The border crossing of Jendema (SL)-Bo Waterside (Liberia) is full of bribe stories on iOverlander. People being asked for money for not having a visa sticker but a visa stamp in their passport in Sierra Leone, for not having meningitis or cholera vaccination in their yellow vaccination card.
And here I am, with a stamp in my passport and no meningitis vaccination but with cholera vaccine.
My breakfast was three hard-boiled eggs and double nescafé.
After that I took a walk towards the border. It’s not even a kilometre. There were pieces of trash on the road. I had noticed that the previous day. Normally the villages are quite clean and well-swept (I have an impression people burn trash here) but towards Jendema we passed a village or two with garbage all over.
On the Salone border side I went into a room where I got passport stamped. Then I went into a health check room where I was registered in a big notepad. No questions asked but I felt buoyant and asked the health man about yellow fever vaccine. It’s now apparently valid for lifetime but my yellow card still says expiry date 2021. He said yes, now the vaccine is valid for lifetime. Oh well.
After the health check some men stopped me for baggage check but when they heard I’m from Poland, Lewandowski did the job for me and we fist bumped and I left without having my bags opened.
Across the bridge and welcome to Liberia.
First stop, a shack covered by USAid plastic bags serving as both roof and walls. My passport is checked and registered. It’s a bit tedious procedure each time. I have to enter the shack. For this I have to take off the backpack. Put it down on the ground. Enter the shack. Take a seat. Wait for passport registered. Which part of Monrovia are you going to? I have no idea. I say St Theresa Convent. Everyone seems to know St Theresa. It’s the only budget accommodation in town.
Then across the road to the immigration building. I repeat the steps above three times. First immigration – they tell me St Theresa is on UN Drive in Monrovia. Then I take a walk to health post – the elderly woman doesn’t even open my yellow card. Then I walk out of her room and go behind a corner to security check.
No questions asked, no money taken. I’m lucky again. Free to go I walk towards transport. It’s a yellow taxi, nissan. I’m the first passenger. It’s 600L$ to Monrovia + 200L$ for baggage.
I changed the money in Sierra Leone, 5,000le gets 90L$, 1US$ gets 165L$. The highest denomination is 500L$ but I get many 100 and 50L$ notes. Liberia uses both Liberian and American dollars. I change 200$ and I manage to get rid of two 2006 notes (the “old” ones).
I go and look for a SIM card. I was in Monrovia before, for MTN so I thought I should buy MTN. But no, MTN lost coverage of the border town everyone says and I should buy Cellcom which is now Orange. The SIM card is 5USD, which is much, but… Internet is cheap! 1usd for 1GB if valid for a week. Yay! Before I can even recharge the SIM card I have to go and cut it. The SIM cards are of the ancient size, used in old phones. Cutting the SIM takes place in a different shop and costs 50lrd.
Back to the transport, we are waiting and there are four more passengers. The transport people try to talk me into paying for two seats. “It’s not because you’re a white man we are asking so.” Yeah, right. And I decide to indulge myself. I tell the man I’ll take two seats if I’m not paying for the bags. He lowers the price to 100lrd for the bag. I don’t budge. He finally calls me a crook and agrees to make the bags free. Ha!
I still don’t know how two people fit into the one front seat of the Nissan. I barely fit, my seat pushed forward. We passed posters telling drivers not to put two passengers on a front seat but the driver ignored me when I pointed them to him.
The road to Monrovia is 160kms, over 3 hours of driving + time spent in checkpoints.
The first checkpoint was quite soon after we left. We get out of the car, we enter the building, we get our passports registered. Then back in the car another man materialises and says we have to get our luggage checked. So – bags out of the car and into the building. The women travelling with me even get their handbags checked. But my bags are boring – even though I have a thick stash of Liberian dollars in a plastic bag in them, and I get waived. Back in car I ask the driver how many more like this. He says one. There were two.
Next checkpoint the driver gets into a verbal fight with the checkpoint people, not sure about what. We get off, get passports inspected, back in the car.
Third checkpoint was a different one. Only my passport was registered and we had to walk through a narrow gate on the roadside where there was a soldier in full armour and a gun. Scary looking but I pitied him in this heat.
Next police check. The driver wants to drive, they stop him, verbal fight. From what I understand the does not have a driver licence on him! They somehow let him go.
Next police check. The driver ignores everyone telling him to pull car aside, they all throw themselves at a car, verbal fight, we pull over and stand on a dirt behind the police car. It has a sticker “don’t bribe the police!”. All drivers approach it with a banknote in hand.
Next is MOT checkpoint. I understand it is some sort of technical checkpoint, to see whether the car is road worthy. They allow us to go.
Just before Monrovia another MOT checkpoint, this time the driver escapes even though of course everyone is shouting at him to stop.
The car wasn’t road worthy. Just before the final stop we stopped to let one passenger out and the engine died and wouldn’t start. The driver said it’s “engine hot”.
I got off and stopped a tuktuk. 10kms to St Theresa, $5 negotiated down to a bit less than $4, 600Lrd. We hit a bridge leading to downtown and the next 300m we negotiate in 40mins. Even the driver starts complaining.
St Theresa is a godsent in otherwise a very expensive city (and country) for accommodation. The room with shared bathroom (“we have water tank problem so only bucket showers”) is $20. Room with own shower is $40. Next in line are hotels with rooms over $100. And it seems to be like that all over Liberia.
Though there is really little information. The only guidebook that exists is Lonely Planet on West Africa. It has 12 pages on Liberia. Twelve. The Rough Guide was issued in 2008 where there was troubles in Liberia so they didn’t cover the country. And Lonely Planet is a lousy superficial type of guidebook. But it’s the only one here so I guess it makes it the best.
Even in a holy place that is the St Theresa Compound – there is school on the grounds and a hand-pumped water well – what reminds people of Poland is not our pope but Lewandowski.
The room is small but bright and very clean and there is 24 hour electricity. I think I had 24 hours electricity last time in Senegal.
The receptionist doesn’t want Liberian dollars, American only.
I planned to stay one night only in Monrovia (plan dismissed) so I went on to look for post office. I walked towards Main Post Office where I was told they don’t have stamps but the General Post Office does. It’s in Ministry of Post and Telecommunications building. I walk there. Surprisingly the streets are going up and down in downtown Monrovia. It’s hot, the streets are one big market.
I enter GPO 10mins before they close. Again, a woman inna counter directs me to another woman in another counter who directs me to the back of the counters and there in what looks like an office a man sells post stamps. He also sells postcards! It’s a dollar for card and two for a stamp. I have in my pocket postcards from Bissau but I won’t pass on opportunity of getting Liberian postcards. The man says I can stay and write them onsite, he works till later anyway. I write and he puts the stamps on them.
After post office – food. Lonely Planet mentions one place where food doesn’t cost US$10+ so I go there. It no longer exists but there is another restaurant on the same street, I take rice with cassava leaves, 400lrd, it’s very tasty and spicy. I drink a local lager, 180lrd per bottle.
In the restaurant I look at my bank account and see that the three cash withdrawals (!) in India have been confirmed by my bank. I call them, it requires a claim of course. I wonder, it’s cash withdrawals, can it be done without a pin? I heard stories of such back at home and all I remember is that big it’s done using card’s security pin number, the banks don’t recognise it as valid claim. Eish, let’s see.
I walk back to St Theresa. I buy water, which wasn’t first easy to find but there are Lebanese supermarkets around.
In the evening I go out to a bar around the corner. It’s a nice place, an audience outside the fence watches football played on the bar TV. I have some Guinness, 280lrd per bottle, I’m the only customer there.
There is a lot of barbed wire in Monrovia. St Theresa has top of its wall carpeted with glass shards. It’s maybe a hundred meters from the beach. The street on which St Theresa sits, is dark and empty, there are some boys practicing dancing. I have a curfew at midnight.
Coming back to Maman 