After nearly two weeks here in Conakry sorting out visas, I’m setting off tomorrow for Sierra Leone. My current plan is a 1700+km route that will take me on tiny roads, deep in the interior of Sierra Leone and Liberia, moving up into the forested mountains and skirting the border with Cote d’Ivoire. I’ve chosen tiny border crossings and verified with the local embassies that they are indeed open for me and my bicycle.

They are.

Because of the routes, I have no idea when I will be in touch again. I doubt I’ll have a SIM card until at least Cote d’Ivoire, but who knows? However it turns out, this is likely to be the most sustained remote passage of my trip so far–the segment is about half the distance of my entire Mongolia traverse. I’ll be pretty much without money, and with no idea what to expect. In other words, this should be an incredible couple of months, and incredibly challenging.