Because of the visa delays we are behind schedule again. Thus, six o’clock departure, in the dark, and it wouldn’t surprise me if Alonso is going to push for arriving in Freetown tonight, usually a two-day trip. Driving through Monrovia early morning, the rubbish everywhere is striking This entire city looks like a shanty town, … Read more
This trip is quickly bleeding to death. We already don’t refer to it as an expedition anymore, this is a walk in the park, with rather too many rest days. We are supposed to go to The Gambia afterwards, to recover from a strenuous journey, but by the time we arrive, we will be well … Read more
Our second day in Monrovia. We check out the second-best tourist site, the equally derelict Edwin J. Roye building. This was the former headquarters of the True Whig Party, the political party that has dominated Liberian politics for over a hundred years, until the 1980 coup d’état. Perhaps the only skyscraper in town, built in … Read more
Monrovia It is Easter Sunday. What better way to spend the morning at mass in the catholic? I see some of you frowning. I mean mass in an African cathedral, the Sacred Heart cathedral of Monrovia, and let me tell you, that is a whole different experience. Sure, we need to stand up regularly, more … Read more
After having cleared the border yesterday, we had our first Liberia lesson. We slept in probably the worst, yet also the most overpriced hotel, of the trip so far, outside the town of Sanniquellie. Everything is ridiculously expensive, in Liberia. Not only hotels, a drink, a meal – they beat European prices, without ever coming … Read more
Some Liberia history Not much is known about the early history of what is now Liberia, located at the fringes of the great West African empires further inland, like the early Ghana, Mali and Songhai empires. As always, it was the Portuguese who were the first Western power to arrive, in 1462; they called the … Read more