Bruges food

Traditional beef stew in beer...yuuuuum

Yi

Tiwai Island

Tiwai means "Big Island," and it's the largest inland island in Sierra Leone.  It's a natural forest reserve, so it's meant for white people, so it's super expensive (relatively - $20/night).  There are these platforms with a roof where they set up tents for you with mattresses in side and there are solar lights at night with running water/bucket showers, so it's pretty cush camping.  

The island itself is surrounded by the Mao River. Here's a funny convo about it:

Guide: "Do you know what Mao means?"

Us: "No..."

Guide: "It means women"

Us: "Why?"

Guide: "Because it is dangerous"

Haha, anyways, the main activities include guided hikes in the forest to look at animals, canoeing/boating, and hanging out on the beach.  Since it's the dry season, the water was super low, and it was really nice to be able to swim from one bank to another or relax on the sand.  I think I have a hard time relaxing because while others were laying down, reading a book, or doing something that requires zero energy, I was jumping from rock to rock and swimming from bank to bank.  

The guided hike was pretty cool.  We saw red colobus monkeys, black and white colobus monkeys, diana monkeys, tracks of duikers and chimpanzees, saw hornbill birds who have the weirdes calls (like a low rumble) heard some kind of hog, and saw glimpses of chimpanzees.  The chimpanzee tracking was a lot of fun - we went off the trail deep into the forest and had to be super quite, although I'm pretty sure any chimp would have heard us from miles away.  It was pretty amazing to be standing there and hear them yell at each other.  It seemed like they were so close, but by the time we moved 100 ft closer, they've already gone 1 km away.  I'm not even sure if I saw any chimpanzees because they were so far away and I just saw some black blobs.  

They served us breakfast and dinner too, so it was a major relaxation trip. 

Dinner - Le15,000

Breakfast - Le10,000 (totally overpriced for what we got).  

Guided tour $4 (Le20,000/person)

Canoe Le10,000/person