Village Plage d'Or Toubakouta

... Serrekunda. Straight away, it appealed to me as it is accessible and easy to explore solo so we walked through the thick forest full of monkeys, monitor lizards and an array of beautiful birds. Brought up on animals and nature, i never tire of trekking around taking all of this in but after a few days of dubious sleep at the YMCA, we were ready to relax and read NEW BOOKS(-:by the end of an ideal day.

XXX

... to me as we made our way south. We spent the single most seedy and sickening night at The Barra Hotel/brothel/hell hole before hopping on a ferry for the capital of The Gambia.

Got an amazing Lebanese breakfast of falafel that made me feel human again and off we went to see Serrekunda, not far from the capital but apparently a hive of activity.

XXX

... FALSE FOOTBALL

Kick off never comes in this meaningful match for life,
Long, indefinate days of desperation diluted by strife.

Swamped by bold football strips swallowing their hips,
Hoards of hungry players prowl affield for tips.

Arsenal on attack and as ever danger's defence,
Do these footballer's fortunes really make sense?

Scores seem futile when passes and dribbles ...

Really long time since my my last entry! sorry!
Went travelling down the coast all the way to Toubakouta to visit the Sine Saloum Delta with some other volunteers. Started off on Monday the 1st, travelled to Dakar to stay for one night in an apartment, cooked for ourselves which made a nice change! Then got a good nights sleep ready for the big day of travelling on Tuesday. The first part of the trip ...

... 20m of ground to the coach. Of course people in poor countries need income, but please can it be for doing something useful and not for hassling me over something I'm perfectly capable of doing myself. (Deep breath). Hassly ariport staff aside, the people that we met in The Gambia were friendly, welcoming and had ready smiles. The population is primarily muslim, but with a significant ...

... location suggests why its popularity in the context of the entire country will always have the stamp of permanence. This was the most authentically African country visited to date, and sufficient evidence to suggest that the country, in land mass terms 'a finger in the mouth of Senegal', literally thrives off its income generated from tourism. Excursions are adequate, at least for a week-long visit, and the jeep safari ...

... the rear of our old jalopy sways right as the front tires continue straight. As ever in moments like these everything slows down. Adrenaline travels from your heart to your fingers, your pupils dilate, you grip whatever is in your hands, and your legs tense. You notice everything. The driver jerks the steering wheel to the right, we fish tail to the left. He turns left as hard as he can. This seems to go on for awhile ...

... After only about 20 minutes into the walk, a vehicle drove past with two "tubabs" in the back seat. We realized they were probably coming from the lodge where we were headed. The driver of the vehicle talked briefly to the army man, who told us that he would be back to pick us up as soon as he dropped the ladies off at the main road. Sure enough, five minutes later we get in a vehicle with a license plate, "Tendaba", and I warily ask the driver if he happens to be Lamin ...

... we were going to get a bus to out of Basse Sante Su by 2pm, she never believed me but somehow we found one heading west(not as far west as we wanted to go, they kept saying it was too late for us to go that far today... yup, shoulda listened to them). So instead we got a gelleh-gelleh to wassu .Where we changed gelleh-gelleh(started to realize that this was wasting 30minutes at every stop to refill passengers) to Brikama Ba. When we rolled into brikama ba, we had read ...

... attempted to enthuse me about the latter. Written up in the guidebooks as an "ecological crossroads" between Equatorial Africa and the Sahara., The Gambia apparently is a Mecca for boring people worldwide who flock here to coo over all things winged. Well I've managed to live here almost a year without managing to pay any attention to the flying rats. Even the attempts of my ever-hopeful father failed to incite ...