Tag Archives: Africa

As I get out of the 4WD I’m confronted by a succession of surprising scenes: a child perched on a broken television set; another toasting a lizard on a stick over flickering yellow flames; a huge elephant slumped forlornly on its chin; and, er, what appears to be a lion wearing football shorts, carrying a wooden shack on its back and emitting a striking beam of red light from its jaws.

Nic raises a hand and ushers us into single file behind a tall, thick-trunked tree. I reason that maybe the feisty bull elephant won’t catch our scent like this. Perhaps he just won’t see us — although surely those big ears must register the seemingly deafening crackle of leaves under my boots.

A swooping scream comes from above. The call of the indri sounds like an angry whale: haunting and very loud. Looking up into the canopy, I make out several black and white shapes before a male appears just 30ft above me, stares intently at my dubious trekking gear, and relieves himself right above my head. I shimmy sideways to avoid the downpour.

“Are you comfortable?” the gentleman next to me asks.

“Are you being ironic?” I reply, with perhaps a little too much resentment in my voice.

Nothing can quite prepare you, or your body, for riding the top of a truck in northern Kenya.

“THE first time you see Africa, it breaks your heart,” says Klaus. “Then you spend the rest of your life picking up the pieces.” The poetic German pilot can be forgiven his flight of fancy, partly because I believe it’s true, partly because of the view.

Bo, Sierra Leone

YOU can tell a lot about a country from its airport.  Lungi International, stranded a wide river mouth away from Sierra Leone’s capital of Freetown, is at first sight a steamy, chaotic mess. The crowded baggage area – much smaller than it seems to need to be – blazes with the colours of bright fabrics and brighter chatter.

Time passes in fits and starts as odd bags arrive erratically from the aircraft sitting a short distance away on the tarmac. In the meantime I am entertained by women hawking sim cards, men selling water taxi rides to Freetown and by my fellow passengers.