To the Fouta Djalon by many taxis

The days in which I am still within striking distance of sweet West African places to journey to are ticking away. I am likely to finish up work in Freetown in July. Katie and I made good use of the long Easter weekend though. We journeyed from Freetown in Sierra Leone to the village of Doucki in the Fouta Djalon region of Guinea last weekend, by many taxis. One of the taxis that we rode had two very special features to it: Some butchered meat tied to the windscreen wiper in the front, and a live chicken dangling by its tied feet from the rear wind shield.

Some meat tied to the windscreen wiper by a palm frond.

It struck me how instantly things changed as we crossed the Sierra Leone - Guinea border near Kambia Town. International borders fascinate me; they remind me that countries are indeed real, and that domestic rulers actually do exert a kind of sovereign power over you when you're in their land. Probably the first thing that I noticed across the border, apart from the immediate switch to French, was the (French) immigration officer's beautiful black mustache - hadn't seen one of those in Sierra Leone - and his not allowing Katie to fill in her own form, because he is chivalrous. Along with that, the music changed, the mangoes changed, the people changed, the land become more mountainous and open and the frequency of military checkpoints increased. Our passports and yellow-fever certificates were checked relentlessly by soldiers, which made me notice how sweet Salone only have policeman manning checkpoints; possibly as a reaction to their soldier-rebel 'sobels' in the war. Taxi drivers still paid bribes at the checkpoints though, with the frequency increased only slightly, but it was definitely done with less slight of hand than the drivers in Sierra Leone; broad daylight exchanges took precedent over the cleverly concealed handshake.
 Katie speaks an invaluable bit of French, but it was still tricky navigating the share taxis. We ended up hopping from town to town, changing taxis each time, clawing our way slowly closer to the Fouta Djalon. After a full 15 hours of traveling we stopped for the night in Seboray, a small town just passed Dalaba. By a great stroke of luck, we found a house open to travelers. We had met some Peace Corps volunteers on the long road, and they had given us the contact of Djouma Fleur (+24466116241), a French speaking, honey selling, well known man in Seboray. Djouma met us in the dark, helped us to find food, and then led us to a house. From our broken communication we understood that we had a place to stay.

Katie and Djouma outside of Nadine's beautiful, round house.

Nice ceiling.

The house is owned by a French woman called Nadine. We never met her, and still don't know who she actually is, but she generously allows travelers to stay in her beautiful private home. She asks only for a donation to her NGO that helps the disabled in Guinea, if you feel moved to do so. Nadine's house probably has some of the best interior decorations that I've seen in a West African home. In particular, the ceiling of her dining room is covered in wicker mats and rope.

The butterflies below are hers too - we saw a lot of these butterflies (alive) in Doucki - and her garden is decked out in bougainvillea and dozens offlowering plants, all well labelled with their botanical names. My garden-hearted father would have loved it.

The next day we woke up early and made haste to Doucki, after buying some delicious local honey from Djouma, made by bees living around the pine forests planted around Seboray. Pines are another thing I didn't expect to see. We nailed that bottle of honey that very weekend.

Fouta Djalon is a whole lot cooler and the vegetation is drier than the lower lying parts of West Africa. 'Cool and dry' is a very relative term here though. We were there in the dry April, but apparently the region has an epic rainy season around June-December, and it is known as one of the water points of West Africa. There are some great pictures of the Fouta Djalon on this blog called the candy trail. The pictures were taken in the lush rainy season. Our pictures were a lot more dusty.