Waterfalls and Chimpanzees
By David Krueger
Most days in Sierra Leone I’m a reporter. On Saturday, I got to be a tourist.
I hopped in a rather cramped taxi van with seven other friends and headed to the Charlotte Waterfall and the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary, two locations I’ve looked forward to visiting since my arrival in Sierra Leone.
Sitting in the back of a van with three other people as we were jerked around from side to side (and occasionally up and down) wasn’t the most fun I’ve had in West Africa, but the destinations made up for the bumpy, uncomfortable ride that resulted in a flat tire about 100 meters from the entrance to the chimpanzee sanctuary.
The first stop was the waterfall. The taxi drove down a rather large hill (this is important to the story later) and dropped us off at what was perhaps once a bridge over a small river. From there we met a man who really wanted to show us around.
We followed him to a church, a few houses and then we headed for the main attraction: the waterfall. We hiked along a path for about 15 minutes stopping only at a house where they charged us Le5,000 to visit the waterfall.
I’m not sure how this happened, but the owner of this house is brilliant. He or she realized that the house is on the way to a landmark, that lots of people want to see. I’m 99.9 percent sure the owner of this house does not own the waterfall, nor did he or she have any part of its wondrous development.
Still, they found a way to profit off of the location of their home, and that’s pretty smart. Some might question the validity of the claim to money to continue along a path in nature, others might praise the owner for using good business sense.
Either way, the person made Le40,000 from our group that day, and all they had to do was pop out of a window and ask for money.
We continued down the path, peeking through trees as we saw our target. The waterfall came into view about two minutes before we were there, and we all began taking pictures and walking faster. It’s really fun being a tourist.
Finally, we arrived at the Charlotte Waterfall, and it quickly became one of my five favorite places in Salone.
Just in case you were wondering, the other four, in no particular order, are: the Awoko Newspaper office, Kambia Africana Village, the YMCA in Freetown and every beach I’ve ever been to here.
The United States Embassy and Sierra Leone-Guinea border are honorable mentions.
The thing that separates the Charlotte Waterfall from those places is how overwhelmingly calm it is. We were there for about three hours and we accomplished quite a bit. We sat there, just admiring how breathtakingly beautiful the waterfall was. While there we ate a little snack to recharge our bodies for the rest of the day and I even got in a 30 minute nap.
I was so happy at the waterfall I made the comment (several times) that I would visit it every day if I could. The incredible view along with the perfect weather and comforting and soothing sound of water splashing against rock easily made this one of my favorite places in the world, let alone Sierra Leone.
Then I got stupid.
A friend quickly began climbing the rocks next to the waterfall, and I thought “that looks fun. I can do that.”
It turns out scaling up the rocks wasn’t the problem, that went by relatively easily. It was figuring out a way back down that quickly became the major issue. Fortunately, we found some tree roots that we were able to use to scale down the slippery rocks back to safety.
I thought the hard part was over. Turns out I was wrong.
Just as I got back down and was celebrating a successful adventure and a safe return with my friend, my right foot started to slide and the rest of my body soon followed.
I began sliding down the waterfall which was a terrifying and quite fun experience. It was terrifying because to my right there was a rather large drop off that I didn’t think would feel very good should I end up at the bottom of it.
This is also probably a good time to point out that the current looked very strong, and I can’t swim.
The experience quickly became more fun as I looked to my left and saw a small (and safe) little pool of water that was only up to my ankles.
“Left! Left! LEFT!” I thought as I was sliding down the waterfall.
I’m happy to report I was able to venture left into the little pool. Had I not been able to, you might not be reading this column today. And, the ride down was pretty fun.
I ventured back up to my friends, who had a combination of relief, terror and even a little jealousy on their faces. It turns out my friend had taken a picture while I was sliding, that is probably my favorite picture taken here in Salone. My face, with a blend of fear and excitement, looks pretty hilarious.
We all hung out at the waterfall for a little longer, I tried (unsuccessfully) to dry my clothes and then we headed back to the taxi.
Remember how I said it drove to the bottom of a big hill? Well the taxi almost didn’t make it back up the hill. The ground was wet and soft, and the taxi was heavy, being filled with nine people. Sitting in the cab, we began to worry that soon we might be pushing this rather large vehicle up an even bigger hill.
However, after a few tries we were able to gain some traction and head back up the hill, to visit the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary.
This is another honorable mention for favorite places in Salone. It would have been higher, but it began to rain while we were there.
I had a lot of fun walking around the sanctuary. I got to see a baby chimp with its mother during feeding time in one encampment, as well as a large, angry chimp get mad in another area and start throwing things that began to bang against the fence in another part of the facility.
I don’t know exactly what the chimpanzee threw at the cage and I didn’t wait around to find out. A worker at the sanctuary ushered us away before we could see much else.
Then the rain began, which didn’t really affect me because I was already still pretty wet. Our tour drew to a close, as did one of the best days I’ve had in Salone. We piled back into our taxi for the bumpy ride home, hoping for no more flat tires.
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