Sierra Leone is a small country – a little smaller than South Carolina and a little bigger than West Virginia. It is bordered to the southeast by Liberia and by Guinea to the north. Sierra Leone derives its name from the Lion Mountains near its capital, Freetown. Originally named Serra Leoa (Portuguese for 'lioness mountains') by Portuguese explorer Pedro de Sintra in 1462, the modern name is derived from the Venetian spelling, which was introduced by Venetian explorer Alvise Cadamosto and subsequently adopted by other European mapmakers.

sl-02 I will cover the history of Sierra Leone with my next blog about Freetown. Today we visited Tokeh Beach. It is south of Freetown. The major economic activity in Tokeh is fishing and tourism. The opening of The Place Tokeh Village got worldwide attention & recognition when an Australian businessman Mr. Chris Brown who was also associated with London Mining opened his luxurious 5-star beach resort by the name of The Place in 2013. It is probably the only true 5-star resort in Sierra Leone. The Place resort, under the guidance of Mr. Chris Brown built a dam which supplies water to The Place resort & Tokeh community, built a school worth US$40,000, which is known as the Kulafai school, supplied schools & the hospital with furniture and medicines as a part of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Apart from that, the majority of employees work at The Place Resort and regular training is conducted to engage youth & females from the community.

Today was our first zodiac landing on the beach. I am glad I thought to bring my water shoes that I used in the Galapagos. It was not mentioned anywhere in our pre-cruise packing suggestions and several people did not have any footwear for a wet landing. Of course they had water shoes for sale in the boutique. I was going on the bird walk so I brought my hiking shoes with me and changed on the beach.

The ship paid for the immigration officials to come the night before from Freetown and stay in this beautiful resort. But apparently, they did not want to leave their beautiful rooms too early because it took forever to clear immigration so instead of leaving at 7:30 am, we left at 9 am. So of course, by that time it was sunny, hot and humid. It didn’t take long before I was soaked through with sweat. Again, we were divided up into groups of 20 – too many for bird watching/photography. And it’s hard to do much photography with dedicated birders with only binoculars. They are happy with a tiny bird 100 yards away. But it’s impossible to get a photo. I eventually returned to the beachfront and didn’t get the village tour. This is all I got for the morning.

A hornbill

A heron

 A Malachite kingfisher

A white-throated bee-eater

A great egret

And a pied kingfisher

Kids are always cute no matter where you are in the world.

The ship had rented a large section of the beach in front of the resort for us with chairs and tables under the trees. There was a welcome breeze. Waiters came around with cold drinks – that beer was delicious!!!

They had a cultural show for us. I was too lazy to get up and get photos up close. Tried to take some with my telephoto but this big, fat, shirtless man kept standing up in front of me. Oh well, still too lazy to get up.

Locals on the beach

After I finished my beer I came back to the ship. Washed off my sandy shoes in the mud room before coming into my room. I was going to go to lunch but so soaked through, decided I had to have a shower first. Then I took my sweaty clothes to the laundry room. Three washers and three driers (that hardly dry your clothes) is just not enough for 245 people. Some, who have over 100 days sailing with SilverSea can get their laundry done for free but the rest of us have to fight for the machines.

There was going to be a unique soccer game played for us on shore, but the thought of going back and getting soaked in sweat again just did not appeal. The reason the soccer game is so special is that all the players are missing at least one leg and the goalie must be missing at least one hand too. Why so many amputees: From 1991-2002, Sierra Leone had a brutal civil war. 75,000 were killed, there were 500,000 refugees and 4.5 million were displaced. If anyone objected or were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, the rebels would cut off people’s hands (so they couldn’t hold a gun or vote) or cut off a leg to terrorize everyone else. Young children were forced to join the rebels. They were forced to perform these atrocities or be killed themselves. Many were given drugs and became addicts, then were forced to kill their parents. 1,000’s were horribly maimed in the war. Diamonds were illegally mined and used to buy weapons – blood diamonds.

Those who went to the soccer game said it was a lot of fun and very inspiring. The locals were enjoying the game as much as our passengers.

I’ll add some photos from the web so you can see what it is about.

And a couple of videos. One is very low resolution, but it sadly tells the story. The other one was taken on another SilverSea cruise - they played in Freetown on that cruise while this year they came and played on the beach