It’s hot today!

Post for Sunday, March 31, delayed because of hotel WiFi issues:

On the hike today we had a little discussion about the heat as rested at the apex of the hike. Others in the group were exclaiming about how hot it was today. My point was that it has been hot every day. The universal response to comments about the heat is that March is the hottest month. Accuweather.com says the average for February, March and April all average a high of 91 degrees. The “coolest” it ever gets is mid-80’s.

Nonetheless, it was somewhat gratifying to have others complain about the heat because I never sweat so much in my life and that includes after the fourth round in a sweat lodge.

We hiked about the same route as last week but in attempting to the reach the border of the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary we managed to hike higher and further than the previous week. This group hikes for exercise so aims to maximize the hill climbing. At the end of the hike, one of the other hikers said “I was surprised to see you. Most people come once and we never see them again.”

After leaving the embassy parking lot to start the hike, we go over a hill with a view across the valley of the area impacted by landslides in 2017 that killed over a thousand people.

Freetown has grown tremendously in recent years. Land development is not well regulated and there is a rush to claim land further and further up the hillsides by burning and starting to build. We passed many partially built houses on the way (like the one in the goat picture). These are not houses for the poor although some rent space in unfinished houses giving the owners some rent money and someone to keep an eye on things until they get around to finishing the house.