Outamba-Kilimi

Last week was prophet Mohammad’s birthday, a national holiday. I made it a four-day weekend and went to the national park near the Guinea border with a girl friend. It was great to see up-country, although it made me want to live in a village not the city.



The travels were long and exhausting (1 hour shared taxi to Waterloo, 3 hour poda poda to Makeni, 2 hour motorbike to Kamakwie and then another motorbike with a dug out canoe river crossing to the park. Poda poda’s are the mini busses that pack 20 people inside and some on top. Motorbikes are really the way to travel, sorry mom. But seriously, it is exhilarating racing down dirt roads, the wind in your hair, the smells and sights so vibrant, you feel free and alive. As for safety, I think they are actually the best option. Taxis generally won’t drive on the roads and the poda podas are dangerous. You constantly see them broken down and on fire, not very promising. They are incredibly hot and induce a claustrophobic panic as you realize the windows are too small to squeeze out and the one door unreachable in case of emergency. Motorbikes win on all accounts.




The park was incredible. Beautiful jungle, rolling hills, rice patties, roaming river and more. We stayed in a little hut next to the river. We went on a great run through the ashen bush (hence why we look so good in the picture). Took a guided elephant walk where we saw footprints/dung and the rampant bush fires, one rapidly approaching our camp, but no elephants. All evening we could hear the fires roar, covering everything in burnt soot making us more than a little nervous. To calm down, we did midnight, moonlit pilates by the river and plotted how to commandeer the dugout and paddle to safety. Luckily the fires stopped at the main entrance sign maybe 100 feet from our love shack. We took a sunrise canoe trip down the river to see the hippos. They did not share our enthusiasm of the encounter and stared us down, coming uncomfortably close. And we saw monkeys. Tons of monkeys everywhere. At one point, I was bucket bathing in a palm showing area and looked up to see 12 monkeys playing in the tree above me. What an absolute joy!


We decided to hike the 14 miles out of the park. Leaving at noon, with minimal water (although oranges galore), through still smoldering African bush was not our greatest idea. We hiked probably 16 miles when we came to a town dehydrated and delirious and asked for a bike. Turns out we went the wrong direction and almost made it to Guinea, wups.


Made it back to town safely and with the help of rehydration salt and street food felt much better. We then managed to find a tailor at 8pm who agreed to make us dresses for the next day, we no longer had clean clothes. He showed up at our guesthouse at 3am, a bit earlier than expected but with two fun dresses (I’m wearing mine in the motor bike picture).