I get off the ferry into shoving, honking, spinning and shouting; bodies bounce off each other, tuktuks chase millimeters from my toes, bundles of simcards and cash are pressed to my face and I am called over to exchange, take a ride, buy a charger, cable, a biscuit. The sun is setting and the light casts everything in a grey-yellow mist. I have twelve percent battery on my phone and ten kilometers to get to my host, so I get going.

Cars, trucks, buses and motos brush past me on the main road, everybody sounding the horn, weaving lines around everybody else. Goods are still laid out by the side of the street, still for sale though many are packing stuff up into carts and wheelbarrows to head home. I try to keep out of the way but every street I turn into has less and less space and more and more people, traffic, movement. I have to get off and join the walking, bumping bodies. The sun sets fast and no streetlights come on; suddenly we’re all pushing around in the dark. The smell of piss. The fumes, the engines; I can not hear myself breathe. Black eyes look at me in the dark, heads turn; mothers lead their children by the hands and out of the way while balancing goods on their heads, eyes ahead with the weary calm of habit.

And none of it really stresses me. It feels like we are all swept up in this together, the body just bouncing around in the stream of noise, potholes and other bodies. When did I get used to Africa?

The map suggests a shortcut turning away from the main highway. From the ferry I remember seeing mountains rise; should I take it?

I turn off the road and yes, instantly the street points straight up. Maybe it’s just this one part, I think as I push. The phone battery is ticking down and sweat is running down my back. The hills were so smooth before in this country! I think, leaning into the handlebar. Why is Freetown all wrinkled up, like fabric pinched together by giant fingers? What geological event happened here?

And then it’s suddenly all quiet and when I turn around, Freetown lays below me: a million dots of light.

My phone dies, and with it my map. I am hungry. I don’t know what people eat in this country or what the prices are. I don’t know if I am in dangerous neighborhoods where knives hide in pockets. Still, I am not worried. Only tired.

I park between a gas station and a loud bar and a second later a driver named Abdou has found me and asked his boss to let me charge my phone in his office, pointed me in the direction of food and brought me a chair. I go over to the woman down the street, join the queue and then gratefully point to the things I want her to put inside my bread. I eat by the bar, chat to another white traveler who happened to pass and rest while loud dancehall music blares. Abdou offers to buy me a beer, the traveler buys me another Coke and I stay until I feel the carbs waking my head and my phone is charged enough to take me the rest of the way.

It is past midnight when I arrive at Lumley and turn away from the main road again. The street is flat and nice at first, but I know better than to trust that now. Soon enough it starts kinking off into hills, growing steeper and steeper. The only light comes from bars and shops and meeting tuktuks. I speed down the smooth hills only to sweat and strain uphill seconds later.

Finally the road turns definitely upward.

Then the asphalt disappears.

Then it goes completely dark.

In a dip the sound of singing frogs engulfs me and I look at the few dark silhouettes pulling up gallons of water from a borehole, barefoot feet on either side of the hole. I try to feel my way over the pointy rocks and the gravel; my dynamo doesn’t work if I don’t cycle. A loaded tuktuk passes and parks by the side. Passengers pour out.
“What’s wrong with your bike?” someone asks me in passing.
“Nothing wrong with my bike,” I huff. Have you seen the road?

I follow the little map-dot past big empty houses with black gaping windows and bars holding up the half-casted floors, iron rods sticking up and out. I am still not there. Quiet shadows sit on porches, small orange glows from cigarettes move to lips I can not make out. Their eyes must surely be on me, passing at this hour with this weird bike. I think about the knives again. Far beyond are small glimmering dots, houses on another mountain further off. The lights are spaced out and I think that there must be houses, just no electricity.

The next turn, the road turns straight down so steep that I almost have to sit down to counterweight the bike. I stop. OK Freetown, what is this? In the dark I hear rocks skittle down ahead of me. This has to be a scam, I think while eyeing the half-constructed house-skeletons on either side of me, half-a-mind already on the lookout for potential sleeping spots.

I call the number again and wait long signals. If I go down now and there’s no one there, I will never get back up with the bike.

But then John picks up, a tired voice; I’ve arrived much, much later than what we have agreed on.

I peer down and soon see his little torch flicker upwards, hear his feet skidding on gravel. I release my squeeze on the brakes a bit and start taking ant steps down again.
“Hello,” he says.
“Hi,” I say. I feel sorry to be so late. In the dark I have no idea if this is the same guy as on the Couchsurfing profile photo.

He leads me to a house, the only one around with a light on the porch, and together we lift the bike up a few stairs and into a corner.
“Take everything,” he instructs and I obey. We go down into the dark again, pass a tight space between two houses, up some other stairs and into a hallway where a blue-ish light turns the green walls eerie and ghost-like. A figure stands on top of the stairs, unmoving and silent.
“This is my wife,” John says and I instantly like that; I have met so many men who have lied about having girlfriends and spouses, sometimes not even acknowledging them as they come to serve us food. I like it that he makes it instantly clear whose house I enter.
“How are you,” I say, and she nods.
“There is another couchsurfer,” John says as he shows me into the room.
“It’s OK,” I say. A girl is sleeping in one of the two beds pushed together.
“She will leave early tomorrow. Do you need anything?”
“No, no. Just sleep.”
“Alright then.”

He leaves and I dump my things in a pile on the floor. A soft knock and a girl comes in with a full bucket of water, glances at me and leaves. The girl on the bed turns over and I hope I haven’t woken her. I pee and brush my teeth, not bothering to change. It takes me a moment to find the light switch but the second the room goes dark, I sleep.

…

(This story told in pictures.)