Seven wonderful friends + the tallest mountain in Sierra Leone = one wonderfully beautiful weekend

What do you get when you have…very, very bad roads, bridges made of a
few tree trunks lying side by side, villages with chiefs whose
permission to pass through must be bought and paid for, thick, lush,
dense rainforest, and a raft tied together with vine to navigate a
strongly flowing river…between you and the tallest mountain in Sierra
Leone?

The most wonderfully, challenging, frustrating, painful, breathtakingly
beautiful, backpacking excursion to Mount Bintumani.

 

While in theory we were relatively prepared for most of these
adjectives, I am still pondering the range of emotions I experienced
packed into four short days.  From the awe of God’s breathtakingly
beautiful (think the island from ‘Lost’) creation, to sheer physical
exhaustion after hiking over 18 miles in one day, through more
diversely beautiful terrain than I have ever been immersed in, finally
reaching camp (aka what became a clearing after our machete bearing
hunter guide so kindly deforested an area large enough for our tent)
after hiking the last hour in the dark with headlamps that often
missed illuminating the root that is out to trip you or the branch
that pokes your eye out or the vine that seems to stretch out and grab
you from behind – and this was just day one.

The weekend painted a picture of Salone I had yet to see.  A lush
landscape of every shade of green tropical leaf and every pattern
colorfully winged butterfly you can imagine.  The beauty took my
breath away - every time I looked up from the path my feet were
attempting to follow without tripping, sliding, buckling or giving out
from beneath me.  And the night sky beamed with the brilliance of more
lights than Candy Cane Lane at Christmas time, a sight only seen when
the nearest electricity is hundreds of miles away.

 

(yes those sticks to the left...is a bridge!)

 

I discovered that the words for bridge and raft are quite relative
terms and can be used for anything that attempts to assist you in
crossing over water without getting wet – although its success in
this, is not required.  And I discovered that the strength of a Salone
teenage boy who carries a backpack filled with food and water up the
mountain I am stumbling up empty handed, is astonishing – yet does not
come free of complaints. (teenage boys are the same everywhere in the
world).  I discovered that seven white people coming to stay in your
village, which is inaccessible by motor vehicle, is probably the most
strange and curious thing to have happened in a long, long time – and
warrants spending the entire evening watching every move they make.

a raft?!

 

A few of our porters (he carried that rice on his head the whole way!)

 

'Snap me snap me!'  (they wanted a picture taken) Pikin dem at one of villages we stayed

 

Yet the weekend painted another picture of Salone I had yet to see.  A
picture of chiefdom culture.  A culture that is so far from anything
our western culture can even begin to compare to.  A culture of
hierarchical respect to be paid in currencies of money, rice and time.
Which reminds me, I have also learned never to be in a hurry – ever.
You will only always be late.

We never actually reached the top of Mount Bintamani.  Between
unplanned delays in the village, awaiting a chief’s decision of whether we
can pass through and our porters' unknown commitment to afternoon prayers, an unwelcome fever that
attempted to slow down our toughest member, and the looming threat of
the nine hour ride home (on roads that should not be called a road)
and work at 8:30am Monday morning – we cannot claim to have summitted.
 Yet while we never made it to the peak, if was a weekend filled with
more than we had set out for.

Maybe once the sore muscles relax, the bruised hips heal, the scrapes
and scratches disappear, the bug bites stop itching, and all that’s
left are the images of exquisite beauty and the ambitious drive to
summit the tallest mountain in Salone…we will toy with the idea once
again.  Until then, I am left with the masterpiece God continues to
paint of this country and its people – the masterpiece I am so
grateful He has painted me a part of.