The Crystal Palace

This is what it looks like to wake up in the middle of the night under mosquito netting (well, the flashlight helped cuz it was pitch black).  Fortunately, I really didn’t need it because the rooms had air conditioning (when they worked), which I’m told tends to keep the mosquitos away.  That seemed to be the case, so after the first night, I didn’t use my net.

We spent the first night in Gbarnga, yes the same Gbarnga I wrote about just over a week ago.  We spent the night at the Crystal Palace, which I’ve found out is about as good as it gets up country.  In addition to air conditioning and tv there is a bathroom in each room.  The water seems to work all the time, the rest, well, there’s a generator that runs from 7-7 (pm to am) so if you’re in too early or out too late, you’re in the dark.  But the water still runs even if the power is off.

Like most higher quality “guest houses” in Liberia, the facility is enclosed in a compound with its own security guard.  Crime is not a big issue here, we’ve been told that it’s mostly crimes of opportunity, so high walls with barbed wire on top seems to be the norm to keep it down (well, there are the bars on the windows too, but . . .)

Anyway, the Crystal Palace is, well, interestingly decorated:

The paint job isn’t really all that outrageous given the vividness of colors around here.  Pink and yellow, well, I would have thought that they would go with something a bit more traditional, but if they want to go for the Caribbean look, I guess that’s ok.  What got me the most were the paper-mache animals.  Ok, Liberia has leopards (see image right - hiding behind the center column), or at least used to so I hear, but I’m not so sure they have kangaroos or long-antlered deer (see image left), and I’m absolutely certain they don’t have dinosaurs (image center).  I guess that’s decor for you.

Anyway, this trip was not without incidents, especially the first couple of days.  When we arrived, the owner - Gibson - said, “Who are you?”  After a bit of discussion he said, “Oh, you’re Choko’s people.  Yeah, she reserved a room for you a few weeks back, then changed it, then changed it again, but then she never followed-up to confirm you’d be here.”  I’ve found out in Liberia, you want to make your reservation, confirm it a few days in advance, and confirm it again either the day before or the day of your arrival.  That’s just the way it is here.  Anyway, after calling his manager, Gibson found out Choko did confirm the reservation, but the manager forgot to tell Choko. While the driver and Gibson were sorting things out, I walked up onto the upper deck to scope out the area.  In the end, they did have rooms for us, though they had to put me up in the King’s Suite for a $30.00 loss - maximum government rate thing and all of that.  I should have taken a photograph of the King’s Suite but I couldn’t bring myself to.  I’d thought that the Iraqi’s had the market on tacky naugahyde, but I was wrong.  Either that, or it was leftover furniture from the ‘70s.
 

The one advantage of the King’s Suite was that it was on an upper floor - the third floor to be precise, up some very steep steps.  I guess they don’t have architectural graphic standards, or forgot the rise + run = 17.5” rule for steps.  Anyway, this is the view from my the landing in front of my room.  Not quite a “view” but I wasn’t complaining.

By coincidence, the USAID Mission Director and a team of folks were returning from Lofa County as we were headed out in that direction.  That evening as we returned from our dinner we ran into them and sat around chatting for awhile.  We got onto the topic of coffee and, lo and behold, the MD had brought a french press and invited us to breakfast the next morning.  Breakfast was great, the coffee (Ethiopian from Ethiopia) was even better.  

Our second morning did not start off without a hitch (flexibility and a sense of humor . . . .).  A commercial vehicle that was parked in the lot scraped our vehicle as it was trying to get out.  Good thing was there were 6 of our folks (including the MD) in the lot when it happened.  Still, it took just over an hour for the surveying team to contact their folks in Monrovia who had to contact their folks in New York to get an approval for them to sign a statement that they did indeed scratch the car.  We waited around because we wanted to make sure that Andrew would not get in trouble for the damage (he wasn’t even in the vehicle at the time).

During that time, I took the opportunity to take a few more pictures of the area.  So this is what the road in front of the nicest guest house in Gbarnga looks like:

And this is a view in the other direction:

Outside of Monrovia and a few cities (certainly as you get away from the coast) this is Liberia.  And here is a better view of Gbarnga prober - hardball on the main road and dirt off it.  Typical Liberia - cars, motorbikes, trucks, and people all on the road, people going about their daily business.

Fortunately, our morning delay didn’t last too long and we decided to still take a slight detour for a side trip before heading on our way to Voinjama.  That is the subject of the next posting.