An afternoon in paradise

We get on the phone and strike a deal with the Hotel Bintumani, Freetown’s best. A special NGO rate of only $10 dollars more per night means that we will now hopefully get the few days relaxation we were after. The Bitumani sends a car and we pack up again. On arrival we find an enormous hotel that wouldn’t be out of place in Lanzarote. Slightly run down and seemingly empty, it is clean and is near the helicopter pad, so we congratulate ourselves on our wise decision.

Of course things don’t go smoothly here for more than a few minutes and another storm in a teacup arrives. We phone Astraeus, our airline to confirm our flights only to discover we should have done it last week in person and we are now only on standby. Greg is all for booking the first flight to Europe, but Moses visits the office and pleads our case to the management. A mixture of the fact we were in the bush and couldn’t turn up, combined with what we suspect was Moses begging them to take us off his hands, is successful. Another crisis diverted and we can hit the beach.

The Freetown peninsular has some of West Africa’s most beautiful beaches and for some reason I had imagined driving along a wide promenade with the beach on one side and palm trees on the other. How silly. On the road to Kambia, when you leave the tarmac surface of the West African highway for roads that resemble a four-wheel drive practice circuit, Murray jokes that you are leaving Africa and entering Sierra Leone. The peninsular road is pure Sierra Leone with some of the worst potholes and craters we encountered.

After maybe an hour we turn down a rubbish strewn lane to a car park, and come across the most beautiful beach I have ever seen. A long sweeping bay of white sand and lush vegetation, Lakka beach is sheltered by high hills and virtually deserted. Our guidebook fleetingly mentions a place called the Hard Rock Cafe, an amazingly quaint shack on some rocks serving local fish and chips. Greg and I tuck into chip butties whilst the others eat fresh Barracuda, we drink star beer and unwind. The afternoon sees us sunbathing and swimming in the warmest sea I have ever encountered. Bliss.

As we leave, the friendly owner of the Hard Rock Cafe shows us her guest rooms. Clean and modestly furnished rooms looking over the bay for approx £4 a night. Next time I bet James avoids Freetown altogether and heads straight to Lakka beach.