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| Photo by Roger Diski |
It was a bouncy one-hour boat ride to Bunce Island this morning, but the island itself was fascinating. It was a slave processing factory. In one end, out the other, having been checked for health (unfit ones despatched), sorted, sold, branded and packed for transportation. All done in one compact island site, the furthest upstream that the slaver boats could go. The ruins are very atmospheric - giant baobabs, huge buttress trees, strangler figs. The slave dungeons are now inhabited by bats. Our guide is excellent - nice guy and knowledgeable on history.
The tour took an hour. Bunce Island was declared a Unesco World Heritage site in 2008 and now there is an American engineer and team about to embark on stabilizing the most crumbly bits. We met him.
Then a 45-minute boat ride to Aberdeen jetty for a reduced tour of Freetown, taking in the Cotton Tree and the new war memorial, which opened two days ago. We were told we were the first tourists to visit - they hadn't printed tickets yet! Then a few more sights - big market, quayside market, crafts market, book market, then off to the hotel.
At Country Lodge now, sitting in the veranda bar having the local beer and it's about 30ºC. Very nice.
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