Bumpy Roads Through Paradise

I convinced a friend from Canada to join me on mini West African tour, and as often happens getting from place to place was as much of an adventure as any destination......

The road to Safari Beach Eco Lodge, on the coast of Ghana, was full of craters. It was narrow and twisty. It scratch the bottom of the taxi S. and I rented and made our driver swear. But it was worth it when we arrived in paradise.
Paradise included our own private beach, our own private waiter/bartender/cook, even our very own palm tree. We spent the next three days like this: wake up when we want to, pretend to do yoga on the beach but mostly just stare at the waves crashing, eat a delicious breakfast of yogurt fruit and honey, sit under the palm tree and read, jump around in the waves when it gets too hot, drink a great big beer, eat a delicious lunch, move lounge chairs to other side of palm tree, jump around in the waves when it gets too hot, drink a beautiful cocktail, eat dinner of decadent seafood such as lobster, drink a bottle of wine, walk on the beach looking for sea turtles, which we never did see.
Despite the absence of turtles, it was perfect. Then we had to brave the road again, but this time it wasn’t the dirt part that was the problem but the way our driver drove on the paved part. It tried to fall asleep but every time I opened my eyes our bumper was one inch from the bumper in front of us. It was the most terrifying drive ever – and I’ve had some pretty terrifying drives.
The ‘final’ day in Ghana was spent navigating Accra’s crazy traffic to find Global Mama’s and do Christmas shopping. We then went to the airport where we spent the better part of three days thanks to idiocy of Kenya Airways. We will not discuss these days, as we now refer to them as ‘The Lost Days.’

Back in Sierra Leone, we wound through the old mountain road outside of Freetown – causing yet another taxi driver to swear as his car scraped over the boulders – to Tacugama Chimpanzee Reserve. This magical spot is home to over 100 rescued chimpanzees and has delightful little forest huts for accommodation. Watching the baby chimps play, looking out over the forest of a million colours of green, it was easy to see we had found another corner of paradise.
We spent a final day on the beach in Freetown and then headed out on the long journey to my own little corner of the country. First we had to navigate Freetown traffic though, which meant that the one hour it should have taken us to leave the city took three. This meant we got on to ‘the real bad part’ of the Kailahun Road as dusk was falling. S. turned to our driver and said ‘Are you sure this is a road?’ At which point he burst out laughing. However, for the next three hours there were times when we did wonder if we were following a road or a long mud puddle/ baboon track/ old river bed/ etc. in the dark by accident. Thankfully, it led us back to Kailahun, which may not be paradise, but is pretty darn lovely after a long journey.