THE ANCIENT Russian helicopter rose up slowly and swung into the night. We left the arrivals hall behind — the crowds, the humidity, the smell of sweat, dust and aviation fuel — and were now cruising a thousand feet above the river towards Freetown on this most singular of airport transfers. At the city heliport we stepped out into the African night, looking around with new and curious eyes at Sierra Leone.

My last visit to this tiny West African state had been in 1992. The country was already in trouble, with tourism all but dried up and the economy close to collapse. A revolt in the provinces had just begun, and that April the first of several coups and counter-coups began, ushering in years of civil war. Those ended in 2000 with the intervention of British troops and the establishment of a UN peacekeeping force. The war was officially declared over in 2002. But what has become of the place since?

In some ways it seems to be getting back to normal. For 18 months a London travel agent, Kevin McPhillips, has kept a lifeline open to Sierra Leone by arranging twice-weekly flights between Gatwick and Freetown. Last week he increased these to three a week. The Foreign Office lifted its advice against travel to Sierra Leone in April and the UN is about to withdraw.

The next morning, on the terrace of the Country Lodge hotel — perched high on a ridge in an old British hill station — Freetown sparkled in the distance. Then I drove down the potholed road into town and realised that things weren’t that normal after all. Freetown seemed in a daze. This sprawling city, with its sea of concrete office blocks and tin-roofed shanties, was once a major international port.

Now, with no working traffic lights, the city centre was gridlocked. Ribbons of razor wire hung from public buildings, and piles of rubbish stood uncollected in the street. The old City Hotel, where Graham Greene propped up the bar during a wartime stint in MI6, was now a burnt-out shell. The souvenir-sellers outside, I noticed, had been replaced by beggars with amputated limbs.

But slowly other, more encouraging, sights emerged. Teenagers playing basketball in Victoria Park. High school kids in immaculate blue uniforms piling out of school, chattering and laughing. Noisy stallholders at King Jimmy market, the busiest in the city. If Freetown is down, it clearly isn’t out. Still, memories of the war are fresh. The city was occupied twice by rebel troops who specialised in maiming and looting. “They were barely kids, half of them,” said one man. “I’ll never forget them. Especially their eyes.”

The rebels won’t come back. The UN disarmed them, and since 2002 Sierra Leone has held two successful democratic elections. “We’re watchful, of course,” said Ione Brown, the English operations manager of the Country Lodge. “But we’re cautiously optimistic.”

The hotel was a good place to catch the mood of Sierra Leone. Formerly a private mansion, now it is home to a richly diverse clientele, from Lebanese businessmen to World Bank officials and British army officers in mufti. In the afternoon the pool filled up with expat families and the odd spirited tourist. There was an air of gossip and intrigue. West Africa has always attracted romantics and adventurers.

At dusk I drove to Lumley beach, a gorgeous strip of sand close to the city. Half a dozen ramshackle beach bars had set up on the sand, their customers drinking Star beer for 60p and watching the sunset. Strange to think that Sierra Leone was a favourite with British package tourists in the 1970s. Now its resort hotels look dusty and dated, although with a few licks of paint — so the government hopes — they might once more bring in the crowds.

Possibly. But much more likely is a growth in independent tourism. Inland from Freetown lush mountains rise up, criss-crossed with walking trails and threaded by rushing streams. At the Guma dam reservoir the sun glinted on the water, and families sat around its edge picnicking, in an oddly touching scene. And at the Tacugama chimpanzee sanctuary there was a 30-acre enchanted forest of teak and mahogany trees, dotted with rare flowers and brightly coloured birds. The sanctuary is Sierra Leone’s biggest tourist attraction. Founded in 1995 by a former accountant, Bala Amarasekaran, and originally housing just one chimp, now it has 80 and an international reputation that brings in visitors from as far away as the US. Somehow you feel that it’s these quixotic ventures, and not mass planning, that hold the key to Sierra Leone’s tourist future.

Likewise on the coast. The peninsula south of Freetown is home to Sierra Leone’s magnificent beaches. In the 1980s a few small upmarket resorts sprang up there, and now interest in the area is being revived.

A bone-shaking dirt road runs along the coast, passing tiny clapboard villages where women carry baskets on their heads and slim figures bend double in the fields. In a country still stuck in grinding poverty, wealthy foreigners are not welcomed by everyone. The luxurious African Village resort at Tokeh was ransacked years ago, and the neighbouring village where I once had “chop” — dinner — with a local family was now a brooding, suspicious place. Not all a civil war ’s scars are physical.

Things were better up the coast. At the point where the country’s “River Number Two” emerges from the mountains into the Atlantic the locals have banded together to form the River Development Association, half a dozen plain but comfortable bungalows that are already attracting independent travellers. Chris O’Connor, from Leeds, and his girlfriend Michiko Kyokan had been staying for a week. “And the days just blur. It’s one of the most peaceful places we ’ve ever seen.” All the profits from the resort go directly to the villagers.

And at nearby Sussex beach is Franco’s guesthouse, opened 20 years ago by Franco Miari, a burly Italian of 69 from Modena married to a local woman. Nine plain rooms and an open-air restaurant overlook an exquisite lagoon bordered by golden beaches and mangrove swamps. From here you can walk the forest trails, go diving, or take a boat trip over to Banana Island, with its ancient churches and slave artefacts.

In the evenings Franco sets out candles in the restaurant and serves up fresh lobster and pinot grigio. We sat watching the sunset together, with Franco recalling the war years in a voluble mixture of accented English and local Krio dialect. Half the time he might have been talking about Sierra Leone itself. “Hard times came, but we survived,” said Franco with a smile. “Now we go one day at a time and we get better. Small-small. Slow-slow.”

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Need to know

Paul Mansfield travelled with Kevin McPhillips travel (01293 822922, www.sierraleonetravel.com). Flights from £424 return. A package with three nights at the Country Lodge hotel, and four at Franco’s Guest House, costs from £764 per person, B&B, including flights and transfers.

Red tape: UK passport holders require visas (Sierra Leone High Commission in London, 020-7404 0140, www.slhc-uk.org.uk). Tourist visa £35.

Further information: National Tourist Board of Sierra Leone, www.welcometosierraleone.org; www.visitsierraleone.org.

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