The Banana Islands!

This last weekend I joined up with a group of people from the ship and traveled to the Banana Islands, off the coast of Sierra Leone.  It was quite an adventure!  We left saturday morning and flagged down a podapoda (the local public transport; a 12 passenger van where you squeeze as many people in as you can).  After much bartering we were on our way to the town of Kent to catch our boat to the island.  About a half hour into our trip we are pulled over by the police, we sat there for awhile until they told us why we had been pulled over.  Our driver did not have a drivers license (fantastic!).  Our driver paid whichever fee is required and we were on our way again.

We arrived in Kent and were greeted by a man named Dalton who was to take us across to the islands.  We all piled into this wooden boat and waited... and waited.  Our motor did not seem to be working.  After a few attempts to fix this motor they obtained another.  This one thankfully worked, and we traversed the beautiful ocean to Banana Island.

When we landed it was as if we landed in paradise on a secluded Island, which is quite a change from the chaos of free town.  We passed through the local village of tin huts and arrived at Dalton's guesthouse where we were to be staying.  There was a cool treehouse and thatched huts for us to stay in.  After eating a quick bite for lunch we put our swimsuits on and went for a swim in the ocean.  It felt very nice after our hot, sweaty journey to the Island.  After the swim we went for a hike through the Island to see what we could see.  We spent 3-4 hours wandering through the trails looking at the ocean, pretty plants and hearing cool birds.  That evening for dinner Dalton cooked us a wonderful dinner of fish rice, couscous, pasta with red sauce, and mango for desert.  It was very tasty.  After dinner we built a bonfire on the beach, roasted s'mores, played games and sang songs.

We got to bed around midnight and this is where the real excitement began.  At first it was very hot and humid inside our hut, but from looking at the sky earlier we knew that a storm could be headed our way. We were right, the rain began to fall the the wind began to blow.  It was quite loud so I thought it may be hard to sleep but at least we are dry, but then we began to feel a few drops of rain... then a few more... then a downpour.  We looked up and noticed that the wind had blown part of our tarp roof off and the rain was pouring straight onto our bed,  The rest of the room was dry, but our bed was soaked.  We surveyed our options and there was no other place to sleep.  So we took our mattress of the bed onto the dry part of the room, put my poncho on the mattress, because it was soaked, a towel on top of that and then we slept.  Or tried to sleep, the storm was still loud and I was beginning to get cold because of being so wet.

Walk to Dalton's Guest House

The tree house

Sign on steps into the tree house

Cool Tree on our Hike

Our room before

The sunset

Our room after the storm

Watching the storm arrive

When morning came the storm had stopped, the roof had blown back to its original place.  The only evidence of a storm was our wet mattress on the floor.  The rest of the morning was quite relaxing as we had a great breakfast of omelete and bread, read, and played games.

The boat ride back was uneventful and the only issue with the podapoda was that he didn't show up.  We had asked that he come back the next day at 2, but I guess he decided not to.  Either way we were able to call another driver who picked us up in about an hour.  I was definitely ready for a shower and my bed when we got back.  But is was a very fun and exciting weekend.

It is back to work this week as my only day off this weeks is wednesday and I start working nights this weekend.