Sierra Leone: Tiwai Island – Hiking Around the Reserve

Tiwai Island is a 12 sq km reserve and is the top notch nature and wildlife destination in Sierra Leone: It has been a wildlife sanctuary from 1987, hosting 11 species of primates (that can’t escape across the river). During the civil war in the 1990s, the tourism was abandoned, but the island and its animals somehow managed to survive. Besides the primates, here are 135 bird species, and amazing flora, including massive trees – ceiba, mahogany, ironwood, silk-cotton trees, and strangler figs. Hiking around in the rainy season (just after a torrential downpour overnight) was absolutely awesome – everything lush, wet, and alive and kicking.