Hiking Guinea

Greetings all, yes it’s me again. I’m back in action with another amazing blog entry for you all to devour. It really has been a long time since I’ve updated my blog and for that I apologize. Hopefully though this post will make up for all the lost time and disappointment you’ve had when getting online and not finding anything new and interesting to read.

Now that I got that out of the way I can start to tell you about my incredible adventure through the wilds of Gambia, Senegal, and Guinea. It all started when my buddy Ted asked if I wanted to go on vacation to Guinea. Naturally I said “yes” and we began organizing the trip. Other volunteers were also invited to go so in the end 7 other volunteers and myself traveled down to Guinea. Our vacation was one week long; we left on October 21st and came home on the 27th.

Monday the 21st finally rolls around, the morning is hot, not a cloud in the sky. We are sitting in the Basse (the staging point for people traveling to Guinea from the Gambia) car park trying to catch a ride down to Douke, Guinea. Yes, Douke is our final destination. There is a man in Douke named Hassan Bah and he owns a small eco-lodge. It’s a very beautiful place nestled up in the Guinean highlands with great hiking, spectacular views, and waterfalls everywhere you look.

But as I was saying, we are sitting in the hot dusty car park up in Basse on the morning of the 21st trying to negotiate for a car that can take us to Douke. Finally at 9am we strike a deal. The second this happens our driver turns into the energizer bunny, he starts running around throwing our bags on the roof rack as fast as possible, herding people to their seats in the car, and just acting like we are in a race against time. We thought maybe it wasn’t really necessary to load up and leave as fast as he wanted us too but to make him happy we humored him.

The car ride down to Douke was also a little cramped. Just think of sardines in a can and then you’ll begin to understand what we had to go through. The car itself is an old Peugeot station wagon. There are the two front seats, a middle seat and a back seat. Normally 9 passangers are crammed into these tiny cars not including the driver, 3 in the back seat, 4 in the middle, and 2 in the front passenger seat!

Since our group totaled 8 people we just bought out that 9th seat hoping that the ride might be a little more comfortable due to the extra room. Personally I really don’t think that missing that one person made much of a difference to our comfort but who knows. All I can say is that it was a tight squeeze! In addition to all this, the road down there was absolutely horrible. It was dirt the whole way, the potholes were the size of small houses (ok maybe I’m exaggerating a little, but they were big!), and we were constantly fording muddy pits of water (luckily not getting stuck in them).

Of course we had heard all the stories of past volunteers who had traveled to Hassan’s before us. So we were expecting the really cramped, long and uncomfortable car ride. I was even expecting break-downs. Guess what, the car didn’t disappoint, we broke down 3 times on our way to Douke. Twice the driver and some other mechanics removed the master cylinder because the car had no brakes and twice they replaced it only to have the breaks go out again after 15 minutes of driving. Mmmm hmmm, that’s right, we didn’t have any breaks the whole time riding down there, even going through the mountain passes. Thank god for down shifting otherwise we would have been in a world of hurt. All this and changing out the back axle at four in the morning was very entertaining. I really have to hand it to our driver, that axle swap was impressive. He had probably done it a million times though because he was carrying the spare axle with him on top with the bags.

So if you aren’t already sick of riding in this car, hold on, because the ride from Basse to Douke took us 33 hours of straight driving! Yup, you heard me right, 33 hours….

Everyone was more than tired when we finally did arrive at Hassan’s lodge but we were so happy to be out of that car it didn’t matter. The next day after sleeping like logs we woke up, ate a light breakfast of tea, honey and bread, and then went hiking. Oh the hiking in the Guinean highlands is amazing, so much different that being in The Gambia where there are only a few small hills. Douke’s elevation is at around 4,000 ft. so we really were in the mountains.

We stayed with Hassan for four full days and during that time were able to complete all the hikes he had to offer. Every day we would go on two hikes, one in the morning after breakfast and the other in the afternoon after lunch. Depending on who you ask they might say these hikes were really strenuous but for me personally they didn’t pose many difficulties. Know what I mean?

As I said before the landscape in Guinea is gorgeous, there are valleys, mountains, waterfalls, and really interesting rock formations all over the place. I had a great time there and am so glad I decided to go. Car ride and all, it was worth it.

One of the hikes we went on was the “Indiana Jones.” The reason for this was quite obvious when we got to see what we were hiking through. It was really like a jungle, there were vines everywhere, huge rock chasms over 100 feet deep that we hiked through, moss covering everything, and crystal clear streams cutting their way through the limestone formations. The scenery was like nothing I’ve ever seen before; I was almost expecting ferries to come zipping out of the nooks and crannies. Enchanting is the only way to describe this place. The Indiana Jones hike was by far my favorite hike.

Besides the phenomenal hiking there wasn’t too much excitement to be had at Hassan’s. That was exactly what I wanted though. All of our down time consisted of everyone picking a hammock and reading the books they brought. I brought a Star Wars book, The Crystal Star. No I’m not a nerd and yes it was a pretty good book. To quote Yoda, “Adventure. Heh! Excitement. Heh! A Jedi craves not these things.”

In a nutshell, Guinea was really fun and I’d recommend it to anyone. The car ride back was actually really fast comparatively, 27 hours, and very uneventful. We were all exhausted by the time we arrived in Basse. Sleep came quickly to each and every one of us…. We probably all had really sweet dreams too!