Guinea-Bissau Highpoint

Mt Ronde (266m), Guinea-Bissau Highpoint

Dec 26-27, 2021

Eric, Kahler, and Serge

We were in West Africa climbing and surveying country highpoints, and had already finished climbing the highpoints of Togo, Ghana, Benin, Gambia, Guinea, Cote D’Ivoire, and Senegal. Last on the list was Guinea-Bissau.

Interestingly, as far as I’d researched Guinea-Bissau has never been surveyed carefully enough to definitively determine which point is the highest in the country. I’ve compiled elevation measurements from SRTM (satellite-based) [5], a 1981 Soviet land survey [2], a US Military survey [3], a US Joint operation land survey [4], a topographic-map.com DEM [6], floodmap.net DEM [7], Peakbagger [9], and Gaia [10]. My conclusion is that there are two candidates that are within the error bounds of SRTM data (errors up to 16m [1]). Both are apparently unnamed, with one near Cape Bonde village, and one near Venu Leidi village, both near the Guinea border. Neither of these candidates is highest in all surveys, and more careful measurements need to be taken to definitively determine which is the country highpoint.

Two other countries in West Africa – Togo and Gambia – also have multiple contenders for the country highpoint. I had borrowed survey-grade GPS equipment that Compass Data very generously lent me, and had already measured the elevations of the highpoint candidates in Togo and Gambia. My plan was to next measure the elevations of the two Guinea-Bissau candidates. The equipment is a Trimble Geo XR with zephyr 2 antenna which is capable of 3cm vertical accuracy if a one hour measurement is taken.

The first highpoint, on the Guinea- Guinea-Bissau border near the village of Vendu Leidi, appeared to be straightforward to climb. Satellite images showed what looked like a double-track dirt road extending from route N23 all the way across the border to Vendu Leidi. It went within 300m of the highpoint, so we figured we could make it up that road with the landcruiser and do a short bushwhack to the summit.

The next highpoint looked more difficult. It was 2km across the border into Guinea-Bissau. We originally planned to drive to Dakaboubou village, which appeared to have a double track dirt road to it from N23 based on satellite images. We would then cross the border in the jungle and bushwhack up the highpoint. But upon closer inspection it looked like this route would require crossing a major river. That could be dangerous if it was deep and had crocodiles.

We found Francis Tapon’s inreach waypoints from his trip climbing most of the African country highpoints. He had started in Cape Bonde, Guinea-Bissau, climbed Mt Rondé, then crossed into Guinea near Lagui village and continued down to Wendou M’Bour. The route was much longer off the main road, but appeared to avoid the major river crossing. So we decided to try for that route instead. This was the only beta we had on either of the peaks, so it seemed wise to use the route that had worked for Francis Tapon.

Dec 26

We had just climbed the Senegal highpoint from the Guinea side on Christmas day and spent the night in Mali City, Guinea. We left town at 5am Dec 26, just after the imam was issuing the morning call to prayer over the loudspeaker next door. Serge took the wheel and expertly drove the landcruiser over the rough 4×4 roads to Labe. It only took four hours instead of the usual five, and we didn’t get any flat tires.

We stopped in town to look for an ATM for some cash, but the first four we tried were all out! This isn’t a common problem in the US, but it tends to happen in developing countries in Africa, I’ve discovered. The one that worked only accepted my card and no others, and I could only take out 800,000 francs (80USD) at a time, so I had to make a lot of withdrawals and came back with big stacks of cash.

From Labe we continued northwest on surprisingly good paved roads to Tyanguel-Bori, but then they changed to dirt. We progressed slowly through the jungle on dusty red jungle dirt, but soon hit pavement again. When we got to Kounsitel we saw huts with blue tarps on the roof as far as we could see on both sides of the road. It looked like a mining boom town, and indeed Mamadou said gold had recently been discovered there. People had quickly descended on the town from all over Guinea, and whoever sold blue tarps must have made some serious money since everyone used them to erect shelters.

The road deteriorated again and just out of town we got a flat tire. It took a while to replace, and then we stopped in Koumbia to get it patched. It’s actually not too difficult to find someone to patch a tire in Guinea. You just drive till you find a big pile of discarded tires on the side of the road in the village (the tire graveyard). Then there will be a handful of guys working hard to patch tires. There are generally several of these in every town.

We found the tire patching guys on the outskirts of Koumbia and they quickly got to work. It appeared to be a guy and his three sons, and they looked really young, less than ten years old. They worked very efficiently, using a sledge hammer to get the metal drum out, then patching the tube and putting it back in.

We were soon back on the road. I monitored the satellite image on my phone and we stopped at the first potential turnoff at a village. Serge went out to check, but the route was just a single track trail not passable in the landcruiser. We had a backup option, though, so continued down the road and stopped at the turnoff. It looked like a trail at first but it was wide enough to drive and the brush had apparently been cleared wide enough for trucks to drive, so we continued on. I don’t think anyone would stumble across that route without knowing it was there or researching it on satellite images in advance. I think the only reason it exists is perhaps a smuggling route across the border to Vendu Leidi village.

Serge took over the wheel and we worked our way up the rough track. As the terrain opened up to scrubland I occasionally had to point us in the right direction based on the satellite images. I had marked the place where we would stop to do the bushwhack, and called out the remaining distance every 500m.

By the time we reached the point we were in an opening with just short grass and rocks on the sides. There was a motorcycle parked up the hill a bit and a few people walking around. Serge decided to test the off-roading capabilities of the landcruiser and turned left off the track. I directed him towards the highpoint as he carefully navigated the rock field.

We eventually reached the edge of tress and parked just 300m from the highpoint. We got out, quickly packed up, and started into the woods. The two people walked over curiously and we waived to them as we started up. Mamadou would wait with the landcruiser and we said we’d be back in a bit over an hour, since the measurement on the summit would take an hour.

We bushwhacked through some trees and grass, then walked through a small banana plantation. We then crossed into a rocky field and saw a huge 10ft tall cairn. This looked an awful lot like a border maker. But it was 100m east of where the border was on all our maps. It’s possible the border has been surveyed more carefully by satellite since that cairn was erected.

We soon reached the coordinate of the highpoint. It was exactly on the Guinea-Bissau – Guinea border, which was also almost exactly on the summit of a small hill. The hill is officially unnamed, and I wasn’t able to ask any locals about the name, but I’ll refer to it as Vendu Leidi Hill since Vendu Leidi is the village at its base. It’s very likely this is what it is referred to, since the Senegal highpoint is called Mt Barkere by locals that live in the closest village, Barkere.

There was a boulder on the summit and I erected the tripod and surveying equipment on the summit and started the measurement. We had an hour to wait around, and I took a measurement with my handheld GPS unit as a backup and sent off an inreach message. Serge was sure to log the ascent on peakbagger within 30 seconds of touching the boulder.

The bugs were a bit annoying and I appreciated my sun hat that protected my neck. Eventually the one-hour timer went off and I took down the equipment.  We retraced our steps back to the landcruiser, but this time I saw a handful of people wandering around. That couldn’t be good when we were that close to the border.

Two guys were dressed in military outfits and one had a long gun. That definitely was not good news.

I quickly opened the landcruiser and threw in the tripod and big plastic suitcase. I knew from our experience on Mt Agou in Togo that military guys don’t like weird looking equipment like that in sensitive areas, and there was no need for them to start asking questions if it could be avoided.

Meanwhile Serge and Mamadou went over to talk to them. I was kind of happy to not be negotiating, but realized Serge was under pressure since he was the only one who spoke French on our team. I could understand most of what they were saying and they were border patrol and insisted that we had crossed the border illegally.

In fact, we had gone up to the exact border and then turned around, never officially leaving Guinea. The military guys still insisted the road was the border (it’s not) and we had crossed it. It appeared the two people we saw as we drove up had called them and they had reached the car within 10 minutes after we left. Mamadou said they arrived pointing guns at him, but he was able to calm them down while waiting for us to return.

Luckily for us, corruption is widespread in developing countries in Africa. The head military guy threatened to call the chief, but then said if we paid 200,000 francs (20USD) he would let us go. Serge, usually keen to negotiate over price, was not negotiating this time. I think the military guy saw there was no pushback, so increased the price to 300,000 francs, and then 400,000 francs (40USD).

I quickly went in the landcruiser and got the money, then handed it to Serge, who handed it to the military guy. Then the military guy motioned me over to take a picture. He stood next to me and his friend took a picture with me and him. It seemed to me like he mostly just wanted a picture with a white guy (that’s not uncommon in Africa), but he also wanted to make us think we were getting in trouble and he was taking information about us. He got a picture with each of us, but didn’t take our names or look at our passports, so I think the pictures were mostly just to get pictures with the white guys.

After the pictures and the money exchange everyone was happy. The military guys smiled and gave us each big handshakes, and the locals crowding around started to disperse. We loaded up the landcruiser, but noticed the back tire had a slow leak. It appeared to be a pinch flat from driving off road.

We progressed slowly and made it half way back to the main road before we needed to stop and switch it with the spare. By then the sun had just set. We’d gotten pretty efficient by now at changing tires, so we quickly found a big rock in the forest, put it in front of the flat tire, drove the hub up on the rock to get the landcruiser higher off the ground, then squeezed the jack under. Then we popped off the flat tire, pushed on the new one, and chucked the flat in the back.

We were soon back moving, and headed southwest on N23. We made it to Wendou M’Bour an hour later and slept at the only hotel in town, Hotel de la Colline. They had four rooms, which we split. As usual there was no running water, but we took some bucket showers and rinsed off all the jungle dust from the drive.

We talked to the hotel owner and he confirmed there was indeed a route from there to Guinea-Bissau the passed through Lagui, Guinea and reached Cape Bonde, Guinea-Bissau. He said trucks actually take it, so our landcruiser should have no trouble. He said there was a checkpoint at the last village, Lagui, near the border.

That was good and bad news for us. It was great to know we could drive very close to our intended highpoint, but troubling to know there was a checkpoint. The highpoint was 2km across the border into Guinea-Bissau. We had already gotten in trouble for merely hiking to the border, but we would likely get in much more trouble if we got caught 2km across a border, especially after already being caught once.

Now I didn’t like that the military guy had taken our picture near the previous highpoint. But it probably wouldn’t be too hard to identify us. We were the only three white guys in the area. Though, it seemed unlikely that he would have reported us to his boss since he accepted a bribe. If he reported us his boss would probably want a cut of the money.

Sneaking across seemed like too high a risk if we got caught, so we decided to drive to the checkpoint and ask permission. We figured we’d leave the landcruiser at the checkpoint and leave our passports there. If we paid a decent bribe maybe they’d look the other way and let us go tag the highpoint and come back without gettting in trouble.

Worst case, they could say no. At least then we wouldn’t have done anything wrong by driving to the checkpoint. We’d just turn around and save the Guinea-Bissau highpoint for a cleanup tour later, and enter from the Guinea-Bissau side. Still, it would be awefully nice to get it on this trip when we were so close.

Dec 27

Our first priority in the morning was to get our flat tire patched, and the tire patching guys started working at 7:30am. So we got up at 7am and drove over to the tire graveyard pile. Three kids took our tire and quickly went to work, repairing it in about 15 minutes. This patching service is much more efficient in Africa than in the United States. I’ve had to wait hours to get a tire patched at a Les Schwab in the US, and probably paid ten times as much too.

We started driving north from Wendou M’Bour and navigation was tricky. I had maps.me loaded on my phone and saw a complex network of roads and trails going north to Lagui. Unfortunately it was difficult to tell what was a road and what was a single track trail from my map. If we were on motorcycles it wouldn’t have mattered, but in a Landcruiser it did matter.

I first started by just having maps.me navigate us on a planned route to Lagui. But we soon got onto a narrow trail that entered deep brush (landcruiser bushwhacking) and had to turn around. Then I decided to navigate on my own, selecting the route that looked most direct. At intersections we would turn on the route that looked the biggest and most traveled, reasoning that’s what a route would look like if trucks take it.

We made it farther, but then the road started getting overgrown and suspiciously not passable by trucks. Then it ended altogether at a small cluster of huts next to a river. We talked to a guy walking around and he said the road ended there. To add to the confusion he said there were multiple villages named Lagui. But for sure we wanted to pass through Siguira, which was where the checkpoint was.

The new strategy was to stop at each village and ask villagers how to get to Siguira. Then from there we would ask how to get to Lagui near the Guinea-Bissau border. (This reminded me trying to find the highpoint in Moldova, when there were no road signs and I had to stop at each intersection to ask for directions).

We drove halfway back to Wendou M’bour, then turned at a village and asked for directions. They pointed us the correct way, and we kept doing this strategy.

Eventually we reached a section of road that looked like it had recently been leveled with a bulldozer. It was smooth and flat, and was actually better quality than many of the roads in Conakry! This was definitely the route trucks took. We soon reached Siguira, and cruised through without finding a checkpoint. Maybe it was closer to the border?

There was a river on the other side of town and we cautiously made it through. On the other side we took the right fork, but it went up a steep muddy slope with deep wheel ruts. We tried several times but couldn’t make it up. Finally we backed up, then got some momentum and made it up just to the side of the ruts.

At this point we were back in the jungle and didn’t have directions for which route to take. But then we saw a big truck coming down the road and we moved over to let it pass. This had to be confirmation we were on the correct route! A guy on a motorcycle was following the truck and he said he had come from Guinea-Bissau. He said there were no checkpoints between here and Cape Bonde, Guinea-Bissau.

That was excellent news! We continued up the road, then turned left at the next intersection continuing uphill on what we thought was the biggest route. Near the top of the hill the road seemed to end at a small village. We stopped to ask directions, and one guy offered to ride with us to direct us. This sounded like a great idea. He offered to ride on the roof but we insisted he come inside with us.

He had us turn around and then we started heading west. I was a little suspicious since this was the opposite direction as Lagui, but I figured maybe this was a better route. Eventually I asked Serge to stop and re-evaluate. This happened to be just before a big tree over the road, which meant the truck hadn’t come this way anyways.

It looked to me like we were heading towards a different crossing into Guinea-Bissau. We asked the villager and he said there was another crossing near Lagui that went to Cape Bonde. That was the one we were looking for, so we turned around and descended back to the river.

Just before the river we turned east, and now we appeared to be heading towards Lagui. We went through deep grass on a steep sidehill and then reached Lagui village. Our friend said we needed permission to continue, but his brother lived there so he knew people in the village. He jumped out and talkd to a few people, then jumped back in and said we were good to go. He said there was sometimes a checkpoint there, but not today. It looked like we had gotten lucky.

We drove between the huts and continued on the double track. We continued north paralleling the river, then headed west. Our friend said during orange picking season a lot of people drive over to this area from Cape Bonde, Guinea-Bissau to pick oranges. But this time of year it is pretty quiet. He said there was no more risk of checkpoints til Cape Bonde, so we could drive across the border no problem.

We passed through one more small village, waived to some people, then drove through a small river that marked the border between Guinea and Guinea-Bissau. On the way we got a clear look at the hill we were planning to climb, and we asked our friend what its name was. He said it was Mt Rondé.

I was thrilled we had made it this far. The road quality improved on the other side (though it was really just a trail that had been widened). We drove another few hundred meters and parked at a clearing on the side. It appeared we were in neutral territory.

Our plan was Mamadou and our friend would stay with the landcruiser while we tagged the summit. I was very pleased that now it would be safe to take the full hour long measurement on the summit. This would be critical to accurately determine which peak was the true highpoint of Guinea-Bissau.

We suited up and started bushwhacking up, with Serge leading the way, as usual. We pushed through dense grass, but eventually reached more open forest. Then we emerged on a flat and open rocky plateau. I was nervous about seeing other people, so we hugged the edge of the trees, but eventually we moved to the middle.

The plateau looked very flat but I had marked the SRTM coordinate of the highpoint on my GPS. We hiked over to that point, and unexpectedly found a cairn. It appeared we were on the right spot, and I confirmed with my sight level there were no higher spots on the plateau. So I set up the tripod and measuring equipment and started my one-hour timer.

Fortunately there was some waist high grass not too far from us in all directions, so it seemed if anyone else wandered up onto the plateau we would be somewhat hidden from view. I took a backup measurement with my Garmin 62S unit, sent an inreach message, and we took a bunch of pictures.

When the timer went off I saved the data, packed up, and we quickly headed down. We took a slightly more direct route this time, and tried to hug the trees more closely on the southwest side. I breathed a momentary sigh of relief when we entered the trees, and Serge led the way back down.

We bushwhacked down through the trees, then through a small banana plantation with a few huts. I was still a bit worried we’d have the same situation as before with military waiting for us at the landcruiser. To look less suspicious we aimed for the road west of where the landcruiser was parked. This way we would be walking towards it along the road from the Guinea direction, so it wouldn’t necessarily look like we had gone any deeper into Guinea-Bissau or that we had bushwhacked. We also agreed Serge would go ahead and give a signal if he saw other people. Then if I saw the signal I would drop the tripod in the woods so nothing would look suspicious.

We reached the road and started walking back. Fortunately there were no military guys this time, just Mamadou and our friend. We were still in Guinea-Bissau, though. We chucked the gear in the landcruiser and were soon moving. After five minutes we crossed the river back into Guinea and I finally breathed a sigh of releif. At this point if the military came we could always say we got to the border and turned around. They would have no way of knowing we did anything wrong.

We cruised back to Lagui, then paid our friend 100,000 francs for his help (that’s the amount he asked for) and dropped him off at his brother’s place. We then continued back. Navigation was much easier on the return. We had already traveled the route, and also the paths generally converged in this direction so we had few decisions to make. By late afternoon we arrived at Wendou M’Bour and ate spaghetti at a small restaurant.

That night we stayed in Wendou M’Bour again at Hotel de la Colline, and were treated to a nice sunset.

Dec 28

The peakbagging component of our trip was now over, and we even had a few buffer days we hadn’t used. I’m kind of amazed with so much uncertainty and lack of beta for the peaks in Guinea we still managed to stay on schedule and not need the backup days we’d given ourselves.

We drove south to Boke and the coast, then worked our way towards Conakry. In Boffa we got stopped by the police, and this time they were intent on extracting a gringo fee. All the other cars just had to show some license documents and then were waived on. But for us they asked for our visas, passports, and covid vaccination cards. We had all the correct documents, but they noticed Kahler’s visa had a stamp on it that wasn’t on mine or Serge’s.

It appeared to me the customs person had for some reason decided to stamp Kahler’s passport and visa with the same stamp, while he had just used the stamp on Serge and my passports. This was enough for the police to tell us we didn’t have permission to proceed. I’m sure even if we had the exact same stamp they would have found some other reason to detain us (stamp was wrong color, or documents had too many creases from being folded, or not enough creases, or any range of things). I knew they just wanted a bribe.

Mamadou was pretty mad and started arguing with them that they were mistreating visitors to the country. Serge calmed the situation down and eventually handed over a 20 Euro note and we were allowed to proceed. I think the root problem in Boffa is that it is near a Bauxite mine and the only foreigners (mostly chinese) that ever pass through there are associated with the mine. Locals have some resentment that foreigners are extracting resources from the country and not giving anything back.

We continued east and eventually hit Conakry traffic. Our progress slowed to a crawl and Mamadou found some very rough side streets to get around the traffic. By late afternoon we made it to the Hotel Nord. We paid Mamadou, then Cellou met us there and we paid the remaining balance for the trip.

We hung out there that night and the next day before starting our long flights back to the US and Canada. We had each brought self-administered at-home Covid tests, which we took in the presence of tele-medicine doctors. This allowed Kahler and I to get official results the day before our flight, which is currently required for entry into the US.

The measurement results are summarized below. Mt Ronde is officially the highpoint of Guinea-Bissau. Note- these are given as PPP ellipsoidal height results with 95% confidence interval (RMSE), as processed by Compass Data engineers using Online Positioning User Service. Ellipsoidal Contact me if you are interested in more details of the post processing or would like to see the raw data.

References

1. SRTM Mission Statistics, Nasa Jet Propulsion Laboratory, [Online] Available at https://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/srtm/statistics.html [Accessed December 2021]
2. 1981 Soviet Military 1: 200 000 ground survey, [Online] Available at https://mapstor.com/map-sets/country-maps/western-africa.html#gs–200k–(1980-1983)–preview  [Accessed December 2021]
3. 1974 US Joint Operational 1: 250 000 ground survey, [Online] Available at https://mapstor.com/map-sets/country-maps/western-africa.html#gs–200k–(1980-1983)–preview  [Accessed December 2021]
4. 1994 US Military 1: 500 000 ground survey, [Online] Available at https://mapstor.com/map-sets/country-maps/western-africa.html#gs–200k–(1980-1983)–preview  [Accessed December 2021]
5. Google Earth 7.3.4 (2021). [Online] Available at http://www.google.com/earth/index.html [Accessed December 2021]
6. Yamazaki D., D. Ikeshima, R. Tawatari, T. Yamaguchi, F. O’Loughlin, J.C. Neal, C.C. Sampson, S. Kanae & P.D. Bates, A high accuracy map of global terrain elevations, Geophysical Research Letters, vol.44, pp.5844-5853, 2017 doi: 10.1002/2017GL072874 [Online] Available at https://en-us.topographic-map.com/[Accessed December 2021]
7. Floodmap Digital Elevation Model, [Online] Available at https://www.floodmap.net/, [Accessed December 2021]
8. ArcGIS World Topographic Map, [Online] Available at https://www.peakbagger.com/, [Accessed December 2021]
9. Peakbagger, [Online] Available at https://www.peakbagger.com/, [Accessed December 2021]
10. Gaia GPS, [Online] Available at https://www.gaiagps.com/, [Accessed December 2021]

 

 

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