Day 23 - 25th March Visit a Chimpanzee sanctuary, then drive North into Guinea

Photo above - Tacugama Chimpanzee sanctuary. More Photos below

Chimpanzee sanctuary 

First stop this morning after leaving Freetown, is to a Chimpanzee sanctuary in nearby Tacugama. Opened in 1995, originally as a sanctuary, and now as a conservation centre, and educational resource. Currently no safe area to introduce them back in the wild due to poaching. 120 in the sanctuary, 5000 wild in the country. The chimpanzee is the National animal of Sierra Leone.

Saw how rescued chimps are moved from one enclosure to another as they grow and develop the necessary skills, until they are ready for the large final enclosure where they fend for themselves.and are ready to go back into the wild. Whilst walking through the jungle, saw a cobra, a black mamba and some poisonous ants.

Road to Guinea

After leaving the sanctuary, we commenced the drive firstly east out of the city, and then north towards the border with Guinea. It was nice to get out of the city, with the constant beeping of horns, and the general cut and thrust of the traffic, and to hit the open road. We pulled over at about 1pm to have some sandwiches, then pressed on towards the border. The scenery became very rural, lots of very small villages, palm trees and some crops. The road was a more minor one, but still tarmaced. The last hour or so to the border was fairly flat and uninspiring, broken only by several police checkpoints that we were waved through.

Smooth transition through the border 

Arrived at the border at about 2.15pm. the procedures to exit Sierra Leone and enter Guinea went remarkably smoothly. The customs for both countries is in the same building. Lots of dust, a few trucks, hardly any pedestrians, a few people selling stuff, and lots of money changers. We are now in a country ruled by the military. Our guide confirmed that as usual, a cash payment had to be made, and he had to get authorization stamps from commanders of Interpol, Immigration, Gendarmerie, Drug Agency and customs.

About Guinea

Guinea, officially the Republic of Guinea, has borders with six countries : Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, Mali, Cote d’Ivoire, Sierra Leone and Liberia. It also has, like all the countries I have visited on this trip, an Atlantic Ocean coast line. It is about the same size as the UK, but only has a population of 14 million. The official language is French, it having been a French colony from the 1890s, until independence in 1958. In the last few years there have been multiple periods of unrest in the country, and the government of the country is currently via the military following a military coup in 2021. 

Rural west African hotel

At 3.15pm border formalities completed, and money exchanged into Guinea Francs, we set off to drive the hour or so to the town of Forecariah (pop approx. 22,000), where we are staying tonight. The scenery started off much the same, dusty, some farmed land, palm trees and quite poor looking villages. On the far distance to the north, we could just about make out what looked like a huge sheer cliff rising out of the flat plain. The start of a mountain range I think.

We arrived at Forecariah, which is quite small, out the other side, and over a river, then turned down a dirt road to our hotel. This was the typical African hotel experience. It took 10 minutes to find someone at reception. Then they said they did not have enough rooms. They have no WiFi which is fair enough. There is nowhere to eat except the hotel, they have only three different meals. No loo roll, no toilet seat, water is only cold, there are regular power outages, food was outside in the dark, so needed a torch, all food served cold, although meant to be hot, Aircon on but no remote to control it, door does not lock, no bin in the room, water only trickles out of the shower and no hot water etc etc.

Tomorrow, we drive further north into Guinea, and will hopefully see a Nimba mask ceremony.