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ATTRACTIONS
FREETOWN:
The most
accessible part of Sierra Leone is the Freetown Peninsula. From
Leicester Peak, superb views of
the city between the sea and the mountains unfold below, and a narrow,
steep road through the mountains leads to the old Creole villages
(dating from 1800) of Leicester, Gloucester and Regent.
The area was chosen as a resettlement area for liberated slaves who
built the villages of Sussex, York, Kent, Waterloo,
Hastings and Wellington. Freetown itself,
surrounded by thickly vegetated hills, is both a colourful and historic
port. Attractions include a 500-year-old cotton tree; the museum; the De
Ruyter Stone; Government Wharf and ‘King’s Yard’ (where
freed slaves waited to be given land); Fourah Bay
College, the oldest university in West Africa; Marcon’s Church,
built in 1820; and the City Hotel, immortalised in Graham
Greene’s novel The Heart of the Matter. The King Jimmy
Market and the bazaars offer a colourful spectacle and interesting
shopping. A boat trip up the Rokel River to Bunce Island,
one of the first slave trading stations of West Africa, makes an
interesting excursion.
GAME
PARKS: Permits, obtainable from the Ministry of Agriculture
and Forestry in Freetown, are necessary for visits to Reserves, and a
guide is provided. For more information, contact the Ministry of
Tourism and Culture (see Contact Addresses section).
The
Outamba-Kilimi National Park in northern Sierra Leone, which can be
reached from Freetown by road or air, offers varied and spectacular
scenery; at this and other reserves there are game animals such as
elephants, chimpanzees and pigmy hippos. The Sakanbiarwa plant
reserve has an extensive collection of orchids, which are at their best
early in the year.
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| Age
structure: |
0-14 years: 44.73%
(male 1,190,207; female 1,237,326) |
| Religions: |
Muslim 60%, indigenous beliefs
30%, Christian 10% |
| Languages: |
English, Mende, Temne, Krio |
| Literacy: |
definition: age 15
and over can read and write English, Mende, Temne, or Arabic |
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