Beyond Freetown - take 1
on M&S Diary (Sierra Leone), 04/Sep/2006 12:30, 34 days ago
We had our first real public transport adventure on Saturday– and our final consultation with the Rough Guide to SL. Up until now, we’ve only been moving around town. Here the potholed roads, we realise now, are perfect compared to anything beyond Freetown...We were heading for Lakka, a reputedly amazing beach about 4km from where we’re staying. After an hour, we were still barely more than 1 km away, still in town at Lumley, where we were supposed to pick up a connection down the coast road.It took forever to work out what transport to get on, but we finally found a old, yellowAmerican school bus heading to Lakka. We got on and waited until the bus was full to bursting.Immediately out of Lumley the roads turned to mud track, high verges tumbling away into the rivers below (some of the verges were literally tumbling, it had been so wet this last week). Things, in fact, were more boat than bus, and like a ship in a storm the whole contraption rocked from side to side over enormous breaks in the trackTo left and right, the sideways skeletons of other buses on the river banks below made me feel a little sick, and I started planning how I would escape when our own eventually fell over. At least there were plenty of people and signs for Celltel along the road (as there are everywhere on the peninsula) and I took comfort in there being someone who could pull us from the wreckage, who I could send to buy a top-up card for the purpose of calling the UNBut before we got that far, the bus conked out on a bump in the road.5 or 6 young guys climbed out and went to the front to rock it over the bump, until it started to roll backwards, blind, down the muddy precipice. As it started rolling, the driver hit the ignition switch. Nothing happened, and after a few long moments he graced us with the handbrake. Looking around, it was hard to know whether to take comfort from the blank expressions on everyone else’s faces, or whether to be horrified by their resignation to imminent catastrophe. Meanwhile, the rock and roll continued. After about 20 minutes the ignition kicked back in and we set off again.My heart dilated with satisfaction when I saw the sign for Milton Margai College, and I quickly yelled at the driver to set us down. The Rough Guide had told us the first accessible track to the beach was via the College. It had taken about 2 hours to go 4km, but at least we were there.Or so we thought.1 km on the map turned into 2, going in completely the wrong direction, and when we finally came out onto the“beach”, we could see Lakka in the distance about another 2 km off. We scrambled over the rocks arguing, slapping suncream on (which immediately washed away with the sweat), until Maro cut her foot open on a rock and our water ran out. We found a tree with a few square inches of shade and sat down in it. Around us, locals were making good use of the rocks – hammering them for building materials to sell; using them as stoves for something charcoal like (for no obvious reason); laying out their clothes to dry, with us, in the scorching heat.We moved on. When we finally came to the beach, we realised that although this might be Lakka, it was not the Lakka we had been reading about, which was still another kilometer off and unreachable thanks to a river running deep through the middle of the beach. We made our way to a makeshift village on the water’s edge. where trucks were being filled up with more natural building materials.Hot, tired, thirsty, irritated, we asked for the road and climbed up to hitch a ride back to Freetown. The well-built 4x4s were all full, so we finally climbed into a bus slightly worse than the one we had come in, and made our way slowly back to Lumley.Stoical comments were made, like“Well, at least were learning for ourselves” and “I suppose we got to see something of real life on the coast”. But in the end, having come home to wash and drink and clean out Maro’s cut, it was Lumley beach that made things better. I’m sure Lakka and all the beaches South of it on thepeninsula deserve their reputed charms. But a beer on Lumley, 10 minutes from the front door, watching the sunset and the joggers and kids playing football. That’ll do me.