West Africa - 2007/2008

RichardSines

New member
Hi -

First post on the forum. I am new to Overlanding, but I wanted to share a past adventure I had. Over the course of 6-7 months from 2007 to 2008, I traveled to West Africa three times for between two and three weeks per trip. I was working for a small company doing some field recon for mining companies. I hadn't realized it at the time (I was 24), but it was a great adventure. My only regret was not taking enough pictures or notes. The first trip was to Guinea where we drove way upcountry. I found driving on African roads to be nightmarishly slow. The roads were full of potholes and cattle. Later in the trip we did a spur of the moment international border crossing. We drove round trip from Conakry, Guinea to Freetown, Sierra Leone. The intensity of those crossings are difficult to explain, but I am happy to have experienced it. We made two more trips to Freetown where we made multi-day trips to upcountry towns Kenema and Bo. We never camped, but looking back, it would have been smarter than the shady roadside hotels we found. Traveling to Sierra Leone was life changing for me. I am happy to have experienced it, but don't see any reason to return.

Looking forward to searching the boards.
-Richard

PS, I will resize these photos and re-upload later. I didn't realize they were so large...

attachment.php


attachment.php


attachment.php


attachment.php


attachment.php


attachment.php


attachment.php


attachment.php


attachment.php


attachment.php
 
Last edited:

RichardSines

New member
What were they digging for? Diamonds?

Yes, in those photos they were mining for diamonds. The diamond mines attracted a lot of subsistence farmers out of their fields. This was a gamble for easy money that created a shortage of local food. In the presence of larger industrialized mines, the local artisanal miners would dig all around the boundaries of the properties or down stream in hopes of finding a diamond. Folks carried diamonds in their wallets. Risky business. Small scale mine managers would buy diamonds off artisanal miners to funnel through their mine to increase production numbers and get Kimberly certificates for export, etc. Raw diamonds carry a lot of risk before they are cut and examined, which means there is money being made on each transaction. Gold mining is different. The hand miners in Guinea knew the price of gold and would sell at near market value. Finding the gold was were the money was at.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

RichardSines

New member
There were other contrasts between Guinea and Sierra Leone worth mentioning. Guinea was French and they retained a lot of the culinary traditions as well as the language. Sierra Leone's British influence is apparent in its roads and government. It's easier to communicate since they speak English in SL. The fall out from the civil war was still very visible when I was there. Lots of troops (some without magazines in their rifles). Sadly, there were many many young people with missing limbs as you might expect. It's one thing to see on tv, but it's another to interact with them. I made it a personal policy not to give to beggars because I was told it reinforces the behavior. Very hard to do when a 20 year old is missing a leg sitting in a chair in unimaginable heat and humidity in a crowded city.

Neither country was particularly camera friendly, especially the cities. In general people did not appreciate being photographed without compensation and there was no unique architecture to speak of. Situational awareness was key and walking around with a camera was distracting.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
These are great photos, especially for being from 2007, very cool to see. Have you watched the movie Blood Diamond? It takes place in all the locations you mentioned: Conakry, Guinea, Freetown, and I think some Monrovia as well.
 

tomammi

Banned
SC_4Runner these photos are really nice. The first photo is great who show that country's person's daily life. so all photos are great knowledge show for all viewers. how the people's working in there. Area information and many more interesting things who's want to visit there. These photos are informative for visit lovers.
 

Forum statistics

Threads
185,529
Messages
2,875,555
Members
224,922
Latest member
Randy Towles
Top