Paradise Found

Now we know what paradise looks like.

So we'd read a bit about Sierra Leone. But nothing had prepared us for the beaches. The kind of press Sierra Leone has had the last 10 years, you think people are maybe being generous when they describe the coastline has "spectacular", or "pristine" – a gesture towards finding something good in a dirt-poor country.



In fact, they are not really doing it justice. This place is jaw-droppingly, stomach-turningly, knee-weakeningly beautiful. No need for qualifiers. Not "when you remember there was an eleven-year war there a few years back"; not "considering it's west Africa"; not even "compared with the Caribbean". It's just gorgeous.



Most countries realise that beaches are their best asset, and spend fortunes developing them. Or at least make them accessible. Not Salone. The beauty of the beaches is matched only by the horrors of the roads that connect them, and somehow that makes the whole thing so much more fun. You arrive really feeling like you've earned your right to relax.

York Beach. That was our introduction to the peninsula coastline. You don't hear much about it – it's not one of the headline beaches like No2, or Lakka, or Bureh Town. That's why finding it was part of the fun. We went with Alex, half-German, half-Spanish, and 100 per cent in love with this place. He's working on a project to try and get hotels to buy their fresh fruit and vegetables directly from producers, in most cases women’s groups a little way out of Freetown. He asked us if we wanted to see a little bit of paradise. Naturally we agreed.



We had heard about the famous coloured sand that make every beach a different shade of some divine palette, ranging from the platinum of No2 to the jet of Black Johnson. York is grey, like a fine sprinkling of pencil lead. It doesn't sound that good but it is. Every beach cliché was there: the water was the temperature of a warm bath. Palms and lianas watched over us from the shore; islands crouched in the bay, awaiting low tide for us to walk out to them; off to one side the mountains of the peninsula shouldered into the distance. A freshwater river emptied into the cove, where villagers were washing clothes; the odd fishing boat skipped gently past.


As the sun set, and with the tide way out, at least three games of football were going on alongside each other – one for boys, one for girls, one for littl'uns. We were totally ignored – people couldn't have been less interested in us being there. Friends and football were far more important. And being invisible in paradise was the best thing in the world.