The Tiwai Trilogy Part 1: The road to Tiwai
By David Krueger
The first of three columns describing two days traveling to and from Tiwai Island, as well as the approximately 20 hours I spent there.
My trip to the South featured a lot of the same things as my trip to the North. There was a new regional nickname, an uncomfortable ride back in a puda puda and, of course, giant spiders.
However, the trip to Tiwai Island was actually quite different from that to Kambia. The biggest difference was I wasn’t going for work. Four friends from the YMCA and I decided to take a three-day weekend and visit the wildlife sanctuary in the hopes of seeing some pygmy hippopotamuses.
You know what that means: the return of Tourist David!
Friday night we mapped out our final plans and went to bed, eager to wake up early (five in the morning) and head out on our way to Tiwai Island for three days.
Our plan didn’t quite work that way, but we’ll get to that later.
The next morning came and we set out to the bus station at 5:30. We got on a government bus, which absolutely annihilates puda pudas in terms of quality, comfort and safety.
That bus took us as far as Bo, the city I’ve heard so much about since I got here. I didn’t get to explore a whole lot but I got to have some delicious groundnut soup while we were trying to figure out how to get to Tiwai. Then two funny things happened.
The television was set to SLBC, and “Inside the Media” was playing with my editor, Mr. Kelvin Lewis on it. I was very proud and told everybody who would listen “that’s my boss! I work for him!”
After that program, a meeting began showing on the television. I lost interest because my boss was no longer on the television, but my friend Eric jumped up and grabbed a camera. It turns out he had been at this meeting, and wanted to get a picture of himself on the TV.
Eric spent at least 30 minutes standing in front of the TV watching for himself. When he finally saw his face, he couldn’t snap a picture quick enough, only getting part of his nose in the picture. Oh well. We all saw him so we can back up the statement, “Eric was officially on SLBC.”
All the while we were trying to find a vehicle to take us the rest of the distance we needed to go and were presented with two options: hire a taxi to take us or ride with an intoxicated police officer in his vehicle.
Believe it or not there were pros and cons for both sides. The police officer was cheaper (Le 150,000, compared to Le 175,000 for the taxi) and had a jeep that we assumed could handle the bumpy roads better. But it also came with an intoxicated police officer who didn’t seem to know where exactly his vehicle was or when exactly it might show up.
The taxi was more expensive, but could leave immediately. We were assured it could handle the road and the driver seemed genuinely nice (and sober). So we sat around and decided what to do.
What would you have done in this situation? We chose the police officer. I know, I know but wait for the rest of the story. We voted 4-1 for the policeman and I think we told him, but I’m not sure if he heard us.
We waited for an hour for his car to “show up,” not exactly sure where his driver took it and why the policeman wasn’t a little more upset that his car was missing. I feel like he would get in a lot of trouble if he didn’t return it at the end of the day.
Finally, we got sick of waiting. He informed us the car was having some “problems” which was enough to sway the vote to a unanimous 5-0 for taking a taxi. The driver even lowered the price to Le150,000 and our minds were made. We hopped in and left.
I wish I would have enjoyed my last few moments standing up before we left. It was the most comfortable I would be for the next three hours.
I piled into the front of the taxi with one of my friends and the other three sat (much more comfortably) in the back and we set on our way. It was decided that we were the two smallest so we’d fit the most comfortably up front. I disagree.
The trip wasn’t so bad until an hour in when the road got more than a little bumpy. It felt like the next two hours took forever because we had to go very slow over some pretty large dips in the road. Each one was felt by my bottom until it went numb about halfway through. It was a weird feeling but I think it was probably for the best.
As we drove through the small villages on the way I heard many kids shouting my new name: “pumui.” Having flashbacks of my ampoto adventures in Kambia, I smiled and waved to the children as we drove through. They all seemed so happy to see us, and we were more than happy to wave hello to them.
Eventually we made it to the river and the “ferry,” a motorboat that had a sign that said “5 maximum” on the back of it. We pushed that a little bit with six, but two of us weren’t very big. After all, we had both fit in the front seat. So we decided that combined we equaled the weight of five people.
The ride across was incredible. The weather was perfect, the captain was nice and funny and the scenery was gorgeous. It was one of those “I can’t believe I’m here moments” and found its way to my “Favorite Places in Sierra Leone” list quite quickly.
Smiling and taking pictures we arrived to Tiwai Island, and eagerly waited for our captain to anchor (i.e. tie a rope around) his boat so we could venture into the incredible jungle before us.
We were excited to spend the next two days of our lives there. Little did we know that not even 20 hours later we would be leaving Tiwai Island prematurely due to the rather severe illness of one of the members of our party.
One of us woke up with a temperature above 39 degrees, a severe headache and no desire to eat or even move. In fact, moving a toe pretty much drained all the energy the particular individual had.
Take a wild guess who it was.
And, of course, the quest to get home wouldn’t be nearly as smooth as the trip to Tiwai Island was. In fact, it would turn into one of the longest days of my life.
To be continued…
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