Guinea

Overview

Guinea (officially the Republic of Guinea; French: République de Guinée ) is a former French colony in West Africa . Guinea has some spectacular landscapes with a few tropical, dry forests remaining, and the rainforests in the south are lush, verdant and full of wildlife — much of it destined for the cooking pot.

Guinea is a remarkable country with very warm, genuine people but little infrastructure. While they have tremendous natural resources (which include around one half of the world's reserves of bauxite, and many major deposits of jewels, as well as gold and other metals), they rate very poorly in the UN's quality of life index. Guinea is roughly the size of the United Kingdom.

Experiences

In Conakry, one of the best places to grab a beer and hangout is the beach bar in Taouyah, an area with a large market and mostly residential with some night clubs and restaurants. Many expats, including the Peace Corps headquarters, live here and meet up at the beach around sunset for great pizza or fish or chicken dishes. There is a great breeze, live music, and lots of locals playing soccer games until the sunsets, especially on the weekends.

Music in Guinea is one of the best cultural activities the country has to offer. Some of the best Kora players in the world are from Guinea. There are many bars that offer live music.

The French-Guinean Cultural Centre has some great musical shows, movies, plays, and ballets (i.e. traditional West-African dance), and hosts exhibitions and conferences. It also has a library and multi-media centre. Members can take out books and use the computers and internet. This is a great place to meet expats, and local musicians, and artists. Most people there will know the best places to go see a show that week.

Outside of Conakry, there are many attractive tourism destinations for the adventurous traveler. Infrastructure, such as hotels, roads etc. is lacking outside of the capital but you can find basic places to stay with limited electricity powered by generators.

The Foutah Djallon area has superb hiking, sweeping vistas, waterfalls and cliffs. Fouta Trekking is a local non-profit that promotes equitable tourism. They offer hiking tours ranging from three to five days or tailored tours. Tourists stay in villages with part of the revenue going back to the villages for community development. Labe, the historical capital and seat of the Foutah Empire that reigned in the pre-colonial times, is a bustling city with some interesting history. You can buy beautiful traditional cloth in various navy blue colours. On the road from Conakry, via Kindia, is the city of Dalaba, where the major chiefs of the country met to determine the fate of the soon to be independent country from the French in 1958. There is an old mansion that you can visit and a ceremonial hut with amazing carvings inside. Kindia has some of the best vegetable and fruit produce and thus a lively market.

For the more adventurous is a trip to the island archipelago near the Guinea-Bissau border called Tristao. You can drive from Conakry to Kamsar and from there you can get on a local boat to the Tristao islands. The boat takes four hours and usually runs once or twice a week. You can sometimes get lucky if there is a fishing boat going back to Tristao but they are usually very heavily loaded and may not be as safe as the passenger boat. Manatee, turtles, and many different bird types live in the Tristao archipelago. It's a very isolated place which maintains many animist traditions.

Kamsar is the main bauxite mining export town, where major shipments of bauxite leave from the Boke region. There are some pretty good hotels and restaurants that cater to the mining executives and expats. The Boke region is the main bauxite mining area. Boke, the administrative city of the region, has an interesting colonial museum, some decent hotels, and a Lebanese store on the main road where everyone goes to watch the football games (soccer) and have cold Amstel lights (when the generator is on).

Culture and food

Many options are available for dining. For FG20,000 (€2 or roughly US$3), you are able to dine on delicious, nutritious food. If your taste buds would prefer something international, many other choices are available as well. The beef in Guinea is very good, and is highly recommended. Pork isn't served because of the dominance of Islam but is eaten among the forest people of the South east ( Guinee Forestiere ). There are good restaurants that are Lebanese which have European-styled breakfasts.

Fruits are very inexpensive here, especially compared to the higher costs in neighboring countries (Mali, Ivory Coast and Senegal). For those who love pineapples, on the national road (which literally goes from the North of the country to Conakry in the South) you can find people selling this tasty fruit very cheaply on the side of the road in and around Kindia. Mango fruits, oranges and bananas can also be found in abundance throughout the country and at a cheap rate, especially at road sides.

Travel guide text compiled and adapted from Wikivoyage article (contributors). Sections were selected and reordered for this guide. Text is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Check current arrangements with your travel consultant.