In the last entry my super amazing wife and I had just finished the journey across rivers and hills to arrive at Outamba-Kilimi National Park (OKNP) in Sierra Leone, on the border with Guinea. And now it was time to set up camp.

Sierra Leone has potential as a tourist destination. Perhaps they don’t want it but there is certainly potential, as there is any place. It could definitely be a world-class birdwatching spot. But so far it is not really set up for it at all. This was evident in OKNP as we pulled up to the campsite. There was not really much there. As I am writing this Wikipedia has a picture of a nice-looking miniature cabin but by the time we visited it more closely resembled a termite mound than tourist hut. The remains of the bathroom facilities were still usable, though that is only because a drop toilet doesn’t require all that much upkeep. Some low walls provided privacy and the lack of roof kept any bats from residing there.

But of course this is why we had arranged the trip with VSL. Upon arrival the guides quickly worked to set up camp. Our sleeping arrangement was a small tent with another to store the stuff we had brought. They provided bedding though if I were to do it again I would bring my own pillow. I think an enterprising visitor could arrange to stay in some of the park rangers’ accommodations and procure food locally but a tent and buying supplies in Makeni is probably indeed the way to go. Be also sure to bring plenty of water.

As everything was getting set up and unloaded our guides sent us off on our first park experience, a forest walk with the park rangers. This was pretty short. The park entrance and campsite I think are not actually quite in the park, but instead across the Kaba river. We never actually wound up setting foot in the park itself. I’m not sure if it was just inconvenient or if there was a deeper reason. Instead we skirted along the river to see what we could see. It was late afternoon and I think the rangers were worried about it getting dark. We spotted several monkeys traversing the trees. The rangers identified them as Colobus monkeys but having done some googling here I think they were actually Green monkeys. The most adventuresome part of the walk was crossing a stream via log (“local bridge,” the rangers said) but we survived dry and intact.

And from there it was a relatively relaxing time in camp. On safaris I do appreciate the large amount of down time and on this one we had down time in droves. As we were hanging out the same green monkeys we had seen on our walk came through the treetops over camp, giving us a good look but making it seem a little silly we had gone off to find them just before. Later in the evening, having been served a massive dinner we settled down with flashlights to do some reading. This we did outside, as the tent was much too hot still to relax in.

One interesting part of living in Sierra Leone is that I feel like I have learned a lot more about what all these Victorian-era African explorers and missionaries I like to read about went through. Like you read about palm wine all the time but I never had any until we went to Banana Island (we chose to not bring any alcohol on our trip to OKNP, but on our second night, shortly after I was lamenting to my super amazing wife the lack of sundowners, our guide appeared with some poyo he had procured in the neighboring village and poured us each a mug out of the cooking oil bottle it had been stored in; from God to man indeed). For this trip, our experience was bugs. The most bothersome of these in the moment was what I think were the stingless bees that Livingstone wrote about. I can confirm that indeed “the bees are easily known from their habit of buzzing about the eyes, and tickling the skin by sucking it as common flies do.” They broke skin if you didn’t get them soon enough. Though the following week we would find ourselves itching from a hundred bug bites that we hadn’t even noticed we were accumulating. We used bug spray but we should have used much much more.

Finally tired enough that the heat was no longer so bothersome, we settled in to sleep.

To be continued…