Guinea Up and Go Conakrazy

I went to Conakry, the capital of Guinea, which borders Sierra Leone. It's less than 100 miles from here, but a world apart. Guinea is a former French colony, so they speak French and there's an amazing cafe where we enjoyed a $20 buffet. That's more than twice my daily budget here, but oh boy was it worth it. The music is great there -- we went to a jazz bar one night and ended up hanging out with the band. I traveled with 4 Canadian journalists, 2 Irish teachers, 1 Scottish doctor, and a partridge in a pear tree. Strangely enough, we went largely unnoticed in the streets. White people just aren't such a big deal there. A nice change from Sierra Leone.

Guinea is a dictatorship and they're not afraid to show it. Mean-looking soldiers with big guns greeted us as soon as we crossed the border, examined our passports and immunization records at late-night checkpoints in town, and collected countless bribes from our poor taxi drivers. We somehow escaped Guinea without paying a single bribe. Luckily they weren't very persistent with their demands. Just say no.

We rented a house at the Catholic Mission in Conakry. For whatever reason, they have a crocodile. See that door? Yeah, it's held shut with a bit of twine. Not what you want to see when your bedroom is just around the corner. Above is one of our shaky attempts to feed the thing.

This insane tree climber picked mangoes and dropped them into a big sack that I held at the bottom. He was probably 40 feet high. I knew my time as a left fielder would pay off someday.

We took this boat to a small island and the man above was a constant source of entertainment. He belted out religious songs in French and wouldn't let us touch the water (much less swim) because the devil would get us. Here he's practicing his English by reading our guidebook. Rachael and random guy on the right look very impressed.

Goodnight, Conakry.