L'lle des Paletuviers Toubakouta

... but making an effort to meet the locals, we spent an evening at a reggae night with Jacks and a few others from around the town of Kololi. Cool night but not surprisingly it ended in talk of money that makes me uncomfortable and sad to say the least.

Life looked up again after a deserved day of chilling as we went to Abuko Nature Reserve, a small area of amazing vegetation and very interesting animals and birds just ...

... fun and games ensued as we overlanded all the way down through Koalack and Karang and eventually ended up in Barra, beside the ferry port to take us to Banjul.

Although Senegal hugs The Gambia and a lot of people regard the two countries as one and the same, seeing the scenes of rural life and the totally tropical terrain of this new country emphasised its unique ...

St Louis saw us off in style...stormy style...it was extremely impressive but kept us up all night until our departure to Dakar. Didn't quite get that our bus LEFT in 4 hours instead of TAKING for hours and so it made for an extra looooong slog to the city. Spent the hours on the bus watching wee, small street kids coming and going and this got me thinking about all they go through in my own poetic way:
Serekunda, Gambia bellag

... next campement right on the edge of the river. absolutely stunning location! Did some swimming, canoeing and relaxing and not much else! No other guests there so the guides were being overly helpful but overall it was a nice couple of days.
After one night in the wilderness we headed back to the village and stayed for one more night before heading back up the coast to Toubab Dialao. To be continued...

... about how many armpits that thermometer was thrust in before mine. We bought some Dalasi at the airport bureaux de change and ran the gauntlet of freelance porters, through security and to the bus. Having managed to carry my bags perfectly well from my house, through Gatwick station and subsequently into the airport, I'm buggered if I am going to pay someone to wheel my suitcase ...

Winter sun these days tends to rank higher and higher on a tourist's wishlist, and the option of spending Christmas Day on a beach in the Gambia almost seemed like the greatest christmas present that was never intended for unwrapping. The long-established Senegambia Beach hotel, which lent its name to the Senegambia entertainment strip leading off from the hotel, is one of the country's prime properties, and its ...

... pay it mind. Where there is space there is a lane. Shoulders of the road don't exist. In fact, the eight feet of earth next to the tarmac is often made into a lane itself. We weave and flow through the chaos. I adjust to a comfortable position, crack the window the feel the breeze, and look out to admire all the people going to and fro, hawking whatever makes money, selling their mangoes and nuts. About one mile down the ...

... Lamin told us to call him when we got to Kwinella and he would come pick us up. There now at 7 a.m., we realized that it was probably too early to call him after keeping him up until 2 a.m. that morning. I, personally, was just happy to see daylight. After all, most of our breakdowns the previous night and the whole "bug in the ear" incident all happened in the dark, so day light felt "safe". We started walking towards Tendaba with a nice army man who was headed in the same ...

... if we could take two people who couldnt afford the seats(we did "own" the car, so we could do anything with the extra room). Ofcourse we let them into "our car", but then about 6other people piled in, we honestly didnt care at the point, we were moving and quick! After a quick boarder crossing(jori trying to exchange her shirt for one of the official gambia immigration shirts), we were SO happy to be back in the Gambia, and to leave senegal behind us. I kept telling ...

... our quest for lion. When I was first offered a placement in The Gambia, I admit I knew virtually nothing about the place, other than a hazy awareness that it was in West Africa. Scouring the net for further information, I quickly ascertained that the country was particularly famous for 2 things: i) sex tourism ii) birds. I've yet to meet anyone who openly admits to traveling here for the former, but no end of people have ...