Thursday 30th and Friday 31st October

Thursday 30th

We awoke to the sound of the alarm at 3.30am.....less than happy. However, with a bus to catch, and the thought of Freetown ahead of us; we were out of the “Sahara” hotel door by 4am. After a short walk through the darkened streets of Bo we reached the bus and clambered aboard. By the grace of god, the seats we’d reserved were, in fact, still reserved and we soon collapsed at the front of the very cramped bus. Surprisingly the journey was uneventful. We weren’t hassled, weren’t bothered, and we reached our beloved Freetown by 10.30am. The highlight of the journey for me was my inspirational decision to swap seats with Parksy before we left Bo. In true African fashion, the woman sitting opposite Iain had four or so roosters in a plastic bag. At day break, the cocks crowed, we both experienced that one. Yet throughout the journey, the bag and its contents smelled absolutely rank. I was by a window with a constant supply of sweet fresh air, Parksy on the other hand, wasn’t.
Absolutely shattered by the journey we set about settling back into casa de Parks before Mark, fresh from his two day holiday at Lakka beach, rustled up a Cameroonian delicacy for dinner. Awesome!

Friday 31st

Official school work won’t begin again until our trip to Bo in 10 days, so I’m afraid, you’ll all have to prepare yourselves for some blogging which primarily involves relaxing, chillaxing, and pre-dominantly hitting the beach Parks and Loz style. Control all jealousy please!
Friday morning was a relaxed one (surprise surprise) and we spent it at home, sorting out the lodge and preparing for Mark’s departure after lunch. Once we’d said our goodbyes to Mark, for the second time in a month, myself and Parksy set off on a stroll across Freetown to meet Katie – an American NGO banker who we’d met a few days earlier in Bo. We indulged ourselves with a few beers over lunch at Cafe de la Rose, one of our Freetown haunts, before Katie arrived at 1pm. A wonderful meal was had, good company, good HOT food, and most importantly a good amount of beer consumed in true “British style” by myself and Parks. Katie had a diet coke. Katie if you read this, we both hope you arrived back to London safely.
After a few more beers, a long walk home, a deep and meaningful discussion about the problems in Sierra Leone (inspired by my “failure of democracy” theory) and, of course, some Uno, and we were both in need of a long, long sleep to catch up on those hours missed two nights previously.