Night at Bure...

An overnight trip to the beach. What an amazing experience. The beach itself is beautiful. But to have the beach to yourself is fantastic! On Friday there were no other beach visitors until later in the afternoon, and they only stayed briefly. It was very nice to have the beach to ourselves.

On Saturday, it was a different story. By mid morning there were 2 beach outings taking place with van loads of local people attending. Despite the large amount of people it was actually quite entertaining, and not nearly as loud as anticipated. Yes, there were loud speakers and they had music booming, but it could have been much worse! And the people themselves were quite fun to watch too- it was like a fashion show. Men with funky hats on trying to make a statement, women wearing their coolest outfits, many items of clothing that we would not be caught wearing! What variety. From men in dress pants, to African shirts, to underwear only...

We stayed overnight in a tent. Just two white girls and some Sierra Leonean guys as our guards. They actually ended up sleeping next to the fire a couple of feet away from our tent. But hopefully they would have woken up to the noise of any intruders! Maybe looking back it wasn't exactly the wisest to be on a deserted beach alone. But hey, we have to take some risks in life, right?! The guys also cooked dinner for us- baked fish and rice. It was delicious! The cook was embarassed that he showed up with the food an hour late. But hey- this is Africa. As if we were surprised. And who really watches time when they're at the beach overnight anyway?!

The most fun was on Saturday when we took the body boards out for some adventurous wave riding. The waves turned out to be fairly decent and we managed to catch some waves all the way in. At this time more and more locals were showing up, so I think us two white girls gave them quite a show on our body boards. Fun times. Late afternoon we decided it was time to head back to Freetown...taking the peninsula road...driving along the coast, enjoying some peace and quiet before the craziness of a new week.