(The Republic of) GUINEA

Oh my, Guinea. After our first seven days in the country, I said to Jeremy: ‘I feel like I could write a book already – has it really only been a week?’

When travelling in this way, time does funny stuff. There are days when we feel like we’ve lived three lifetimes before lunch. Something that occurred last month seems to belong in another dimension. So many things happen – not necessarily dramatic or big things, but just a lot of them.

We feared Guinea a little. I don’t think we’re alone in that. So many stories pinged around in our minds about the horrendous roads, the poor infrastructure, and the lack of places to find proper respite in terms of camping facilities. The fact that it’s a military junta just adds to that edgy feeling.

But we knew it was a stunningly beautiful country, and we especially wanted to make the effort to reach a good spot for hiking in the Fouta Djallon highlands region. We would not give into the tiny mind-demons that sometimes whisper, ‘it sounds hard, why not make life easier and get in and out as fast as possible?’

We’d already had a full day of stop-start-thump-swerve on severely degraded roads in Guinea Bissau when we arrived at the Guinea border. Is a pothole still a pothole if a huge section spanning the width of the road is missing?

Paperwork-wise, it was an easy crossing, but the state of the road within the actual border post itself left us speechless. Getting a camera out next to police and customs ‘offices’ (such as they were) is a no-no so you’ll have to take my word for it. We used 4x4 to crawl over the rocks and get out of there, wondering what the hell lay ahead.

It’s hard to convey in photos – and even videos – how intimidating it can look and feel. It was a really tiring few kilometres after that and we decided to quit while we were ahead and camp in the peaceful bush for the night. A few motorbikes passed and the drivers waved. Hello Guinea.

We set off early the next morning to tackle what we knew would be a tough and slow section. There might come a point on this trip where bad roads just stop being newsworthy. But for now, I’m going to keep mentioning it because it’s often such a fundamental part of our day. And, yeah, it was pretty bad.

We were pleased to arrive in Saréboido town, where we got SIM cards and discovered that a baguette filled with hot bean stew and mayo is an unexpectedly delicious breakfast.

The friendliness had carried seamlessly over the border from Guinea Bissau. We were yet again struck by the number of people grinning widely and waving. We stopped in a hamlet to buy some veg from a small market spread out on the ground. It’s the first time shopping in a new country and currency, the language has switched back to French, and I’m trying to hear, understand and mentally convert the prices (9,000 francs to €1), while uproar is ensuing around me. I was soon mobbed by a group of excited women, each one wanting to know my name and take a selfie with me. Jeremy saw the commotion and hopped out to join in with the photo-taking. I could barely get back into the truck.

Back on the road, the scenery became more and more fabulous, the dirt road redder and redder. It was exciting to see mountains again.

The road eventually turned to tarmac and we made some progress, but were stopped in our tracks by the ferocious heat. We found a tiny bit of shade for an afternoon rest; the breeze was like sitting under a hairdryer.

After another night in the bush we approached the Sita mountain pass. People were burning wood for charcoal and selling it by the road. We’d been seeing this for many miles. I love how they weave dried palm fronds to secure the tops of the bags.

We hit dirt again. The first section of the pass was both gorgeous and awful; we were shunting through thick powder with huge ruts beneath. The amount of dust was unbelievable. It looked like autumn, but the leaves hadn’t been turned red by the seasons. I haven’t edited the photos – everything really was this colour.

It was breathtakingly beautiful. And so hot and dry. A couple of truckers stopped us to ask for water. It felt like we were really out there, if you know what I mean. It will feel a little less wild soon, and that’s good news for the locals, as the Chinese are busy improving this road. It started to get smoother as we got closer to Labe. Getting to this city unscathed was something that had been in our minds as another milestone.

We arrived there feeling knackered, rancid, and happy.

Long-term travel goes through different phases, not just the physical context but your state of mind and levels of resilience. This was one of the gnarly, hardy phases. Because after five months in Africa we found ourselves in a good place mentally, and also due to necessity. If there’s such a thing as a ‘difficulty’ scale for travel, Guinea is at the harder end, and we had to be feeling tough to get the most out of it.

In the gnarly stages we’re mostly in the zone and embracing the challenge, the physical and mental exhaustion, the uncertainty, the dirt and the sweat. We accept the fact that beneath our fingernails there is a permanent dark sludge made of dust, sweat, grease, insect repellent and who knows what else. Everything is gritty, including the bed. The fan is caked in dust and blows fine particles onto us as we sleep. Our hair is stiff with muck. We look and smell like vagrants and are baffled as to how the locals always seem to look so clean and beautiful. But we have the feeling of being on a mission and enjoy a sense of achievement just for getting through an ordinary day.

The gnarliness doesn’t always hold 24/7, of course – there are moments in the day when you think ‘christ, just give me a cool, quiet, dark room to lie down in’. It's usually the heat exhaustion that claims us first, leading to frazzled nerves, snapping, and irrationality.

We’ve always had an imaginary ‘hotel button’ on our camper travels. The rule is that either one of us can push it, without justification, if things get too much. In reality, it’s almost never been used, as what we crave more than a hotel is a really nice campsite.

There’s no such campsite in Guinea. We both pushed the hotel button in Labe. Just four days of driving in these conditions had been physically demanding enough to need a night of rest, a proper shower (hot water!), and a lie down in an air-conditioned room. We even had a giant Saturday night takeaway – our first taste of atiéké, a delicious cassava ‘couscous’, and lots of other goodies.

The button was also calling because we knew it was our last chance for a while. We were heading further into the mountains for some exploring and would be wild camping in a village – no privacy, no toilets, plenty of heat.

We stocked up in Labe’s heaving, stinky market and headed to the forest en route to Pita for a night, before heading up to the district of Hore Bowel (I know, could you conjure up a less appealing name?), near Kambadaga waterfalls, where we’d arranged to meet a local guide. Bassir, a man of few words with a great sense of direction, has been creating and walking these trails for decades.

Allow me to bang on about roads again – the track to Bassir’s was something else; a twisted rocky mess. It took more than an hour and a quarter to drive 12km.

We arrived there drenched in sweat and got ourselves into the only level(ish) shady spot we could find, right by the public path outside Bassir’s village compound and next to the communal well. Well, this was going to be hectic! We were immediately surrounded by children who wanted to see Ivy, touch our hair and skin, watch absolutely every move we made, and give a running commentary about it.

Communication with Bassir was difficult at first but he and his family were kind, gentle people and we got there in the end. After a misunderstanding about when we would be eating meals in their home, and when not, on night one we found ourselves abandoning our own dinner and being summoned into their place to eat rice and a rich sauce of palm oil and ground dried fish. We sat on a mat on the concrete floor and all ate from one dish by (our) torchlight. There’s no electricity in the entire district. Everything was so basic. It really felt like we’d landed in another world.

We talked to Bassir about the walks we could do to see the nature and villages of this incredible place, before falling into bed.

We were ready for our little adventure in the Fouta Djallon.

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