Travel.Happiness.Life. : January 2013

I've had the privilege of visiting Murchison Falls National Park twice, in 2009 and 2011. The park is situated in the north-west of the country.

The falls themselves are formed when the Nile is forced through a narrow gorge of 7m and then drop 43m.

As well as the must-do safari (if you are staying south of the Nile, make sure you get on the first Paraa ferry in the morning at 7.00am), another recommendation is the Nile River Cruise in the afternoon. Both times we visited we did the cruise in the afternoon and then safari in the morning. The cruise takes you to within site of the Falls.

Cruise

Within 5 minutes of our first cruise in 2009 we were greeted with an incredible site, approximately 25 elephants drinking out of The Nile

Not long after we cruised past a pod of hippos with a buffalo knocking about on the bank.

Then some more elephants before the exciting view of crocs!

On our 2011 cruise we were lucky to see a giraffe, the first one spotted on the cruise for five years.

The BMS Uganda Team 2009

Safari

Both times that we did the safari we didn't have a safari spec vehicle, rather we just had a normal Toyota Hiace 4 x 4. We had a few strange looks from people in safari jeeps while we were stretching inside the van for photos through windows. However, we still managed to see some amazing animals, the highlights for me being a male and female lion in 2009 and a lioness and cubs in 2011.

Here's a selection of my other favourite photos...

Hey why the long face?

In September 2013, Laura and I will be moving to Sierra Leone to work for the Craig Bellamy Foundation.

We visited Sierra Leone in 2011 with our friend Sam - Here is the account.

Sierra Leone

The immediate response from people when we told them we were off to Sierra Leone was

"Isn't there a war going on there?"

Laura longed to visit this West African country because one of her schools (Independent Methodist schools) was sponsoring a community project in the north of the country which had been set up by the brother of one of the teachers there. There was quite an interesting back story to this guy - basically he had been a blood diamond runner in the past and when things hadn't gone particularly to plan once (he was attacked and beaten), he had been looked after by the village of Kamakwie and had stayed ever since.

We agreed that the trip would be split into two. Firstly we would visit the community project and then it would be down onto the coast for a beach holiday. Sam had never been to Africa let alone this far off the beaten track.

We landed in Lungi in the early hours and after a long delay got a mini bus the 400m to the hotel. Even though we could have walked it, we didn't know it was that close and it's not advised to walk around many places in Africa at night. We checked into the hotel and found ourselves in a damp ridden room. In fact some of the hotel walls were literally bleeding water. Having been to Africa a number of times before, Laura and I are not flustered by such things and have our own saying "T.I.A." which means "This is Africa". The only thing that really bothered me was the fact that this hotel was very expensive (they have many NGO workers staying so can charge inflated prices) but it had a pool and a bar with Sky Sports so for a few days it was ok.

Two days later it was time to head to the town of Kamakwie in the north of Sierra Leone. We were met at the hotel at 11.00am by Rev. Alusine who had travelled all the way from Kamakwie to meet us and to take us back. Then the fun really started.

We had to get transport to the port in order to get a boat to Freetown. For some inexplicable reason, the airport was built on land across a dangerous bay in Freetown. Every traveller has to make the trip across the bay. In recent years the helicopter has dropped into the sea twice. We chose a boat. Our cab to the port had a boot that didn't close and had more dents than a well used stock racing car. Upon arriving at the port we were hassled by locals trying to earn a buck by offering to carry our bags. At this point we didn't know how we would be crossing the bay, we assumed the normal passenger ferry where we were warned to be extra vigilant with our bags. As we moved further and further into this small village though it looked less and less like a port. Suddenly I realised we were at the waters edge of a fishing village and we would be using local transport. Access onto the boat was not via a traditional jetty, rather it entailed two men carrying people through the water and throwing them into the boat. Worse was to come however. Upon sizing up Sam and I, the worried looking men pleaded for a third to help carry our Adonis like frames to get us into the boat.

Travelling with the Locals

Despite no life jackets, any form of shade and the fear that my bag would be ruined in the water coming through the holes in the boat, the 40 minute ride was quite enjoyable, especially when I started up conversations about English Premier League football. Everyone in Africa tends to support Chelski, The Arse or Man U so I was delighted that they had heard of Tottenham Hotspur. We faired a little worse with Notts County and Southend United. Disembarking was literally an uphill struggle. We pulled up next to another boat which we needed to climb through in order to get to a steep concrete slope. Our bags were ahead of us with locals, we struggled to get out and up but eventually found ourselves in another busy town with people hassling us for money. Thankfully Rev. Alusine spotted the car that would take us by road to Kamakwie and I was relieved to see it was a VW Golf.

Relief was short lived. As quickly as we got in the car, we had to get out. It had a flat tyre. Coincidentally the group of youths who had been standing around the car for a while had the tools and were able to change the tyre for a small fee! After the locals changed the tyre we were off. Approximately 2 hours into the journey we were entertained by a loud alarm going off in the car. It didn't stop. In order to make it stop, I turned my ipod on loud. This of course didn't stop it for Laura and Sam but at least I was immune. A further hour into the journey and we had to pull over.

The driver looked at the engine. We started off again, alarm sounded, we stopped. Some stops were longer than others. We had to get water from houses along the roadside. Often we had to find a 'hand brake' which took the form of large rock placed behind a wheel. Sometimes we could go for 20 minutes but that was mainly freewheeling down hill without the engine on.

Eventually Rev. Alusine got through to the provider of our vehicle and arranged another car. Somewhere on the way to Makeni we swapped cars and got in a taxi. The next two hours were great, unless we hit a bump in the road which sent shudders up our spines. And this was on tarmac.

At Makeni the tarmac stopped and 4x4's are generally the vehicle needed. We had 60 miles to travel to Kamakwie on a dirt track in a Nissan taxi. The time was 6.30 pm. The rest of the journey was very bumpy and long. With 6 miles to go we got to a concrete bridge which ripped into the underside of the car and pulled the exhaust off. We had to get out. It was 9.30pm, pitch black in the jungle. I couldn't believe it. What a day I thought. Resourcefulness however is a great trait of many people in Sierra Leone. Using scissors we provided they cut off the rear seat belts and used them to hold the underside exhaust up. We limped into town after 10pm travelling at 15mph but sounding like an F1 car. Laura's contact Richard came to the guest house to meet us and have a beer. It was one of the most enjoyable beers I have ever had the pleasure of drinking. We thanked Rev Alusine for collecting us. On top of the one way journey he had done with us, he had done the return earlier too!

I thought it would be a good time to present him with his present from the UK, a Tottenham Hotspur shirt. He seemed pleased as you can see in the picture. Little did he know that there are many similarities between the journey we had just shared and following Tottenham - basically being immense frustration and endurance.

We spent 3 days in Kamakwie, visiting the market, the elders, the Community Centre, schools and a vocational college. Laura's photo at the vocational college won The Guardian's Travel Photography competition for 2011.

One day Richard took us out to the land he has bought and showed us his mining operation. He runs a gold mine as an ethical enterprise and is currently mining in the swamps before starting on the hills. It is an impressive operation due to the amount of work he has done setting up schools, the micro credit scheme, employment he has provided and how valued he is in the community. It was quite an experience.

Kamakwie itself was a very peaceful town where a culture of entrepreneurship is prevalent particularly amongst women and where foreign visitors are not approached for money. In the next few years a tarmaced road is expected to be built between Makeni and Guinea which will pass through Kamakwie. This will also bring more tourism to the three national parks that Kamakwie is close to.
The most amazing part of travelling to such a remote area was meeting and speaking with Rev. Alusine about the civil war that raged in the 1990's. We heard horrific stories of murder, rape and torture which led us to ask how the place was so peaceful today. His answer was profound.
"It is about forgiveness"
He went on to say that people who had murdered other peoples family members were living side by side now.
"Without forgiveness we could not move on, and it is God that allows us to forgive and have love in our hearts".

When our time was finished in Kamakwie we got a cab back to Makeni (an old Peugeot Estate with massive tyres attached) and were met by a driver from www.visitsierraleone.org in an air conditioned Land Rover and started our 'holiday'. First stop was the amazing Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary http://www.tacugama.com/ near Freetown and then we spent two nights on the coast at the beautiful River Number 2.