medical student friend, Feia, and two of the Health Unlimited field
officers, Samuel and Alusine. The park's about an hour and a half
north of Kamakwie by motorbike. We were all worried about Samuel as he
had raging malaria!
We'd hoped for hippos but everyone said that they all move away from
the river in rainy season. But the canoe ride was fun! Good work out
paddling against the strong current, and happily whiled away the time
singing row row row your boat :) Certainly not quite as fun as the
rafting on the Nile last year!
The whole tourist set up was burned by the rebels during the war. The
decaying stone ruins look reminiscent of the temples at Angkor Wat.
Not because of its architecture, but the way the nooks and crannies
were occupied by plants and green mossy stuff. The replacement tourist
huts were built using DFID (Department for International Development
from the UK), and were all partially submerged in a flash flood a few
days earlier... Uh oh.
We were the second lot of visitors in 2 months as the rainy season
makes the ferry crossing difficult and the roads are fairly jarring.
Plus, the animals all bugger off. In the dry season, one can
supposedly see hippos, elephants, chimps, all sorts of monkeys,
crocodiles, and a hell of a lot of other visiting ex pat tourists from
Freetown. We did come across monkeys at the camp who took to throwing
things down at us from the trees!
There used to be more animals according to Daio, the park ranger. Many
were killed by the rebels for bushmeat, an activity which has now
continued. The consumption of monkey meat is the best theory we have
about the origin of HIV. I wonder what other nasties await us.
--
James Chan
--
e: james.chan.uk@gmail.com
t: +44 (0)7886 237 501
b: jamesonelective.blogspot.com
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