Things to Do in Freetown in May

May mornings at Tacugama start cool enough that the chimps come down to ground level to investigate visitors, the sanctuary sits at 500 m (1,640 ft) elevation, so you get mist breaking over the forest canopy while adolescent chimps practice their swagger on the rope bridges above you. The 30-minute drive from central Freetown takes you through villages where women are already pounding cassava for the day's fufu, and the sanctuary's 10 AM feeding session happens before the humidity makes everything sluggish.

The Aberdeen seafront road stays dry enough in May for cycling, and the 5 km (3.1 mile) loop from Aberdeen Bridge to Lumley Beach gives you Freetown's entire social spectrum, football matches on the sand at 4 PM, fishermen mending nets by lantern light at dusk, and the smell of charcoal-grilled barracuda drifting from roadside stalls. Rent bikes from the guys at the former Family Kingdom entrance. They know which patches of sand hide broken glass and which beach bars will watch your bike while you swim.

May's water levels are good for reaching Bunce Island, the 40 km (25 mile) boat ride from Kissy Ferry Terminal takes you past stilt villages where kids dive for coins and women wash clothes in the brown Rokel River. The island itself is haunting in May light: crumbling stone walls of the slave fort cast long shadows, and the silence is broken only by waves against the ramparts and the occasional call from the mainland. This is when the grass is short enough to see the full layout of the holding cells.

May is when the fishing boats bring in the best catches, red snapper, grouper, and the massive barracuda that locals smoke over coconut husks. Lakka's beach is a 30-minute shared taxi ride from central Freetown, where Mrs. Kamara has been teaching visitors to pound cassava leaves into plassas for twenty years. The class happens in her outdoor kitchen, under a corrugated tin roof where you can hear the Atlantic while learning why palm oil gets added at the very end to keep it from separating in the heat.

The oldest university in West Africa sits on Mount Aureol, and May mornings give you the only time of year when you can climb the 200 steps to the bell tower without melting. Built in 1827, the college's stone corridors still echo with lectures in Krio and English, and the view from the library roof stretches all the way to the Lungi ferry terminal. Student guides know which professors will invite you for afternoon attaya (sweet tea) and which buildings house the original printing presses that produced the first newspapers in sub-Saharan Africa.