginary audience of fawning females.

"It's really the stories that get told in the first 72 hours of these conflicts that ultimately dictate public perception and the reaction of the international community," I pitched in, summoning the spirit of every self-aggrandizing egotist I've ever met, or seen portrayed in movies, to lend my mock tone just the right inflection.

When Craig brought up an obstacle in getting to Conakry, I provided a possible solution and, in a manner that befit Craig's personality perfectly, he jumped seamlessly 40 years into the future and began eulogizing the incident as emblematic of my proficiency as a highly-reputed journalist, presumably at my retirement party from The Globe and Mail.

"It's that kind of quick thinking and unwavering commitment to the story that has informed every decision Mike's made in his illustrious career," he lauded.

Meanwhile, back in reality, such smarmy rhetoric would likely do little to increase our odds with the women folk, but it provided a few laughs and a welcome outlet for our scheming minds.

Ultimately, Craig and I agree that we probably won't end up using our Guinean Visas, barring an unlikely confluence of circumstances that somehow guarantee us safe passage in and, more importantly, out of the country, as well as some trustworthy local fixers to work with. But we are hopeful that we might be able to freelance some work with a Sierra Leonean angle from the border regions in the coming week.

I've frequently asserted, to the approval of my Salone friends, that I have no interest in entering any situation that'll get me shot at - a statement that probably doesn't justly acknowledge the strong tug I've felt to follow in the footsteps of legions of adrenaline junkies who have gone before me, leaving battered minds and bodies as a sobering reminder of precisely why I'm suppressing such urges.

Returning to our stretch of the beach, I once again tried to put Guinea out of my mind, at least for the rest of the day. I ordered a couple of beers, drank some cheap Argentinian wine, and generally enjoyed a sublime view.

As I tried to wrap my head around the reality that this was Christmas Eve, I concluded that in addition to being unconventional, 2008 would go down as one of my less stressful festive seasons.

Thanks to a postal system with all the reliability of a crack-addled paranoid schizophrenic with ADD, any possibility of gift-giving with family was rendered null and void, effectively stalling my role in the family Christmas until May or June. But that unfortunate situation had the pleasant run-off effect of no stressful trips to jam-packed malls, and no fretting over whether people would like my gifts.

The only two people I gave Christmas gifts to were Shaka and Gabrilla, our two guards, and their toothy grins were exactly the reaction one hopes for with any present. Though it may seem impersonal, Kevin, Bryna, Patrick and I decided to just give them each Le 100,000 Christmas bonuses, realizing that any more 'thoughtful' or personal presents would likely be viewed as unnecessary extravagance that didn't meet their actual needs.

And admittedly, I did miss not partaking in the time-honoured tradition of Christmas morning gift-opening and a hearty family breakfast. But I found that it was the simple traditions that are unique to our family that I missed the most - from making my once-a-year homemade egg nog to watching a completely non-festive movie with my brother every Christmas Eve, a tradition that began with Death To Smoochy and has evolved to include such heartwarming holiday gems as Why We Fight and Prozac Nation.

All in all, though, missing one Christmas at home is easy to endure in the grand scheme of this amazing opportunity, and I left my beach bliss yesterday with a smile on my face. Before departing, I scribbled the following note in the leather-bound book given to me by Joe and Brandon on my last night in Canada:

I've now been at Lakka for 24 hours. I've dined on bonita (delicious fish), crab and lobster. I've watched a thoroughly entertaining dance and drum performance by the light of a monstrous, gin-fuelled bonfire. I've gone skinny-dipping in the Atlantic Ocean, floating serendipitously as I gazed upon a starry sky of unimagineable depth and beauty. I slept on a beach for the first time in my life, witnessed three shooting stars in the process, and seemingly (knock on wood) did so without getting a single bite from malarial mosquitoes. It wasn't a conventional Christmas, but it was definitely a good one.

Back in Freetown, I headed to my beloved Senegalese restaurant for Christmas dinner, which was unexpectedly served up with a side of drunken rage, as an alcohol-induced brawl broke out while I ate. Though I never quite managed to ascertain its impetus, the feud spilled into the street after one particularly belligerent patron shook loose three men, lifted a table over his head and smashed it down in a Hulk-like fury, partially splintering its wooden frame. He then promptly passed out.

Unaffected save for a slightly increased heart rate and having my drink spilled in the melee, I paid my bill, enjoyed a Beck's on the house, and returned home, where I received a few phone calls from Canada.

As I sat in bed at 1:30 a.m., reading a Chuck Klosterman essay that aptly skewered Morgan Spurlock's 2004 film, Super Size Me, my phone again rang, again from an international number. I'd already spoken briefly with my buddy Brandon and for upwards of an hour with my family. I expected no more calls.

But what a gross underestimate of my darling parents that was. They had set up and paid for a phone call with the two women, Jen and Trish, that I've alternately used as evidence that I'm not single when confronted with situations wherein Sierra Leonean women hope to marry into wealth by hooking up with me. I chatted with each for about 15 minutes and it was delightful to hear their voices.

But it occurs to me now that Trish asked a question that is probably on a lot of your minds, which I failed to answer on the phone and have thus far failed to address in this behemoth post: How does Christmas in Salone compare from a cultural point of view?

Since I imagine many people have already stopped reading due to the seemingly interminable nature of this entry, I'll outline the Salone Christmas culture, which is not unlike our own save for the climate differences, in point form:

1) Christmas is definitely a big deal in spite of the Muslim majority and, tragically, Christmas music is almost as prevalent as back home. It has plagued me at many a restaurant since Dec. 1, though without the commercial overtones that further poison the music back home.

2) Returning to family is just as commonplace here as in North America. The country sees a significant influx of Sierra Leoneans from the diaspora in the weeks leading up to Christmas, as many of those who have successfully established themselves abroad return to family and friends, and many Freetown folks migrate to the provinces of their origin.

3) Christmas celebrations tend to be a little more raucous than back home. When I went to bed at 4:30 a.m. last night, there was still loud music pumping from one of the nearby outdoor carnivals that seem to have been occuring almost daily in the last couple weeks. Whether this late-night partying in the streets is the logical extension of a more spirited culture or owing to a more forgiving climate I can't say for sure, though I suspect both factors are at work.

4) Like so many other communiques, Christmas wishes most commonly take the form of text messages, which are not viewed in the impersonal or unprofessional way they might be back home. Shortly after midnight on Christmas Eve, I received a steady diet of texts from my Salone friends, colleagues and my ardent admirer, Mariam, the ambitious young businesswoman from my street.

My favourite text, by far, came from Emeric, one of the new interns at Kalleone:

"I saw d angel of heart desire & i told him 2 give u dis gift. A bullet of death 4 ur enemies & several bullets of prosperity, peace, joy, good health & not 4geting ur heart desire as we enter 2009. Av a marvelous christmas & a wonderful new year. 4rom Emeric One luv."

I've always maintained there's nothing to get one into the spirit of the season like a good old-fashioned bullet of death. And here's hoping everyone back home received all the bullets of good fortune they were hoping for.