Sierra Leone

Crossing the boarder from Guinea and the changes seemed to be large; Au revoir francais, hello English language (& undecipherable creole dialect). The road was tarmaced (EU funded) with road signs and the use of paint including a line down the centre of the road! The people less excited or joyful to see us as we drive past (young children excepted), the houses square, plastered and corrugated iron roofs.
But once we turned onto the dirt tracks we were back into the thatched villages and the double handed waves.  The aim was to visit some waterfalls and a damn providing around a third of the countries electricity at Bumbuna, but unfortunately after an abortive attempt to drive along the small road to the falls we were told to visit the chief for permission.  The chief was angry at our lack of stamped tourist papers & told us to be on our way so game over for the damn.

Abortive attempt at Bumbuna

Dinnner audience 

But we did get to stay the night at the transport site for the iron ore quarry - a potential cornerstone of one of Sierra Leone's exports for the foreseeable future.  The mountain they started mining last year is expected to take 70-90 years to mine & level it to the ground.  At present there are 4,000 people employed with at least 2,000 ex-pats from around the world.  They manage to produce around 18,000 tonnes a day which is then taken by train to the port, transferred from small boats to a big boat and then onto India for processing.  This arrangement means approximately 75% of the profit is also exported, and ends up in india.

Camping in a container yard

Ore-some train

We were lucky however when it came to crossing the train tracks, it must be the longest train I've ever seen; as the front end disappeared into the distance the carriages kept on coming