...luxury is the enemy of observation, a costly indulgence that induces such a good feeling that you notice nothing. Luxury spoils and infantilizes you and prevents you from knowing the world. That is its purpose, the reason why luxury cruises and great hotels are full of fatheads who, when they express an opinion, seem as though they are from another planet. It was also my experience that one of the worst aspects of travelling with wealthy people, apart from the fact that the rich never listen, is that they constantly groused about the high cost of living – indeed, the rich usually complained of being poor. - Paul Theroux

22 December 2019, Waterloo to Freetown (Lumley), 40.6km
Airbnb 132,753LLE (R508 less discount voucher 3557.58 - 2212.85 = 1,344-73 = R192)

Our ride into Lumley, Freetown, was hillier and longer than hoped, and it included, not for the first time, incorrect pointers from Airbnb, which directed us to the wrong Regent road.
We had had a rough night in our hotbox room, steaming gently through the rowdy dark, so we awoke tired and irritable and set off tired and irritable and already hot.
Initially, the road from Waterloo was a double-carriage highway with a decent shoulder. No matter how busy such a road becomes, the shoulder offers at least some respite from the mania. Vehicles use the shoulder, of course, to drop and pick up passengers, so vigilance remains essential, but the additional width is a bonus. Later it grew narrower and busier and more fraught.
We cycled northwest on the Masiaka-Yonibana Highway, which becomes Bai Bureh Road. When we saw a FiBank on our left and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on our right, we turned left onto KIssy Road at the busy intersection there. Kissy was a nightmare, the traffic so dense it literally came to a standstill. We tried snaking between the row of vehicles and the sidewalk, but vendors, taking advantage of the stalled traffic which turns drivers into potential buyers, were plying their trade in this constricted strip.
Left again into narrow Upper Mountain Cut. The name had clued us to the nature of the road, which climbed toward the populated hills. It climbed between multi-storey dilapidated buildings, which hemmed us in, along with two- and three- and four-wheelers, and street traders selling their goods beside malodourous drains. All the roads running off Upper Mountain Cut are dirt and rough and lined with the homes and businesses of the poor. We turned right down one of these, Fifth, to reach Regent, allegedly just two minutes from our reserved accommodation.
When we got to Regent, we knew (hoped) we were in the wrong location - we did not feel entirely at ease there, for no obvious reason, and could not imagine spending a week in the area. Charl spoke to a man with extraordinarily long fingernails, sitting on a small balcony that edged the road, asking if he knew where Sherriff Drive was - the address we had been given, sadly undocumented on Google Maps. By a wonderful stroke of good fortune, he knew exactly where it was, checking if we meant the Sherriff in Lumley. Sherriff, a very uneven, unmarked dirt road off a different Regent, was over 10km away.
So we cycled past Ebenezer Church, took a left into Siaka Stevens, passing the Cotton Tree where returned slaves prayed. Then through Congo Town into Wilkinson Road, right at the circle and left at The Parish Church of St Mark the Evangelist into Regent.
By this time I was too tired to cycle further, in addition to which my front tyre went flat. So we walked a long, slow way up Regent, eventually finding Sherriff, and, not without difficulty, 5A, situated not on Sherriff, but up a side street from it. Somewhere along Wilkinson we stopped in at a cake shop to drink down ice-cold pineapple crush and share a slice of chocolate Swiss roll, desperately in need of sugar.
Our Airbnb offers an en suite bedroom with wifi, aircon and a small balcony. We have use also of the kitchen and other public spaces. The bed is soft and gigantic; we anticipate, therefore, a comfortable stay over Xmas and Charl’s 70th birthday on December 27.
After a shower and a rest, we walked to Regent, picked up a tuk-tuk (three-wheeler share taxi), and lunched at CFC, a KFC knockoff, on chicken, chips and coleslaw. Then shopped at Anand Supermarket and came “home” and slept for ten hours.

For today's route see below photos
For overview route, click on ROUTE tab above…