One Heck Of A Ride

108 Liberia And Its Duikers would not be able to take any part of the animal home. Holdsworth had a similar bucket list, and both of us would hunt with shotguns. (Rifles were not allowed.) Toppence said his goal was to be the first foreign hunter to collect a forest duiker with a longbow. For some reason, we didn’t leave for camp the next morning. Instead, we went shopping and toured the city. I was surprised to see dozens of leopard skins in the open-air markets. There also were stores for tourists, but we were their only shoppers. I bought Marty gold earrings and a matching necklace from an Arab goldsmith who was making rings and jewelry using designs from a book. The set was beautifully crafted and depicted a typical Liberian native woman with a pinched hairstyle. The next day, Banks and one of his employees loaded the five of us and all our gear into two four- wheel-drive vehicles and we set off on a fourteen- hour, 225-mile drive southwest to his camp above the Sinoe River on the western border of Sapo National Park. Although it was the dry season in Liberia, “dry” is a misnomer in West Africa where it rains nearly every day throughout the year. It onlymeans a period of less rainfall. It was unbelievably hot and humid, and it rained off and on throughout our trip that first day. Quagmires and pools of standing water were everywhere, and everything was wet. Liberia’s civil wars had left the country in ruins, and thousands of citizens were homeless. Burned-out and bomb-struck buildings along with indescribable poverty still were evident as we drove through Monrovia. (The only large structures that seemed to have been spared were the hotel where we stayed, a local brewery, and a few tourist shops.) Even with another war under way, the streets were packed with traffic – cars, trucks, buses, donkey carts, and bicycles – and people in brightly colored garb. White trucks driven by United Nations aid program workers were everywhere, as were military checkpoints and roadblocks where teenagers with AK-15s were stopping cars and looking for anything they could confiscate. One young kid held me at gunpoint while Banks dug out his letter from President Taylor that allowed us to pass. It was unnerving, to say the least. Billboards in English (the country’s official language) urged reconciliation and an end to violence, which history would show still was years away. A Liberian village nearly hidden in dense rainforest. 1999 Life in Liberian rainforest villages had changed very little by the end of the 20th century.