Liberia is a tricky customer. Crossing from Sierra Leone, the atmosphere almost instantly changes, a little as if I was having a jolly nice dinner with my Argentine relatives and then blurting out that Jude Bellingham is in fact already a far better footballer than Lionel Messi could ever hope to be a reference to islands, even in a fictional sense is not worth it. The people of Sierra Leone are famously cheerful, warm, and welcoming.
Liberia was the opposite, heading into Monrovia β the capital β the atmosphere felt menacing and aggressive, compounded by the fact that everywhere looked like a complete dump, literally. However, before arriving to the capital, the border crossing had been relatively effortless and our first night in the country saw us driving off the main road, down a dirt track, and parking up at one of the most beautiful and convenient bush camps anyone could hope to stay at.
I have a love-hate relationship with bush camps. I want to love them and in general I tend to come out the other side relatively unscathed, yet I am always uncomfortable in the knowledge that I am likely to need the bathroom.
What made this particular bush camp so great was that we had arrived in plenty of time, around 4pm, and it felt like we were the only ones in the region, completely hidden in an apparently never-ending network of bush land and trees. Having little to do I popped a paracetamol, dug into the electrolytes, and smashed four litres of water while helping the cook group prepare dinner amongst the fireflies.
Typically, I finally peed in the middle of the night, not that it was a bad night to be awake under the stars. Awake again at 6am, it was a pure joy to watch the sunrise through a placid, lingering mist holding back the heat and chaos that was about to hit us. On arrival to Monrovia we drove through rammed market streets where everything was exactly as can be expected of a West African capital, but more extreme; litter is piled up everywhere, dumps casually rise above the umbrellas of market stalls that are piled high with cheap goods from China, much of it wrapped in single use plastic.
