Lobster at Lacca.

The beaches Michael was taking me too are up next to Lacca village, not far south of Freetown (the beaches in that area are in amazing condition considering how close they are to a capital city) and so is called Lacca beach.

Now I’ll be up front about this, as a general rule I don’t like beach holidays, partly because I find them dull but also because of who and what they tend to attract. There’s nothing worse than a beautiful beach packed to the gills by speed boating Australians, Americans running full moon parties, or southern British ‘travellers’ getting all mystic on weed and learning to fire-dance; the majority of whom will inevitably be fitted with ill advised dreadlocks (a flat out rule, if you’re white, dreadlocks make you look like a bell end). However, after two weeks in Salone I was rather ready for a bit of beach action, and Michael assured me I would like this beach. He was right too.

We went for a Salonian travel method this time, which was to catch a lift on a sand truck, which is actually pretty cool. The problem came to actually getting onto the thing. Michael was already up before I realised quite what was going on, and I realised these trucks were actually rather large. Now we travelled twice by this method, and this was the first, and I will admit I had a minor hissy fit getting on and off both times, much to the amusement of those on the truck / watching from the street, and I imagine much to Michael’s exasperation. For most of the holiday I have confidence in saying I’ve been pretty good, I had no real problems with the heat (aside from needing afternoon naps for my first few days), I never really got ill or food poisoning (even after drinking well water) I’ve been better with money than usual, I could go on. But those four times I did kind of freak out because I’m not exactly a climber, especially in flip flops, but I managed.

A lot of people found two white guys travelling by sand truck to be hilarious, people were laughing at us in the street, one or two even seemed quite angry, but it was very fun. The way there was not comfortable mind, because the sand trucks going to the beach are of course empty, and the roads are not good roads. We were banged about a bit, rougher even than Michael would be in prison, and I got a few bruises (one at the bottom of my back which still twinges now whenever I sit down) but before we knew it we were there.

We stayed in a guest house next to the village, it was modern enough and had permanent power (well, as near as) because it was fitted with solar panels by some enterprising soul. And Michael was right, the beaches were wonderful. Devoid of everything I usually hate (as mentioned earlier).

We spent most of our time at the main Lacca beach, this being through the week they were very empty (not totally mind, which is a good thing) and a lot of fun. However one day we went to a more popular beach simply called Beach Number Two, which (although the sand was whiter and the waves a touch more extreme) I didn’t think was as good as Lacca. Beach two is more popular with the weekend honkey crowd, mostly UN types, and thus is not only pricier but also not benefiting a town as the Lacca beach is. On Lacca there are a number of small bars (though only a handful) all of which have a selection of sun-loungers and chairs, and all of which are run by guys from the village itself. It’s a perfect little set up, made better because of the food.

The food was truly the highlight of Lacca, don’t get me wrong the food elsewhere was nice enough but it was becoming a touch monotone (there’s not much variation in Kasava, and most of the country seems to survive on four or five dishes, all rice based). The reason for this is that everything you eat in fish terms is caught that day, sometimes right before you eat it, and some of the guys on the beach really know how to cook fish (simply, seems to be the key). We had Red Snapper, Barracuda, Mackerel, one or two others I can’t remember the names of right now (though Michael should be able to bump my memory when he reads this). All were beautiful, almost perfectly cooked, but without a doubt the highlight was the lobster.

The whole experience was brilliant, Junior (waiter and cook, and a very nice man) has a lobster trap on the seabed a short distance out and he sends someone out to fetch a couple. Michael and I then got to pose with our live (and slightly violent) dinner, getting our photos snapped, before they were taken to be cooked (still on the beach on a home made grill). I’m not going to say what it is on something so public as a blog but lets just say the cook gave us a bit of a appetiser, which which consumed on a walk to get our appetites going, when we got back the lobster was ready.

We had a couple of Cuba Libres as we feasted, and frankly it was the nicest food I can remember having in a very long time. And while it was a lot by local standards, considering what we had it was ridiculously cheap by British standards. An absolutely perfect meal.

There are a few VSO types based in Lacca, but we ended spending most of our time with a girl named Emma. Her dad is Salonian (he owns the complex we stayed in), her mother half Irish and half Brazillian, all in all a pretty cool bundle and we got on very well. Her craic (I’m not fond of the Irish spelling, but typing it the Geordie way made that sentence look a little dodgy) is brilliant, in fact reminded me a lot of Kate which made her very good company. She gets, much to my amusement and her disgust I imagine, called Apoto by locals despite very clearly being black. Although Apoto means white man technically (well, Portuguese to be precise) in Krio it is pretty much means westerner instead. Mind, she also gets called white, which seems a bit rubbish considering she grew up in Ireland (and lets face it Ireland has probably never had more than seven black women on its soil at any one time) classed as a black minority, and then comes to her father’s country and is classed in the white minority.

We also met Chris (old English hippy), Simon (young Canadian cynic) and a few others. Perplexingly one night we had a ‘Montage Party’, organised by a Canadian lady. Despite being very much an organised fun sort of event (right, for forty-five minutes we shall have arts and crafts, then for ten minutes the merriment can commence) it was quite good. But everybody took it so seriously, even Michael mysteriously, and being the soul cynical voice can get tedious at times. Still, my comments amused me, if nobody else.

Frankly I think my montage was pure, artistic genius.

That was when we met Emma and most of our other nights were spent drinking on the beach, like our days really, broken only by the occasional swim. Even at night swimming in the sea was wonderful, the only difference is that in the dark there were these little nippy things that occasional got you, but otherwise it was cool. Playing in the stronger waves at beach two was particular good, they weren’t quite in the death waves of Guatemala leagues, but still mint.

That was how pretty much the rest of my holiday went. I can’t really go into much detail about Lacca as it’s pretty much a blur of swimming, sleeping, sunbathing, reading, drinking and eating fine fish. Not to mention travel by sandtruck. Most notably this is where I caught the sun most, I’m a reddish brown right now, though experience has taught me that if I hit that with plenty moisturiser it will turn into a sexy tan for a week or two. Yay!