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El Salvador North America

Weekend in El Salvador

Once, I was at the Dulles Airport very late at night, and I looked at the board and saw that all of the flights leaving were for Central America. There are a lot of direct flights from Dulles. I realized that maybe it might be possible to do a long weekend to Central America, which opened up some options! So far, I’ve traveled through Belize, Panama, and Costa Rica, so I had four countries left of the seven to explore. I settled on El Salvador – it’s small enough that I felt I would be able to see a fair amount, because the distances between things aren’t quite as much as, say, Guatemala and Nicaragua, and I’ve been curious about it for a while now.

It only took 4.5 hours to get to San Salvador. It’s amazing, living somewhere with so many direct flights, where I can get off a plane and find myself immersed in a different culture! I stayed in San Salvador, the capital, and used that as a base to explore a few areas of El Salvador. For such a small country, it has a lot to offer. I started with the Mayan ruins of Joya de Cerén and San Andrés.

I’ve seen a fair number of Mayan sites now, and I went to another on this trip that was more impressive (more on that later), but these were still interesting. I liked being able to peer down into the areas that were still being excavated and studied. The layers of rock were very neat.

From there, it was lunch near Coatepeque Lake! I loved the view from the restaurant. The color of the lake is gorgeous. If I’d had more time, I would have been interested in going down closer to the shore – it looked like there were communities down there that I would have loved to explore.

The whole area near the lake is part of a natural protected area, called Cerro Verde. After lunch, I headed there for an eco-walk, which included a higher viewpoint of the lake!

Overall, it was a good first day, but I liked my second full day in El Salvador a bit more. I did a tour of the Ruta de las Flores! And yes, it’s not completely “off the tourist trail,” but it did feel like a collection of places where locals were out and about, as opposed to that first day that was focused almost entirely on tourist sites.

I’m not saying going to tourist sites as a tourist is a bad thing, but I like to have a mix, and particularly in El Salvador, as their recent transformation is part of what drew me to visit. Their president, Nayib Bukele, was elected in 2019 and has been focused on radical changes ever since. Prior to his election as president, he served as the mayor of San Salvador.

He’s a polarizing figure – there is no question that under his leadership, the crime rate in El Salvador has plummeted, but his methods have led to a number of concerns over human rights. Also, when I say plummeted, murder rates went from a high of 66 per 100,000 people in 2012 to only 1.9 per 100,000 people in 2024, which is a decrease of 98% in only nine years. Those numbers are working in his favor. He was just reelected in 2024, winning a staggering 84.65% of the vote.

I was curious to see for myself what the new El Salvador looks like. I felt totally safe, even walking around by myself to get dinner as the sun went down. The Salvadorans were friendly and welcoming. I got the impression that tourism is on the upswing, with more tourists putting it on the radar now that the crime rate is lower.

One of the aspects of the tour that I really enjoyed was going to a coffee farm! Central America is known for producing great coffee, and it was cool to see the whole process. I’ve been to a few places that produced coffee, but this was a much more in-depth tour on how they get it from the plant to what I would put in a coffee maker or a French press.

There’s something very soothing about the beans drying out in the sun, being raked frequently like an oversized Japanese sand garden. On the other hand, once they’re put into the sacks, that work transporting them and confirming that they’re distributing the correct beans to the right places seems absolutely grueling.

Two full days is a short visit, to be sure. But I made the most of them, and I had a third day in the region that I used for a quick trip out of El Salvador – more on that next time. Because I dipped into my 2025 vacation days allocation for West Africa, I’m tighter on vacation this year, and this was a great use of a long weekend to explore a place that’s been on my radar for a while now. I would recommend longer if you have it, to spend more time in San Salvador and get out to the beaches (especially if you surf), but this was absolutely doable with the direct flight from DC.

All in all, it was a great Presidents’ Day weekend!

Categories
North America United States

Birmingham, Alabama

I’m very close to visiting all 50 states in the US! After my visit to Alabama in January, I was left with only three more, which is a goal I’d like to finish by the end of 2025. Right now, as the weather gets warmer, I’m putting it on pause, since I’m not interested in visiting the South in the middle of the summer, but I have tentative plans for state #50 so I’ll have to plan the other two as we get into fall.

For Alabama, I ended up choosing Birmingham for my visit. Montgomery was a close second – both cities have fascinating history in the Civil Rights era, but it seemed as though Birmingham would have more to see from a visitor’s perspective and better options for restaurants and bars. I’m sure I’ll make it to Montgomery at some point, but I had a nice weekend in Birmingham!

Birmingham’s story is one of a city rising out of the ashes. The path to civil rights in Alabama was not an easy one, and Birmingham once had the nickname of “Bombingham” for the 50 dynamite bombings that took place over about 20 years, from 1947 to 1965. The most famous is the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, which has been rebuilt and stands across from the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.

The Civil Rights Institute is absolutely what drew me to Birmingham, and it didn’t disappoint. It did a great job covering the history of Birmingham and the broader Civil Rights movement, from sit-ins to the desegregation of buses to the Freedom Riders movement. The section on the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in particular was so well done, both on the events that happened leading up to it and the investigation that was done after the fact.

The park outside also had a set of sculptures and memorials related to the Civil Rights movement. I found the one where it feels as though you’re walking in between the snarling and barking dogs to be particularly interesting.

Downtown Birmingham maintains a lot of its historical charm, but then some parts of the city felt absolutely abandoned. It probably didn’t help that I was there in January. Still, the areas that were thriving seemed great, and I hope that same energy can sweep over the rest of the city.

After I’d visited all the other things I wanted to visit, like the historical sites and museums, I ended up stumbling upon a very cute indie movie theater! It’s called Sidewalk Film Center + Cinema, and I’m a little obsessed with it. Such cool vibes. If it was in the city where I lived, I would go there all the time. I went to see Nosferatu, which was a good one to see on the big screen. The photos below are from the bathroom, which stayed on theme.

Overall, Birmingham was a good weekend! Pleasant and interesting, with good food options and with plenty of options to fill a couple days. I’ll be heading back to the South a few times this year to finish my last few states, so it’s been nice to get a chance to learn about the Civil Rights history from the locations where it all happened.

Categories
Bahamas North America

A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Probably Do Again

In December, I was invited to celebrate a friend’s 30th birthday on a cruise to the Bahamas!

I’ve only been on a cruise once before. My parents and I went to Alaska when I was younger. They had always wanted to try a cruise, but we quickly realized it didn’t align well with our family’s travel style. My parents like road trips because they like to be in control of their own timing and be flexible in their plans, which doesn’t work well with the way that cruises operate with their tight deadlines* to get back on the ship. We only tried it the once. Alaska was amazing, though.

*Side note, I did read an absolutely fascinating article about the people who got left behind on a remote island in West Africa when they failed to make their cruise departure time.

For Phil’s birthday, it was a much better fit. He had pulled together a variety of people in his life, including family, friends he had grown up with, friends from DC, and travel friends, and all had pretty different levels of comfort with travel and interests. The cruise worked well because it meant none of us had to plan anything in advance. We could all grab drinks and dinner and mingle without anyone needing to split the check or pick a location – we could walk into an establishment, sit down, and stay as long as we liked. I can absolutely see it for large groups or families who want to spend time together without needing to plan every piece of their vacation.

We were meant to have two days in the Bahamas, but the sea was rough during our cruise. I took dramamine and was glad I did, because I didn’t get seasick. We did still get our day in Nassau, but our day at Royal Caribbean’s private island turned into a day at sea.

And of course, the first view of Nassau was Atlantis Resort!

Nassau was interesting – parts of it, right off the port, feel like an extension of the ship itself. Well-known international brands, a partially fenced off section that is filled with more souvenirs, drunk Americans and Europeans doing shots at the Señor Frog’s. But all it took was a walk a few blocks away to get out of the crowd of tourists, which was a much more pleasant walk.

We also visited the Straw Market. It had pretty decent souvenir options, but the part that I liked the most was our conversation with one of the shop owners. He explained how people pass down the stalls through the generations. This is one of the best options for making money in Nassau, and they hold tight to the real estate within the market, teaching their family the skills to make handicraft goods that tourists will want.

After having lunch in Nassau and exploring the city, we spent the rest of the time on the ship until we disembarked Monday morning. I had worried that it might feel oppressive. It really is massive, though. There was more than enough to explore over the course of a weekend. There are a ton of bars and restaurants and activities – we even did an escape room on our full at sea day.

There were also some areas of the ship that felt calm. The Solarium, which is an adults only section, had seats where you could lay down and watch the ocean, and I spent a nice morning drinking coffee there. They also have a whole floor that’s designed to look like Central Park. It was nice to have options for when I needed a moment to read and relax without feeling surrounded.

All in all, I enjoyed it more than I expected. I wouldn’t rush out and prioritize a cruise on my upcoming travels, but I also would consider it for destinations where that’s a good way to see the region. It was such a fun way to celebrate Phil’s birthday!

Categories
Africa Benin Côte d'Ivoire Ghana Guinea Guinea-Bissau Liberia Senegal Sierra Leone The Gambia Togo West Africa Road Trip

Reflections on West Africa

I’ve been posting about West Africa for 11 weeks, and the trip itself was wrapped up in a little over three weeks. My memories of it have benefited from going through the photos and writing about it here – it was amazing, even in the moment, but it was also full of long days and not enough sleep and terrible roads and swimming in a pool where crickets jumped in my hair.

There are reasons that West Africa is not the most touristy region out there. One of the ones I haven’t talked about much is the visas. As an American, 9 of the 10 countries required me to have a visa to enter.

  1. Only Senegal was visa-free, which was nice since that was the one where I entered and exited twice.
  2. I went to the embassy for The Gambia, where I paid $200 to get the stamp in my passport.
  3. We applied for Guinea-Bissau at the embassy in southern Senegal, as there is no Guinea-Bissau embassy in the US – it closed in 2007.
  4. Guinea was an e-visa. It was pretty fast for me, although others in my group had trouble.
  5. Sierra Leone was an e-visa, and was one of the smoothest ones.
  6. For Liberia, I paid Wander Expeditions to handle it, because their fee for helping wasn’t that much more than the embassy was going to charge me and I wanted to take something off my plate.
  7. Côte d’Ivoire had an online form to get a pre-approval, and then we finalized the visa at the airport when we landed in Abidjan. They took an absolutely terrible photo of me that now lives in my passport with an otherwise cool visa that has an elephant on it.
  8. I applied for Ghana at the consulate in DC. Theirs was annoying because they require you to not only have a hotel booking, but you need a letter from the hotel confirming that you’ve booked, which felt like a lot of work for something that I already had provided documentation on.
  9. Togo was the worst for me. This seemed to be an outlier opinion – most people in my group had a smooth time with the e-visa. Unfortunately, the website didn’t work very well for me. After SO many communications with their IT support team on the chat that didn’t seem to solve anything, one of the other travelers recommended I try it with a fully new phone number and email, which ultimately did work. Still, I only ended up getting my visa approved a few days before we were actually meant to enter the country. It was super stressful.
  10. Benin was the best – they were an e-visa as well, and I got their approval on the same day I applied.

It was an absolute marathon of visa applications. I do not intend to do anything like this again, to be honest, but as someone who does actually make my living in helping others with visa paperwork, it was a nice test of my skills. I had a color-coded Google doc that I was using to keep track of what documents I was waiting on or needed to gather, and what applications were pending and who had my passport.

The American passport is generally pretty strong. I’ve needed visas before, but nothing like this, and it is such a stark reminder of passport privilege. I understand why they’re doing it, for reciprocity, and I can’t be mad about it. I’ve helped people fill out the business visitor visas to enter the US, as well as the UK and Schengen ones, and they’re awful. They’re so intrusive, they need details that seem entirely irrelevant to a short visit, and I can’t begrudge a country for making us do something similar to enter their own borders. Still, it was both expensive and challenging for this trip.

After reading that, it does beg the question of whether that all was worth it. It probably isn’t, for everyone. There are certainly travelers who I’ve spoken to for whom this is their least favorite region because of the visas and other logistical challenges. But for me, I love seeing the places where other travelers don’t. It was not the easiest trip I’ve ever taken, but I did love the payoff of going to the villages and seeing the cultural practices and learning about places that aren’t as widely discussed on an international stage.

If you are interested in the region but aren’t quite as willing to be without creature comforts, there are options. Senegal and Ghana have probably the most tourist development and I would highly recommend either country, although out of those two I preferred Senegal. Côte d’Ivoire had some very modern places as well and some of our nicer hotels across the board, although it felt like you had to search a bit harder to get to the places that made it cool and unique. Benin did not have quite the same level of hotels, but was an amazing payoff that I think was worth a couple nights without air conditioning or a great shower.

I loved my time in West Africa. It was exhausting, but worth it. That said, I moved apartments immediately after I got back and that was the worst experience ever – I definitely wished I’d had proper recovery time afterwards to sleep in and veg for a weekend instead of immediately having to move all my possessions. So, you know…. plan better than I did!

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Africa Benin West Africa Road Trip

Beautiful Benin

Similar warning to my post in Togo – if you are sensitive to harm to animals, I recommend caution. There are less graphic photos here compared to what I saw in Togo but there will be a few photos and references to animal sacrifice here as well.

Our final land border crossing! Still smiling, somehow

Benin was an incredible finale to this trip. Even after nine other countries and several weeks in the region, Benin felt fresh and exciting, with unique rituals and dancing that we were lucky enough to experience. We started off with a voodoo ritual that involved a chicken sacrifice.

I saw a lot of chickens sacrificed in Togo and Benin. The first one did bother me, but most of the time, they died fairly quickly – I only had to look away in the few rituals where the chickens seemed to know and feel distress about their impending death. While there were parallels, the rituals themselves all felt pretty distinct, with different preparations and manners of death for the chickens.

We also saw a lot of different dances, which were very cool. I loved the elaborate costumes. Some of those looked challenging to dance in. Here were some of my favorites:

This whole performance was so cool! This one, along with many of the other dances we saw across West Africa, were always so high energy. The level of cardio you would need to learn and perform these would be intense. One of the other ones we saw reminded me a lot of capoeira, the Brazilian dance fighting, but they had blunted knives that they used in the dance as well.

What I loved about the dances and the rituals is that we saw a huge diversity of different practices. Sometimes, when you’re in a particular region for a long time, things start to blur together, and you don’t appreciate the new things as much because they feel too similar to what you’ve already seen. But in this case, Benin felt totally new and even within the country, there were a ton of cool types of dances that all felt unique.

Going to all of these dances and rituals got us out of the main population centers in Benin and out into the smaller towns and villages.

One of the rituals that’s unique to this region is the Zangbeto. They are voodoo guardians. In some of the rituals, they are overturned and there are other protectors underneath, like statues or snakes.

The one that shocked me the most was when they flipped over one of the Zangbeto and there was a baby crocodile underneath!

We also spent some time seeing the historic sites of Benin, like their UNESCO site in Abomey.

One of the other historic sites we visited was Benin’s Door of No Return monument in Ouidah, which was a bit different than the versions I had seen in Senegal and Ghana. Instead of a door that was part of a fortress, this one is designed as a memorial to those who were taken away from their homes.

We spent some time in Porto-Novo, the capital, and Cotonou, the seat of government and economic center. Porto-Novo had some beautiful architecture in their old town.

For one of our days in Benin, we headed to Ganvie! Ganvie is a lake village, and was originally a way for people to stay safe from the slave catchers, as they were somewhat “off the grid.” I love the chance to see a place by a boat ride, and Ganvie was definitely worth the visit.

One of the wildest experiences I had in Benin was the Python Temple. This was in Ouidah. The snakes are an important religious symbol, and it’s a huge honor to be one of the priests who cares for them. They even let us hold them and get quite close to the snake pit. This was my first time holding a snake!

All in all, Benin was amazing. One of my favorite parts of the trip! It was such a good way to end the trip across the region, and I would definitely recommend it to people who are interested in traveling to parts of Africa that are a bit more “off the tourist path.” It’s not a safari destination. Or at least, the parts we went weren’t – I think West Africa does have some safari opportunities farther from the coast. But if you want to explore somewhere that is safe, friendly, and has a fascinating culture, Benin should absolutely be on your radar.

Categories
Africa Togo West Africa Road Trip

An Introduction to Voodoo in Togo

Starting this off with a warning – there are some fairly graphic photos of dead animals in this post. Togo and Benin are considered the birthplace of voodoo practices, which was fascinating to learn about and provided some of the highlights of the whole trip, but those practices do include animal sacrifice.

We started our day off with a drive to the border and a lengthy border crossing. Togo’s stamps took up an entire page in my passport. Thankfully I’d gotten a new one expressly for this trip. Most border agents were fairly polite about the way they stamped and made everything pretty neat, but there were so many visas and stamps and crossings that it chewed through a lot of pages.

We started in Lomé’s main market and visited the cathedral. You may be wondering about the prominence of a cathedral in a place where voodoo is practiced. We asked our guide, Isaac, about that, and he said that the people of Togo and Benin do not consider it to be an either/or. You don’t have to choose Christianity or voodoo, but you can practice both. The way he described it, it was Christianity during the day and voodoo during the night.

We ascribed to the same principles, I guess, because as the sun went down, we headed to the Akodessawa Fetish Market. This is not the way that most Westerners use the word “fetish,” just to be clear – there are no sexual connotations here. A fetish in voodoo culture is a powerful object, like an amulet or a talisman. Our guide basically said that this is where you would come if you needed parts of a specific animal for a ritual.

“Let’s say you went to the voodoo practitioner and he told you that you needed a chameleon,” Isaac said, choosing an extremely relatable example that I’m sure all of us have experienced. And yes, I did see dead chameleons at the market.

It was both heartbreaking and fascinating. Nothing really could have prepared me for walking behind a table filled with horns and feathers and skulls and skins, only to find a basket of dog heads staring back at me. And once we’d had a chance to explore, we got our first look at the kind of ritual that such a market facilitates.

First, we were taken to a room where they explained the various types of fetishes to us, including ones that helped travelers stay safe and ones that kept people healthy and ones that helped in the romance department. And then, once we had seen how those worked, we headed back outside for the main event: a chicken sacrifice.

We saw a lot of chickens get sacrificed as we traveled across Togo and Benin. Sometimes, the death was quick and the birds didn’t seem to know they were coming, and those were more or less fine. That wasn’t the case here – to be honest, I found this one pretty upsetting. I felt as though the chicken was in distress, and when he reached for another one, I wandered back through the market instead. The bones were even more unsettling in the moonlight.

From there, we headed to our hotel on the beach!

Togo was a fascinating introduction to voodoo culture. I have never seen anything like the Akodessawa Fetish Market and I can’t imagine that I will again. We didn’t spend too much time in Togo, as we were heading to Benin the next day, but it was extremely memorable! And Benin absolutely blew me away… but that’s a story for next time.

Categories
Africa Ghana West Africa Road Trip

Gorgeous Ghana

And on to Ghana! At this point in the trip, I’d been traveling for 16 days and this was the 8th new country I entered. It was a punishing schedule. We often had full driving days and repacking almost every night. We skipped a lot of lunches and had protein bars, and the vegetarian options were “meh” at best at most of our stops. Most of the people I was traveling with got colds around this time, because we were all running on limited sleep. Still, Ghana marked the end of one tour and the beginning of another, and there’s something invigorating about meeting new travelers.

Of all the places we visited, Ghana probably had the most robust tourist infrastructure, with Senegal coming in a close second. We had nicer hotels and more dinner options across the board, which was a nice change of pace. After a short flight from Abidjan and a night out in Accra, we headed to Cape Coast.

Like Senegal, Ghana has a significant amount of historical sites related to the slave trade. We visited the Cape Coast Castle first and went through the details of what happened there. Each of these that we went to has its own version of the Door of No Return, where those who were enslaved last set foot on the African continent. It’s definitely a sobering piece of history.

From there, we headed to Elmina. We started with a walk through the town, including a visit to the harbor, which was very cool, and then headed to the Elmina Castle. It’s hard to do those visits back to back. They’re emotionally difficult places to visit, not unlike a concentration camp or a memorial to genocide. By the time we went for dinner, it was nice to get a chance to think about Ghana’s present and not its past.

Like many places I visited in West Africa, this one had a magnificent beach, and I enjoyed watching the sun set over the water.

The next morning, we headed to Kakum National Park! It reminded me a lot of the hanging bridges in Costa Rica, except it looked far more rickety. I would not recommend this to anyone with a fear of heights. It was gorgeous, but there was a part of me that wondered if the bridges would hold, especially when they creaked as we stepped onto them and rocked back and forth if more than one person dared cross at the same time.

I am actually shocked how tan I look here?

After the national park, we headed back to Accra! We started with the thing I was most excited to see in Ghana: coffin shopping.

Yes, that’s an absolutely wild sentence, isn’t it? Let me clarify. Ghana has a cultural practice that is completely unique across the world, where they build what are called “fantasy coffins” or “figurative coffins.” They build on themes that are important to the individuals in life. It can be related to that person’s job or calling, or it can be something that they loved, but it should represent them in some way to facilitate their journey into the afterlife.

I had read about the practice before but it was SO cool to get to see it in person. They showed us what they were working on, and then they had stacks of photos to show us all the amazing and intricate work they had done in the past. I’ve always wanted to be cremated, but if this was my option for burial I’d strongly consider it.

Once we were done coffin shopping, we headed to the Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum, which was an interesting look at Ghana’s history and the way that they present their country’s founding.

We ended the day at Black Star Square, which celebrates Ghana’s independence. I’m glad to have seen the main sites in Accra, but I do think I got a better sense of the city going out to the bars on our first night in Ghana!

The next day, it was another drive across Ghana so we could cross into Togo. After the trouble I’d had getting my Togo visa, I was just excited that I had all my paperwork in order! I would definitely consider revisiting Ghana and spending more time there, though – it was a nice visit, and I think the country has a lot to offer. Ghana and Senegal are often spoken about as the gateways to West Africa for travelers who are looking to explore the region for the first time, and I can see why on both counts.

Categories
Africa Côte d'Ivoire West Africa Road Trip

Charming Côte d’Ivoire

After a long plane ride, we landed in Abidjan! We found a dinner place near our hotel, which made for a great first night in Côte d’Ivoire. While we didn’t spend much time in the city of Abidjan, the impressions I did have were generally pretty positive. The city seemed pretty clean and modern.

From Abidjan, we drove out to Bouaflé to watch the Zaouli mask dance. This was one of my favorite cultural experiences of the trip – the dancing was amazing. I was so impressed by how fast and intricate the footwork was. The still images definitely don’t do it justice. It was really cool to get the chance to see it live. The people of the village were welcoming and excited to share their culture with us. I found this to be true across West Africa. These destinations that aren’t on the typical tourist trail aren’t tired of seeing foreigners, they’re often excited to get the chance to engage with you.

From there, we headed to Yamoussoukro. Yamoussoukro is the capital of Côte d’Ivoire, which is an interesting choice given it has a population of only about 400,000 while Abidjan is where over a fifth of the country live, with a population of 6.3 million people. Fun fact, Yamoussoukro is also the home of the largest Christian church in the world. It’s called Our Lady of Peace and it literally holds a Guinness World Record for its size.

For the record, it is 320,000 square feet // 30,000 square meters, and 518 feet or 158 meters tall. This was our first order of business. Also, I had to borrow a skirt from them, because I hadn’t realized we were going to a church and I was wearing shorts. We weren’t allowed to take many pictures inside, but we could take them from the doorway, and then we had a full tour of the church.

After the church, we went to an area where the local people were making the beautiful bolts of cloth that you find in the markets across West Africa. It was fascinating to watch. The construction of the looms was so interesting to me. It can sometimes feel strange to watch people who are just doing their jobs, but they did seem to like showing us around and explaining how it all worked.

Côte d’Ivoire was the end of a two week tour, so a lot of the focus was on the meals and going out for drinks and enjoying the last few days with the people who we had just befriended on the trip. Some of us were continuing on, heading to Ghana, Togo, and Benin, but most of the group was heading to the Abidjan airport to start making their way home. Saying goodbye was bittersweet, but I really enjoyed the sites and experiences we got in Côte d’Ivoire!

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Africa Liberia West Africa Road Trip

Monrovia, Liberia

Through various travel logistics, we had less time in Liberia than we’d originally hoped. Part of that was the flat tire leaving Sierra Leone. We hadn’t been able to fix it because we needed to make it to the Liberian border before it closed, so we had loped along on the flat for quite a while. Luckily, we made it!

Here’s the view while we waited for our visa stamps! It was time-consuming, but it went smoothly. While we were waiting, it ended up raining pretty hard, which was the worst weather we had all trip. Most of the time it was hot, humid, and sunny. Bordering on too hot, really, but I ended up buying a fan at a local market and that was a huge help. Still, the heat was better than rain on the rural roads, especially since we spent a lot of time outdoors when we weren’t driving.

Unfortunately, we were flying out the next afternoon, so we didn’t get much time in Monrovia. We were originally meant to have a full day, but the flight got rescheduled and cut into our time in Liberia. It was a shame – Liberia has a super interesting history. It was founded by freed African Americans who were funded and organized by the American Colonization Society. Modern day Liberia still has deep ties to the United States, from their similar flag design to aspects of their constitution, and Monrovia has an absolutely massive US Consulate downtown. Their currency, the Liberian dollar, is the same green color as USD.

Once again thanking Maria and her amazing drone shots!

Despite the short time frame, I was still able to see a lot. We started our morning at the Ducor Hotel. This used to be one of the only five-star hotels in Africa – anyone who was anyone visiting Monrovia would have stayed here. It was closed during the civil wars from 1989-1997 and 1999-2003, and now it had a sort of post-apocalyptic vibe as nature reclaims the structure. It’s much more difficult to visit now. We were not allowed to take pictures, and these were not taken by me, but they do capture what I saw during my visit.

From there, we headed to the West Point. This is considered Liberia’s largest slum. Compared to where we visited in Freetown, this area of Monrovia seemed as though it was more developed. Perhaps it was just the time of day we visited, but after we had passed through an area with stalls, we ended up in a residential area, and we saw families doing their laundry, and men sewing garments to sell, and children playing. It was nice to see a quieter rhythm of life.

From there, we walked through a bit of the center of the city. Some of the people in my group played a bit of soccer with some of the kids in the street, but we didn’t have long before we had to head out to catch our plane.

It was a quick visit. I wish we had gotten a bit more time in Liberia, but traveling is full of trade-offs, and considering I work full time, I didn’t exactly have more time to devote to this particular trip. As it is, I had to dip into next year’s allocation of PTO to make this happen. Despite the rush, though, I did feel like I got a sense of Monrovia.

The flight first stopped in Conakry and then continued on to Abijdan, so it took up most of the afternoon. That first flight over to Guinea was a bit trippy, since it took an hour and a half of flying to basically undo the entire journey over 3 or 4 days. Still, it was nice to have a break from the long driving days and we were off to our next country: Côte d’Ivoire!

Categories
Africa Sierra Leone West Africa Road Trip

The Sights of Sierra Leone

From a tourism perspective, Sierra Leone has an optics problem. Namely, the 2006 movie Blood Diamond, featuring a young Leonardo DiCaprio and set during the 1990s civil war. I remember seeing the movie and quite liking it. Unfortunately for Sierra Leone, so did a lot of people, and they’re having a hard time shaking the reputation of being in an active civil war, even though it’s been over two decades since the conflict ended.

I had recently read an article about their push to get more tourists to see beyond their history, and I was excited to visit! First impressions were of a gorgeous, lush countryside. Sorry not sorry for the many photos out the car window.

Most of our time was spent in Freetown, which is their capital. Freetown, like its neighbor Liberia, was founded by freed African Americans and African Canadians, which led to interesting tensions between those founders, the local West African tribes, and the British, who were colonizing it at the time.

I liked Freetown. I found it very interesting. We started by exploring the city center and went to a lot of the historical sites, like the original Fouray Bay College building and the Cotton Tree. We visited a market and then went to the Kroo Bay slum, which is one of the poorer areas of the city. It’s sometimes strange to visit an area where everyone is working, and it’s not designed for tourists – I felt as though I was constantly in the way while we were there, and it’s hard not to feel as though we were gawking, just a little. As an outsider there to observe the local culture, sometimes our presence alone is enough to be uncomfortable for the locals. Nonetheless, I’m glad we did get a chance to see that area as well, and hopefully we weren’t too disruptive to the people who live there.

Freetown is surrounded by hills, which made for a very cool viewpoint to look at the landscape over the city. It was quite a trek up to get to that view.

After exploring the city, we spent a lovely afternoon at the beach! We were at River Number Two Beach, which is genuinely one of the funniest names for a beach that I’ve ever heard. After several very long days in the car, it was amazing to have a nice, chill time, and the beach was great. Beautiful, with drinks and food available, and we had it mostly to ourselves.

Fun fact about their currency – the denominations are quite small relative to the price of items, so every time we had to pay anywhere, it was huge stacks of bills. I watched a woman count the money from our dinner for easily five minutes.

The next morning, we headed east from Freetown. As might be obvious from the Blood Diamond reference, Sierra Leone is known for their diamond mining. They are still one of the top ten producers of diamonds worldwide, and the situation is much better now that the diamonds being produced aren’t “blood diamonds,” or conflict diamonds. We had a chance to visit a diamond mine on the drive between Freetown and the Liberian border, which was a really interesting experience.

What I didn’t expect was how much it looked like panning for gold!

After we left the diamond mine, we promptly got a flat tire. It was a little scary, actually – I’d never been in a car when it got a flat before, and the noise is pretty alarming. We stopped on the side of the road as the driver tried to fix it, but we ended up giving up and loping along on the flat, because the border with Liberia isn’t open that late and we didn’t want to get stuck on the Sierra Leone side.

Sierra Leone also wins for my favorite signs of the whole trip. Across the board, West Africa has great signs – names of shops often are many words long, resembling full sentences and referencing God or Obama or other famous people. The PSAs and the ads are all so different from what I’m used to. I had so much fun spotting the interesting types of billboards and store names out the car window throughout the road trip.

Luckily, after our flat tire situation, we did manage to get to the Liberian border before it closed, and we ended that day in Monrovia, Liberia. We got to the hotel very late, if I remember correctly. Honestly, that’s a safe bet for most of the trip.

I had a very pleasant visit in Sierra Leone. I’m looking forward to seeing how they develop their tourism as they gain more distance from the war and from the public’s perception of them as a war-torn place!