Day 91: Freetown – Nova Africa south of Freetown

The Stafford Lodge is run down like so many things in Sierra Leone and in Guinea. This is reason to point out that we are moving in countries that were not only hit by Corona but also by Ebola between 2013 and 2016. Civil wars and other crises did and do the rest. We travel to military dictatorships. Economic investment by other countries and tourism have not recovered. State employees are paid poorly or sometimes not at all, which means that additional income becomes vital (corruption).

Electricity for electrical appliances, supermarkets, air conditioners, water pumps, etc. is primarily generated by generators. For a large part of the population, water is what they can get from the river or from deep holes. Drinking water is available here in bottles, but it costs money. In Guinea, small plastic bags of drinking water were handed out en masse – the plastic then flies everywhere, but at least people drink clean water. Everyday life and infrastructure no longer have anything to do with European ideas.

A small room without a door to the wet room, with the generator in front of the window, and windows that offer no mosquito protection because the frames are full of holes, still costs $65 a night.

Many supermarket products are unaffordable for the average person.

We still slept and are happy about bad coffee, greasy scrambled eggs and delicious pancakes with syrup for breakfast. And about the warm (!) shower.

Our car starts. The battery problem – we now suspect – could simply have been caused by the cooler box if, for example, we did not close it properly.

Becky gets an oil change. We use the first set of original parts that we have with us and buy 15 liters of oil because they have the right and “good” ones from England. Which in turn drives us into the arms of Western Union.

All is well today and that's why we're heading to the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary. Without further ado, we join a tour that had started shortly before.

Animals are taken in here that either come from private households or whose parents were killed in order to eat them or export them as trophies. They are integrated into groups in three stages and released into the wild, but this does not mean that they will be released back into the wild – that is probably extremely rare. But here they live in outdoor enclosures that are becoming more and more natural and larger.

When standing, an adult chimpanzee is as tall as an adult human. That's pretty impressive! We are told that a male chimpanzee has the power of 5 men. The trip is absolutely worth it.

It would certainly have been nice to spend the night here yesterday, but we decide to return to Nova Africa today and enjoy the sea again.