I made one big mistake in preparing for my Sierra Leone trip last year: I assumed $1 was $1.

Wait, what?

I assumed the exchange rates were based on the value of the dollar, and not the bill itself. I was wrong. A $100 bill in Freetown was worth about 370,000 Leones. However, if I wanted to exchange five $20 bills, they’d give me around 350,000 Leones, depending on how much haggling I wanted to do.

Before I left, I made the assumption that smaller bills would be more useful, since prices for goods would be lower. I carried most of my personal funds in $20 or smaller bills. I ended up getting burned on the exchange rates over the course of two weeks.

That kind of thing is impossible to predict, so best talk to a local before you leave. If you don’t have that option, research as much as possible on the web, with every query you can think of, even the outlandish ones.

If you’re traveling for a commercial or non-profit client, that’s a little easier, as they probably have staff wherever they’re sending you. I was lucky enough to be working for a major NGO, so I had good support on the ground. The agency paid my expenses directly, so they wired funds before I arrived, and I had a healthy amount of cash for most of the trip.

Nevertheless, things never go according to plan. On my last day, I was about $100 short of what I needed to settle my expenses. There are plenty of banks in Freetown, so it was just a matter of making a withdrawal, right? Uh, no.

I have credit and debit cards from several banks, but they’re all MasterCard or American Express. Unfortunately for me, Sierra Leoneans vastly prefer Visa. After visiting six banks, we finally found one with a sign on the door for most every major credit card company in the world. Problem solved, right? No.

Turns out you have to go to the main branch to actually pull a withdrawal from a card. Three hours later, I had the rest of the money I needed.

The moral of that story is two-fold. One, estimate high for your expenses, then add a few hundred more. Two, carry Visa and MasterCard at the very least (caveat: Visa and MC may not rescue you the way AmEx rescued me).

Pay your credit card bills before you leave, so you’ve got as much credit available as possible. Try to keep enough money in your checking account that you won’t need to move any money around while you’re away. However, balance that consideration with the possibility of fraud. Fraud is big business in the developing world, and checking accounts typically don’t offer $0 liability the way credit cards do. Check with your bank to be sure.

Cash is king. The cards probably won’t do you a lot of good on the ground, but if you need to make additional travel arrangements or change existing flights, you’ll need plastic. Also, try to find out if there are limits on the amount of money you’re allowed to bring (in or out) through customs. There’s nothing worse than stuffing $100 bills into your underpants in the bathroom at Harere Airport.

Stupidly, I misplaced the phone number, but at least I remembered the conversation. I pulled out my small business card, and called the international number on the back. The customer service rep connected me to global assist.

“I’m stuck in Sierra Leone,” I said. “I missed my flight out.”

I was in that weird place, somewhere between giddy and crestfallen.

The operator on the other end took all of my information, my itinerary number, and started looking up where exactly I was, and how I could get back to the States. I’ve never be envious of anyone with a cubicle job before, but I just imagined sitting at a desk somewhere in the middle of Iowa. I really wanted to be in Iowa.

Samuel asked me what I wanted to do, and reminded me that there was a man who worked at the hospital and he airport who lived close, if we wanted to stay the night there.

We drove to his house, which was less than a mile away. Somewhere in that mile, I lost most of my cell reception. Samuel’s phone worked fine, but he was almost out of minutes, and we wouldn’t be able to buy more until morning. We settled in, and I tried to sleep.

Eventually morning came. Around 8 or 9, we went to find one of the ubiquitous cell phone vendors on the main road in front of the airport. I bought 1000 units (something like $20 US), and finally got back on with American Express. They didn’t have much new information for me, but they did confirm there was a flight out in about 14 hours, with a few seats open. The bad news was that British Airways wouldn’t speak to anyone except me about the flight.

Eventually, we got on a conference call with the airline, and booked everything through to Chicago. I had to overnight in Chicago, because all the Syracuse flights were booked.

At that point, I would’ve been happy just to get to London.

I felt so much better with a plan, even if I wasn’t going to be home for another two days.

Now it was simply a matter of waiting. We headed back to the house for a little while, listened to the radio, and had some breakfast.

In the time it took us to get back to the house it also started raining. Monsooning, really.

Samuel stayed with me the whole day, until it was time to start boarding. Words really can’t describe my gratitude.

Africa is an interesting place. The man pictured here is Samuel Vamboi, my driver while I was in Sierra Leone. Without Samuel, I really don’t know what I would’ve done.

Lungi International Airport, while ostensibly in Freetown, is on an island roughly nine miles out into the Atlantic Ocean. Travelers can get there by ferry, helicopter or hovercraft (bizarrely). On the day I was supposed to depart, we decided to take the ferry. Flights in and out of Lungi from London Heathrow generally arrive in the evening (7 p.m. or so), and depart again before midnight.

Samuel picked me up around 3 or 4 in the afternoon to begin the sojourn to the airport. Traffic in Freetown is unbelievable–I probably spent as much time sitting in traffic as I did working–but even so, three hours should be enough time to get from the guest house to the ferry terminal, and on to the airport.

We arrived at the ferry shortly after 6 p.m., just in time to see the ferry departing. Normally, a 6 p.m. ferry departing at 6 p.m. wouldn’t be astonishing, but this is Africa. Nothing runs on time. That should’ve been my first clue.

No matter, everyone assured me the 9 p.m. ferry would get me to the airport with time to spare.

We waited around the ferry terminal, killing time, and I tried not to worry about missing my flight.

Naturally, the 9 p.m. ferry did NOT leave on time. Nor did it take 30 minutes to cross, as I was told. No, because the tide was coming in, the ferry took just over an hour. We docked at the ferry terminal–roughly 15 miles from the airport–just after 10. Toward the end of the ferry ride, I was getting increasingly anxious. I had a bad feeling.

Since we were one of the first vehicles onto the ferry, we were at the front. That meant we’d be one of the last vehicles off.

Amazingly, Samuel was able to maneuver our full-size Toyota Hilux pickup truck in front of half the other cars on the ferry. Backwards.

Once we cleared the ferry terminal, it was a race to the airport. We were bombing these third-world, one-and-a-half lane roads at 100 kph or more, with all manner of carts, cars and livestock surrounding us. If you’ve never heard a 2.5 L diesel shrieking at red line … it’s quite a sound.

We arrived at the airport and rushed in. The gormless man at the check-in counter simply said we were too late, that I couldn’t board the plane. There was no changing his mind.

I was crushed.

After anticipating the trip home, and SEEING the plane I was supposed to take, I simply broke down.

The people at the airport were no help, and I realized not only did I miss my flight, I had no idea when I would be able to leave, or if I had enough money on my American Express to pay the fees I’d undoubtedly rack up for changing my flight plans AFTER my flight left.

I called home, and explained (poorly), that I wasn’t on the plane, and didn’t know what I was going to do. I said I would call back when I had more information, but my rented cell phone didn’t have reception later, so I couldn’t call back until roughly 18 hours later. As far as everyone back home was concerned, I was off the grid. Ironically, British Airways told my mother I was on the plane, so they worried less than they probably should’ve.

After hanging up, I tried to compose myself, and turned to find Samuel.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “I will stay with you.”

I don’t have words to describe what that felt like. It settled me enough to try to figure out my next move. I didn’t even have a phone number for British Airways.

This is from an afternoon spent with the Kissy nutrition unit. They spent the better part of two days preparing Benemix, which has all sorts of stuff in it. The final product is a powdery supplement for infants, high in protein and calcium.

Here, they’re cooking, drying and mixing most of the ingredients before they go into the grinder.

It rained. A lot. I took this one the day my D700 went down from water damage. In fact, it’s one of the last photos from that body on this trip. I was out shooting the nutrition workers cooking up some Benemix to hand out.