‘If you cross this line you may be engaged by fire’, read the sign behind the barbed wire fence. It was almost dark and I had no idea where to sleep the night. “Salaam Aleikum”, I called out to a soldier looking down at me from a watchtower. “Aleikum Salaam” came the reply.

I was outside a Pakistani UN compound some 120km from Monrovia and looking for a safe spot to pitch my tent. A short distance back down the road the overweight proprietress of a roadside restaurant had refused me permission to camp, preferring instead that I take a room. The place had no electricity or running water. She wanted $50 and wasn’t very interested in bargaining.

The sushi was surprisingly good. Not cheap, but then sushi never is. A healthy dose of natsukashii as they say in Japan. As was the game of squash preceding it. Not a bad way to spend yesterday evening.Who would have thought that Liberia had a squash club? The annual tournament winners board dates back to 1976, but since 1995 the names no longer appear. Playing squash probably didn’t figure in the minds of many club-members when gun-fire ruled the streets of Monrovia.

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“To the casual visitor at any rate Monrovia is a more pleasant city than Freetown. Freetown is like an old trading port that has been left to rot along the beach, it is a spectacle of decay. But Monrovia is like a beginning.” (Graham Greene: Journey without maps)  Read more... (450 words, 1 image, estimated 1:48 mins reading time)

“It would have been easier if I had been able to obtain a map. But the republic is almost entirely covered by forest and has never been properly mapped, mapped that is to say even to the rough extent of the French colonies, which lie on two sides of it”. (Graham Greene: Journey without maps)  Read more... (864 words, 1 image, estimated 3:27 mins reading time)

At this time of year a day without rain in Freetown is a rare one. The clouds don’t so much as roll in off the ocean, but hang ominously over the mountainous peninsula like a dark dirty blanket, capable of soaking the city and its overpopulated residents at any given moment. There is no longer any thunder or lightning display as a pre-warning, and the question is not so much if it will rain in the day, but when.  Read more... (1695 words, 11 images, estimated 6:47 mins reading time)

Approximately 300km east of Freetown lies the village of Sahn. Like most villages in Sierra Leone it has no running water or electricity. Many people living  here survive through subsistence farming, (rice and cassava) and for the lucky, repatriated money sent from relatives working in larger towns or cities.

Malaria is prevalent, particularly now during the rainy season, but for most people paying $5 for a mosquito net (much more if they wish to buy one for every sleeping space in their house) is simply too costly. Millions of people in Africa die from malaria every year. Bed-nets are the most cost-effective means of preventing the disease.  Read more... (771 words, 11 images, estimated 3:05 mins reading time)

The open-thatched stalls were almost empty when I arrived in Sierra Leone. Mr Camara, the immigration officer whose name I’d been instructed to ask for at yet another bamboo border post, explained the weekly market had been quieter than normal. “People are afraid to come across from Guinea because of the elections. How is it there?”  Read more... (1319 words, 5 images, estimated 5:17 mins reading time)

Leaving Guinea required some patience. The border was closed, at least according to one immigration officer. I found him lying on a wooden bench under the shade of a mango tree. Several metres away a bamboo pole acted as a barrier across the dirt track. This was the end of the road for Guinea. And whilst the country waited to hear the results of its Presidential elections I apparently would not be allowed to cross into Sierra Leone.  Read more... (555 words, 3 images, estimated 2:13 mins reading time)

Half-way to Cape Town yet? Unless I start pedalling a much straighter route, which is usually far less fun, I can confidently say no. Guinea Bissau, where my speedometer ticked over 10,000km recently, does not appear to be equal distance from England and South Africa. The distance I’ve come does however provide a good opportunity to review the gear that’s got me here. What has lasted, been replaced or sent home. It’s not an exhaustive critique, and if the words Rolhoff, Schwalbe and Ortlieb appear all too unpronounceable, you may wish to stop reading now.

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Greetings from Guinea. This post, like the previous one, has been written from my hotel room in the town of Labe. There is Internet connection here, albeit very slow, which is the first I’ve come across since leaving Bissau two weeks ago. Not in the hotel I should note. I’m surprised there is even electricity. There isn’t much of the time. My room and the rest of the hotel give the impression that there have been very few people staying here in recent months. It has that musty airless smell of an attic. If there ever was a cleaner, he or she has not been working for a while. A family of large cockroaches has moved in during the interim. Most have now disappeared under my foot, except the largest, who is particularly nimble. I realised last night he is actually a mouse.  Read more... (1350 words, 4 images, estimated 5:24 mins reading time)