Guinea

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Entry posted by korver · September 3, 2020

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Guinea is a country of 12.4 million that's bordered on the west by the Atlantic Ocean, and also shares borders with Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, Mali, Ivory Coast, Liberia, & Sierra Leone. Three of the region's major rivers—the Gambia, the Niger, and the Senegal—rise in Guinea. The country's mountainous interior - a region known as the Guinea Highlands - is known for the Mount Nimba Strict Nature Reserve and its viviparous toad. The country's economy is largely based on subsistence agriculture - and natural resources such as hydroelectricity and bauxite are plentiful as well. Today, we'll be taking a trip to this unique country and explore it's many wonders.

Our tour of Guinea will begin on the coast - in the capital city of Conakry. This capital city of 1.7 million is home to an impressive blend of architecture - reflecting the country's French colonial roots and also has many important museums and mosques. Here we see an aerial overview of Conakry, with the heart of the city located at the tip of a long peninsula that juts out into the Atlantic Ocean.

As we zoom further out, Conakry's unique layout on the Kaloum Peninsula starts to fully take shape.

We embark from the country's capital city of Conakry and into the country's interior - which is home to a number of impressive natural features. Many of the continent's most important rivers rise central Guinea and in the nearby Guinea Highlands - with the longest being the mighty Niger River. The Niger stretches for over 2,600 miles through the region until it finally reaches the Gulf of Guinea in southern Nigeria - but it starts as a small stream here in rural Guinea. Here we see an aerial overview of the river crossing through some semi-arid landscape in the country's eastern interior, where the river starts to greatly increase in width and depth.

Along the banks of the Niger River, and all across the country's rugged interior, the landscape is dotted with small hamlets and villages like the one pictured below. Subsistence agriculture is vital to the country's economy, with much of the production coming from small scale operations done by the villagers who've lived on these lands for centuries and harvested them for crops such as rice, sweet potatoes, sugarcane, peanuts, and yams.

For the next couple of sights, we're traveling even further into the country's interior, where the landscape gets considerably more rugged and mountainous. This region, known as the Guinea Highlands, is a densely forested plateau and chain of mountain ranges that is home to many incredible natural wonders that are overlooked by the common tourist. The region of Fouta Djallon in the northern part of these highlands is home to many spectacular waterfalls, like the ones shown below.

Our tour of Guinea concludes with a look over the country's highest point - Mount Nimba. Located on the borders of Guinea, Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire, this impressive peak rises 5,748 feet above the surrounding savannah. Its slopes are covered by dense forest at the foot of grassy mountain pastures, and they harbour an especially rich flora and fauna - with endemic species such as the viviparous toad. It's also a UNESCO World Heritage Site with an area over 17,540 hectares of pristine forest - making it one of the area's most well protected natural landscapes.