A lesser known Africa: Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone

Africa has an abundance of touristic spots. For wildlife, you rather go to South Africa or East Africa, whereas the cultural (subsaharan) Africa you may encounter in Togo, Benin, or Ghana, with their Voodoo Ceremonies, for example. And there are countries which in terms of touristic highlights are mostly neglected, overlooked, because they have little to offer. With almost non-existing touristic infrastructure.

Along the road, our guide stopped to visit a typical village in Guinea. We were welcome by super friendly people, and here you see the preparation of their breakfast

Take the 3 countries Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.

A typical countryside foto taken in the highlands of Guinea

They are rather poor, and in terms of Human Development Index (HDI) you will find them towards the end of the list. With reason, if you take a closer look. All 3 countries require a visa. For Guinea and Sierra Leone you can arrange a visa online (at some 80 USD each), but Liberia requires a classic visa ceremony, where you have to send away your passport - either via a visa service or directly to the Embassy - which I personally consider rather cumbersome and outdated. But so it is. And once you have all your documents together, the question is whether you want to travel individually, as a backpacker, or join a tour.  In my age - being retired and having sufficient funds - I opted for an individual tour arranged just for me and my wife. Plus driver plus guide, and a jeep, doing a round trip of about 2 weeks.

This is the picturesque Kambadaga Waterfall in the highlands of Guinea, which we approached (from far) in a day trip from Dalaba

I am even not sure whether you can make it as a backpacker, as there is almost no touristic infrastructure. Sure, there are public buses between the cities, but not to the sightseeing spots. And how you make it to the border is also a challenge. I remember a very bad road leading from Guinea to Liberia, where you would get stuck without a 4WD. And if you want to go it alone, it may work, but probably with much more time to get such a trip arranged. Of course the alternative could be to bring your own vehicle, this in combination with a good digital map might work.

This man climbed up the palm tree to show us how the palm nuts are harvested, which will be processed for palm oil. Quite a dangerous affair, there is no extra safety measure

So, why taking the pain and money and visiting such places? Perhaps because this is the challenge, or because you will experience an Africa „as it is“, with little bang for the buck. And I confess, in my case, because I want to have visited all the countries in Africa and not only do some cherry-picking and concentrate on the highlights in Africa. From that perspective, these 3 countries are rather a „lowlight“.  But nevertheless, they will provide you insights of an Africa as it is.

You will get used to such a view: garbage. In particular plastic garbage. Virtually everywhere. So, for making nice fotos, best is you do not photograph the ground

Our tour started in Conakry, the capital of Guinea, and led us through all of Guinea until Nzerekoré in the far East, from where we headed to Liberia, direction Monrovia, and finally towards Sierra Leone, where we spent 2 nights in Kenema, and 2 in Freetown. Flying out of Freetown means that you have to take a ferry to the airport, which operates only when there are flights. But there is a website that you can google, displaying the departure of the ferry (in our case, flying with Brussels Airlines meant that the ferry left at 14:30 hrs).

Just a common view in these countries: cars are loaded like this. Very often even with people on the roof

The biggest eyesore in all 3 countries is the plastic garbage which you will see everywhere. The garbage collection may be non existent or sporadic, but in any case people drop their plastic garbage just where they are.  Drinking water is sold cheaply in plastic bags of perhaps 300 ml. You bite a edge off, spit the plastic edge to the ground, empty the plastic bag and then drop it when emptied. Which we well educated Europeans did not do, but kept our garbage until we where in the hotel, where we dropped our garbage into the bin (which later may be emptied into the nature anyway). My wife tried in vain to educate driver and guide to at least not throwing away the garbage in front of our eyes. Which worked for a couple of days, but ultimately they resumed their habit, and we gave up (our educational measures, that is, but not our habit to keep the garbage until we saw a bin).

Visiting a National Park in Guinea bordering Liberia, we took a break from an exhausting climbing up the hill. Our hope was to see Chimpanzees, and luckily we saw quite a few, albeit not in a distance that would give you a nice foto, because they always were partially hidden in the dense jungle.

Of the 3 countries, Guinea has perhaps the highest touristic appeal. In particular in the highlands, with beautiful nature and even good hotels, like in Dalaba. Also Nzerekoré in the woodlands has good hotels (and good beer).

Corruption

Corruption is an issue, however, particularly in Guinea, where countless road blocks entice the police to get some extra out of us. And not of the locals, they are too poor  No, in Guinea you see people sitting on the roof of ordinary cars, or up to 4 people in front. Nobody cares. However, when you fair-skinned traveler are not buckled up in the back of the jeep, or if in the front there are 3, then you fall victim to the police.  In our case, we were trapped twice. In one case, the additional local guide sat in the front, which the police officer did not tolerate (and our guide had to get out and settle the case the typical way). The other case concerned my yellow vaccination booklet. The officer checked the docs of the car - all ok, passports of all of us - all ok. Then he browsed through my vaccination booklet and saw that on one page was written with a pencil that a vaccination was due in 2024 - which was not done. It was a vaccination against FSME which you can get from ticks in Germany, nothing mandatory nowhere. But the officer insisted on „something“ and did not return my passport. Until our guide left the car, took the police officer aside, and settled the case the usual way.  Funny enough, at the border with Liberia, the Guinean health officer checked our temperature and also our vaccination booklet, whether we have the Yellow Fever vaccination. Which we had. At the other side, in Liberia, our booklet was checked again.

Generally speaking, to my feeling the officers in Guinea are the most corrupt of the 3 countries. We had no bad experience in Liberia and Sierra Leone, and there I had even the impression that they liked seeing tourists. Always friendly faces, even of the police officers, and road blocks were not less than in Guineas.

Market scene in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia

In Nzerekoré we met a Chinese biker, driving all the way from China via Europe to Africa, on his world tour. He told us that when he is on the road, he always wears his dirtiest clothes, such to appear poor and unassuming, when getting stopped at a road block. Which most of the time worked.

Money matters

In Conakry, we changed money at an unassuming shop - the local guide showed us the place. Probably there are also ATMs somewhere, we changed however the old fashioned way. And best is you change enough in Conakry such that you need not change again in the countryside. I did not see a single ATM, nor a money changer, after leaving Conakry.  You need not worry what to do with left over Guinea Franc - if you changed too much. At the border, on the Guinean side, you will be approached to change your Guinean francs to Liberian Dollars.  After leaving immigration at the Liberian side, there were plenty of money changers that change your Euros (or, preferably USD), into Liberian Dollars. And so I left with wads of banknotes, as the highest denomination in Liberia is less than 1 EUR.  What I only learned later is that in Liberia the USD is something like a parallel currency, so you if you have enough USD with you, no need to change a lot into local currency.  Same procedure then at the border with Sierra Leone. And the „left over“ of local Leone we tipped. In both Liberia and Sierra Leone I could see ATMs even in major cities outside of the capitals (to be concrete, Gbarnga in Liberia and Kenema in Sierra Leone), so you will not have a problem how to get local currency - provided the ATMs work, which I did not check.

Visiting a diamond mine near Kenema, northern Sierra Leone. With police escort, because we were told that those people are not really welcoming when seeing foreigners. All went smooth. I learned that you can easily buy a license and operate your own mine. And, fingers crossed, either get rich or you ruin yourself.

Restaurants, Food

In all 3 countries, in the countryside restaurants are very rare (if you look out for a restaurant and not for a simple food stall).  So sometimes we had our lunch as late as 16:30 hrs, because simply there was no restaurant along the road. People seem to be too poor to afford dining out. So stock yourself with bananas or peanuts, to keep your stomach quiet until you discover a restaurant. Prices are very moderate. Our diet consisted mostly of chicken with chips - that worked. Only that back home I am sick having chicken or chips for  quite a while. Or scrambled eggs which we were supplied at every single breakfast…By the way, all 3 countries have nice and inexpensive beer. Which we enjoyed when arriving at our destination.  In Sierra Leone however, which is predominantly Muslim, you can buy beer only at selected shops - which are mostly operated by Indians.

In Guinea, and also in parts of Liberia and Sierra Leone, you could buy the French baguette which can help you out if no restaurant is in sight.  One funny issue is the breakfast option in hotels in Liberia:  1 breakfast per room. So, even should you have booked „breakfast included“, you will get only 1, and pay for the second one.

A seemingly romantic scenery taken in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. Would I have included the foreground, the lots of garbage would quickly sober you up

Health

We had no issues.   No bad stomach, nothing. We even did not take precaution against Malaria (traveling in January, I did not encounter a single moskito). But we had the Malaria medication as stand by.  Sun screen is advisable. And in most of the hotels we slept in our own linen sleeping bag, not being sure whether the bedding was clean. But no critters, no cockroaches or the like. What you should take serious:  have yourself vaccinated against yellow fever, bring the vaccination certificate, it will be controlled.

The beach in Freetown, in front of the Roy Hotel, where we stayed (Roy has a good restaurant). We preferred not to go to this beach, because as soon as we approached the beach, these kids surrounded us, and we felt unsafe. Also the plastic garbage did not really entice us to enjoy this beach. Ironically, the sign at the lantern pole states "Keep the beach clean"

Communication

You can book online an e-Sim for your mobile phone. Quite cheap for Guinea and Sierra Leone. In Liberia, where we only stayed 3 nights, we did not buy one (which would have been considerably more expensive than say for Guinea, where we paid  some 4 Euro for 1 GByte valid one week). Many hotels have WiFi (not all of them however, especially not in Guinea).

In Guinea it is very helpful if you can speak French, and in Liberia and Sierra Leone English is widely spoken. Interestingly, in Liberia you will feel a US touch (for example, the petrol price is indicated per US gallon), and in Sierra Leone you will see the British influence.

When traveling individually, and without guide, in any case I would download an electronic map that works without WiFi, to find your way, as there are very few road signs. You will easily get lost without map, or without guide.

But there are really clean beaches around Freetown. This is No.2 beach. We had to pay an entrance fee, the area is guarded, with restaurant, and really kept clean. Warm water even invites you to take a swim. So you may find the beach romance that you are looking for, but you need to know where to go

Tourists

Only at our first day of our journey, in Conakry, we met another tourist group when visiting the harbour. And then we saw a couple at immigration of Sierra Leone towards Liberia, backpacking. And then a Chinese on a bike doing his trip of a lifetime. But apart from these 3 encounters, we had these 3 countries - how shall I say - for ourselves. This can be a curse, when you expect perfect touristic infrastructure, or a blessing, when you are more after a somehow "undisturbed" Africa.

Security

All the time we felt pretty safe. Ok, we did not walk along the public beach in Freetown, but this is normal precaution. With our local guide we always had a safe feeling. All Africans that we met were very friendly, even curious. After darkness we stayed in the hotel, anyway there is little to see outside when dark. These countries were victims of the Ebola outbreak some 10 years ago, but today it is history, no need to worry. Also Liberia and Sierra Leone suffered of civil wars, but its all over. You can travel with peace of mind.