Sun, Sea and a Poda Poda

Having spent 3 weeks in Sierra Leone and 2 of them in Makeni we decided it was time to get to the beach. Makeni is the hottest place in the country and we have definitely been feeling it over the weeks so we decided to head to Banana Island. This was a 3 hour drive and a boat ride away, so heading off reasonably early we went to get a taxi and managed to cram six of us, very uncomfortably into the car and set off. We had to change drivers when we reached a town called Waterloo and were set up with someone who probably looked about 14 though none of us really thought anything of it. You still come across a few road blocks when you drive around here, which always worry me as you never know what random excuse they will come up with for pulling you over, but we normally get through them with no problems. However this time the police man called the driver to stop and asked for his licence which of course he didn’t have. I don’t think people really believe in licences here. We didn’t really know what was going on but the driver walked off with the policeman and a few minutes later returned and the barrier went down. He had obviously paid a bribe to get through but we were kind of happy to just get moving again. 

We then had to get a little boat across to the island. I was half expecting there to be lots of banana trees or bananas to eat on there but when I arrived I couldn’t see any. I wasn’t too disappointed though as the scenery kept me distracted. The area was very green with lots of thick trees and bushes and it was weird to see that there was actually a working community living there. We stayed at a guest house which was right on the beach and had different rooms to stay in. Somehow I managed to get the luxury room and the boys had basic or standard but I wasn’t complaining about that. We spent the rest of the day resting in the hammocks and swimming in the sea at another beach up the island. The evening was spent watching the sun set on a raised balcony which looked out to sea and eating a delicious meal of fresh fish and couscous with the best tomato and garlic sauce I've had in a while. I didn’t have the best night’s sleep that night as the room was very open so I was worried about all the bugs as I had already gotton rid of a maggot and a disguising looking spider. I also woke up half way through the night with a spider in my mosquito net, not nice. 

The next day was spent relaxing again by the sea and having a little explore of the island until it was time to get going. We caught the boat back and once we had arrived on the shore we noticed there was a film crew there shooting something on slavery. One of the guys came up to us and asked if we could play the white people in the film who would be buying the slaves. He gave us some costumes and quickly briefed us on what we had to do. Trying not to laugh the whole way through we managed to pull off a pretty impressive show, so look out for “Good Mother Africa” in cinemas soon :) After our acting session we couldn’t find a taxi to take us back and spent half an hour trying to find someone who had a car. When we eventually found someone he told us he probably wouldn’t have enough fuel to take us the whole way as there is nearly always a fuel shortage here, so he dropped us back at Waterloo and set us up with a poda poda driver. These are like VW camper vans which they cram full with people. At first I thought we were lucky as it seemed we had managed to get our own private poda poda however he was soon calling more and more people into the van and I think we ended up with about 15 people all practically sitting on top of each other. We were about half an hour away when we suddenly heard a loud bang which we thought was the tyre. The driver pulled over but couldn’t see anything so got back in and tried to start the engine but it wouldn’t go. By this time we had been travelling for about 5 hours and just wanted to get home but we all had to pile out while the driver ran off to get water. We were pretty much in the middle of nowhere so the thought of him being another hour or so didn’t really appeal to us. We decided to try and hitchhike a lift. It wasn’t long before a car pulled over which already had about 7 people in but we decided this would be the quickest way to get back. The car was bundled with the 12 of us and 2 of them sitting on the roof but we were finally on our way again. He dropped us off and then it was another 15 minute walk to the house. Overall it had taken us over 6 hours to get back and we were well and truly knackered. It was defiantly an only in Salone moment but looking back it was quite an experience and an enjoyable couple of days at the beach.