La police a votre service
On the trip from Guinea Conakry to Freetown. The drive in itself is pretty pleasant. On the Guinean side the road is largely tarred with some potholes but not insurmountable. Taxis change in the nomansland between Guinea and Sierra Leone. From there on we drove the best road I've seen up to date in Africa. It's as smooth as silk all the way up to Freetown.
I was feeling slightly anxious because I didn't have a visa for Sierra Leone. And the recurrent passport controls didn't make it any better. There is VOA for Sierra Leone but getting it at Freetown airport doesn't necessarily mean you can at every land border.
I had to show my documents at about 5 'border controls' on the Guinean side and 4 on the Salonean side. Documents get scanned for mistakes from top to bottom and they will always ask for gifts etc. You have to have your yellow fever certificate! I was asked to show it several times.
At the first Guinean control. I could hear officers shouting 'money, money' and they where telling me I was probably loaded. I didn't give them anything. They let me go but they looked a bit insulted. Similar variations on this encounter followed. Every time I thought we where in Sierra Leone we where actually passing another Guinean control. I couldn't understand why these Sierra Leoneans where speaking with a French accent LOL. A couple of times after showing my papers some higher up boss would shout to me to show my passport again to see if he couldn't find some mistake. At one point I got led into a room with an interpol sign above the entrance. A haughty guy with 4 stripes on each shoulder started interrogating me as if I where a suspect. I got him to talk about his officer course in Europe and he let me go after that. The Salonean side was a bit better but also here they will try to get a 'friendly' gift. The Salonean head of immigration asked me why I didn't have a visa as if I had done something wrong. I said 'I'm getting it here. ' 'Oh yes, sure' she replied. One Salonean policeman asked me 10 k for my visa while I'the just bought it a couple of minutes ago. I just said no LOL. I've noticed they don't really know how to react to that. Maybe they consider my blunt reply as rude. My driver thought I should have given him 5 k because they earn 200 k and a bag of rice per month and I am receptive to that. Sometimes I think why not give that small amount of money to a man who can use it but there are so many needy people here who cannot use or abuse their position to extort money. So why should a policeman enjoy that privilege?
One issue I had was how to pay for my Visa. The visa Is 80 USD but I only had Euro and Franc Guinee. At Bambato car park there are heaps of street money changers. I changed 100 EUR to Sierra Leone Leones. The visa was 800.000 SLL.