After another blissful sleep at the Hotel du Golfe (in part because rain made CNN's satellite feed impossible to watch during the RNC Convention) I woke up at 6:30. The hard rains gave way to scattered clouds. I packed and was out the door at 7. I headed down to the Rue du Donka and as soon as got to it, a taxi on the other side waved and I waved back. I ran across the street. He offered a deplacement for FG12000 (US$2.40). Usually when you ride a taxi in Conakry, they stop and pick up people until the car is full and as it empties they pick up more people, and there are detours and all sorts of things that can make that system slow. It's efficient for fuel consumption and human throughput, but not for time-which is what Americans value over all else. Well, a deplacement is when you commandeer the whole taxi for yourself. The gare voiture Bambeto was about 5km away, so a deplacement sounded like a good deal. So I got in and off we headed.
We got the gare voiture Bambeto and a kid took my backpack and led me to the Freetown sept-places. I paid the kid FG5000 (US$1) and he was happy. The ticket man had an offer for me. Two tickets and I get the front seat for myself. Each ticket was FG90000 (US$18). I thought and decided to give myself the comfort for the extra $18. Then he saw my bag and charged an additional FG20000 (US$4). Ass! In the interim, I had seen a sign for Mamou, so I went over and asked how much it costs. They said FG43000 (US$8.60). Not bad. I also saw a less conspicuous sign that mentioned Kankan which is twice as far as Mamou. They wouldn't quote me a price and a guy later told me that there were no direct cars to Kankan from Gambeto--I'd have to go to Madina to find one. I went back to my car and we were ready to head out. The ticket man listed his favorite presidents--Washington, Lincoln, and what sounded like Earnest Hoover. At first I thought he meant Herbert Hoover, but then I realized he probably meant Eisenhower. There were a lot of money changers. I could have waited until I got here to convert some Francs Guinea into Leones. It was 8:40 when we finally started moving. There were cars in front, so the ticket man helped the driver back out. He kept saying "go faster--don't fear--only fear God." But the driver was more prudent and made sure he didn't kill anyone.
At last, we were on the highway. The consular officer at the Sierra Leone embassy told me it was about 5 or 6 hour trip. Lonely Planet puts it at 7 hours. A guy on the internet who recently did it put it as 14 hours. We passed about 25 companies of 100 men in the army doing a jog. It was quite the impressive parade. Soon we were at Km 36 which is the name of a place that has a police checkpoint. We were there for about a half hour as there was some problem with the vehicle registration. In the end, the police took it away and gave the driver a note. Then we got in and went a few feet to another set of police. The officer wanted to see my passport and that of Sierra Leone guy. I heard him say "cinq mil" to the other guy and a few seconds later he was at my window. Then he actually rubbed his fingers together and said "monnaie". I didn't have any FG5000 notes--only FG10000 notes. So I handed one over. He took it and moving really slowly, gave me FG5000 in change. It's nice that the corrupt police officers are at least honest enough to actually give change on your bribes. ;-)
We drove for a while and after about an hour hit another customs checkpoint. I thought I had to show my passport and get a stamp since it had a customs office and an immigration office. I got out. A man in a blue uniform indicated I get a stamp further down the road. He did this my doing a big stamp motion and pointing down the road. I looked down the road and then he indicated I would be driven. He did this by making steering wheel gestures and pointing at the car. So I got back into the car. Then he came over and started talking to me in whatever language he speaks. He did all the same gestures and then did some gesture pointing up to the sky. After a while he did the eating gesture and that usually means a bribe is wanted. So I gave him the FG5000 I got in change from the previous bribe. Then we were off again.
The highway was mostly paved, but after some town with the last police checkpoint (no bribes), it turned into dirt road. And after the hard rains we've had, that meant huge pools of standing water and we slowed way down.
Then we finally reached Guinea customs. They checked my passport and let me through. Then it was off to Guinea immigration. I went in and had to fill out a form with my passport information, yadda yadda, port of embarkation, disembarkation, information for the Ministry of Tourism, yadda, yadda arrival date, departure date, duration, type of lodging, etc. Basically, almost a photocopy of the card I filled in at the airport in Dakar. After I filled out the sheet, the officer filled in his ledger with parts of the information. Then he asked for FG5000, stamped my passport and I was ready to go. Now onto Sierra Leone. The colonial language in Sierra Leone is English, so now my conversations would be in English instead of French.
The Sierra Leone border is different from the other borders I've been through. They have doors you go in and doors you go out. In the other places, you go in and out the same door. Depending on which side you are on, you know if you have done the proper procedures. So I went into a sort of shack and they looked at my visa. No stamp though. They just let me through. Not far away was another checkpoint that had a big billboard that said "Corruption hinders development: reject, resist, report". I went in and they looked at my passport. They returned it to me and said everything was fine. I expected a stamp, but no stamp. I asked if everything was OK. He said yes. I started to head out. Then another guy called me into a room with a curtain labeled "Male Search Room". He told me his responsibility is to make sure I'm not carrying anything that might be illegal. I told him I didn't think I had anything illegal. He said that now that was out of the way, I should have a seat and just talk as friends--I had immunity (though I didn't need immunity). If there was anything I could do for them, that would be nice. I offered up one of my 11 Le10000 notes forgetting I had a Le5000 note. They thanked me and let me go. The guy from Sierra Leone was there too and he told me he paid just Le2000. Oh well, so they got $3.30 instead of the $0.70 they would have accepted. C'est la vie. We got into the car.
The guy from Sierra Leone proudly showed me his brand new passport and his Guinea/American Society of Barack Obama Supporters laminated membership card. He said he wants to come to America. He asked for help in getting a visa, but I explained, that just because I'm an American citizen, it doesn't mean I can do anything to cut through red tape in the INS or at the embassy.
Our car filled up again and we were off. I didn't have a stamp, but I figured maybe they don't do stamps here...
Then we headed down the road for a few minutes to the Sierra Leone Revenue Collection Office or something like that. I guy took my passport and I followed him into an office. He had me fill out one of those cards very similar to the one I just filled out in Guinea. Then he entered my information into a ledger and stamped my passport. Yay! A stamp! And he didn't even ask for money. I headed out of this very official looking building with placards showing all the official duties of customs and immigration over the doors to the various offices. Then I waited for the car which was still going through customs or something. Eventually it came and we got in.
Now it was about 1:30. We headed slowly down the dirt road with increasingly larger pools of standing water. There are a lot of houses along the highway. And while the topless women in Guinea were all old, Sierra Leone is like Girls Gone Wild. Perky breasts everywhere. There are a lot of places where children set up roadblocks. They string a string across the street and ask for tips. Sometimes they offer services like filling potholes in with dirt and then request the tip for the work they've done to improve the road. And sometimes, they don't provide any service at all other than lowering their rope (which they will do even without a payment to protect their rope).
After maybe another hour, we arrived at Mange with another police checkpoint. The driver got out and talked with the police. Then just as we were about to leave, they saw me and asked for my passport. I had to go up with them. I went into a little shelter and they had me take a seat. One guy inspected my visa. He said everything was fine, but the officers needed some refreshments. I said I thought I could help them out with that and handed over the Le5000 note. They were happy. Then I went back to the car and we left.
There were a few more police checkpoints, but that was the last one that I had to bribe anybody. That was a relief as I only have so many Le10000 bills and bribing with large denomination bills is expensive. My advice to anyone coming to Sierra Leone from Guinea is to make sure you have some Le1000 and Le2000 bills handy.
The road had a few stretches where the road was paved, but it was mostly just bad. So we went slow. There were 3 one lane bridges and we lost 2 face-offs and had to reverse. The driver was pissed off and grumbled quite a bit about it. At every police checkpoint, as soon as the car stopped, girls came with bread and some fruit that looks like a cross between a cucumber and a watermelon whose name sounds something like Vancouver. Boys sold bread. Girls sold lemons and limes and roasted corn on the cob. Boys sold fruit flavored soft drinks. Women sold some sort of tuber.
It started to rain at about 3 or 4. Not a bad rain and it felt good to get rid of the sun. There are palm trees everywhere. Man, Sierra Leone has a lot of palm trees! We kept driving on road and off road, through water, over potholes. At about 7 the darkness wasn't caused by cloud cover but the setting sun. The finally got good at Rochelle. Soon the population density was picking up. Then a sign--Municipality of Freetown. I figured we were close. But not quite. It was still a long way to Freetown itself. But the street was crowded. Then we finally turned onto Kissy Street. And Kissy Street traffic is bad bad bad. It would considered bad even in Seattle--like when there a small accident on Lake City Way or a big one on I-5. Finally we got into downtown. People everywhere. There was a definite energy. The street was filled with stalls selling bread and all sorts of things--each little street stand lit by a kerosene candle/burner. The car stopped and, after repositioning, gave us our bags. I was about 2 blocks from the Place Guest House which was my first choice and Andy's Guest House which was my second choice. I actually found Andy's first, so I came up. The room is Le50000 (US$17), a little more than Lonely Planet, but not double or triple like in Conakry. And they have a bar there, so I was able to get a Star beer for Le3000 (US$1). I had my first sip (gulp) at 8:40pm--exactly 12 hours after we took off from Bambeto.
I was hungry as hell. In the car I kept thinking about food. My particular cravings were: 1) even though I never had it, the $5 shake from Jack Rabbit Slims in Pulp Fiction--it just sounds so good, and 2) the biscuits from KFC--in fact a 4 piece KFC dinner--in fact, a bucket of original recipe with a large mashed potatoes and a large cole slaw with a box of 6 biscuits--yes, that is what I wanted.
I went to a place across the street, but since it was late, they didn't have much. So I just wandered the PZ which is the name of intersection I overlook at Andy's. I eventually bought 2 drumsticks of fried chicken from a street vendor for Le2000 each (US$1.30 for both). Then I got 2 small loaves of bread for Le500 (US$0.33 for both). I came home and ate the chicken and put my peanut butter on one of the loaves. Then I went down for one more beer.
Now it is time to sleep.
September 3, 23:19 Sierra Leone local time
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