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Published: February 10th 2011
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The Gambia. Ever heard of it? Neither had I - so here is an brief low down of the place before I crack on with the blog proper. The Gambia (definite article obligatory) is a small, thin country is West Africa that follows the course of the Gambia river far inland. It is a former British Colony and is surrounded on three sides by former French colony Senegal - the fourth side is the Atlantic Ocean in the West. Apart from their former rulers being different, the people of The Gambia and Senegal are exactly the same: same tribes, same native languages. The Gambia used to be at the centre of the trade taking slaves over to the Americas; now most of the money made is in growing peanuts and through male escorts.
Why The Gambia? Ursula's parents - who are bird people - had been told by various travellers that it’s one of the best places in the world to see many different species of exotic birds without having to suffer too much in the process. They hadn’t exaggerated. Every tree seemed to be bursting with stunning, many-coloured avian forms – slow enough for the eye to catch, but
often (infuriatingly) too fast for the camera. Of the 570-odd native bird species, by the end of the trip we’d notched up a respectable 110 odd… not that it’s about counting, of course. We saw 116 different bird species.
Although we had clearly clearly landed in a tropical paradise, the main focus of our week was going for big organised day-trips. Keith (Ursula's dad) had organised for us to have a guide for these - a man called Mustafa. We also had a second guide - a bird expert - whose name was also Mustafa. To mix it up, our third guide (when Mustafa bird-guide wasn't available) was simple called Musta. This situation called for nick-names (something Gambians love): Mustafa "Top Man", Mustafa "Birder" and Musta "The other guy".
My favourite day-trip involved taking a ferry and a jeep over to the Senegal border and beyond for a safari. Maria, our Senegalese guide, sat on a crate on the top of our jeep scanning for animals as we drove around the very large park with tall grass and labyrinthine road turnings. Sometimes, we were told, tourists can go a whole day and see nothing, but in a little
Scary stilt man
I'd been in The Gambia for less than six hours and this is what I see! less than an hour we had seen virtually every animal in the park: giraffes, rhinos, very large antelopes, warthogs, and of course the ever-present green vervet monkeys, one of which managed to sneak up on Ursula and wrestle a whole banana from her hand. You could tell that you were in Senegal as the monkeys on this side of the border wear black and white stripy tops and berets.
On the ferry back to Banjul, The Gambia’s dusty and haphazard capital, we had a great position to see a startlingly large and varied selection of humanity walk on board after us. Gambian women will carry virtually everything on their head: food, water, shopping, paint pots. They manage this feat of strength, coordination and balance while looking the height of elegance, wearing dresses that span the colour spectrum bright enough to need sunglasses just to look at them. For both men and women, looking well presented and stylish is important at all times. Generally the worst dressed people by far in The Gambia were the tourists.
Our adventures continued into the evening in a less structured and conventional sense - at least for Ursula and me. Almost every night
we would find ourselves at a bar or restaurant with live music and performance. We opted out of the lounge bar cheesy jazz (of which there was plenty) and went instead for the more traditional music. This typically featured a large group of drummers, each playing several bongos, a male and female voice, and dancers of either gender. The dancers move roughly in unison until the music reaches a fever pitch of intensity, at which point a solo dancer will explode with movement, waving arms and legs frenetically in a primal burst of energy. It looked exhausting, impossible, and impressive.
Another night-time adventure involved Ursula and me attending a reggae beach party. For a day and a half beforehand, virtually every young Gambian street hawker or beach chancer had insisted that we come to this party. To get there, we had to leave the familiar beach stretch of our own hotel well behind. Walking up the beach it was suddenly almost pitch-dark - the sound of wind was strong enough to drown out the music, so we had to follow our noses. Firstly we saw a light up ahead, then the breeze brought us a certain tell-tale aromatic herbaceous
Full Ferry
We thought the ferry was full and then it got a lot fuller. scent, and then the music flooded back - modern Jamaican reggae and dub. The party was outside a beach house on the patio and in the garden. There was a crush of about 200 people: 95% young male Gambians (who are generally tall and expansive dancers) with 5% bleary-eyed and confused looking white tourists. Straight way one of the guys, "Bright", who had invited Ursula to the party attached himself to us, along with his younger brother Jimmy. They acted as our chaperones and never left our side for the rest of the night - Bright was keen to mention to us that their services were required to protect us from some of the more “dubious” party-goers, and Jimmy loved the phrase "Your satisfaction is our pleasure". All we had to do was buy their drinks (non-alcoholic fruit cocktails, surprisingly) and they basically acted as a human shield between us and everyone else at the party!
On days when we weren't doing epic expeditions, we would be sipping cocktails at our hotel beach bar - with bar stools literally within the pool. Our hotel's grounds were themselves a renowned bird sighting location, and there used to be a giant
monitor lizard too until the groundskeeper went on holiday and someone ate it. Throughout the Senegambia area where we were staying, there was never any shortage of people looking to make friends and be helpful. I got trained in table-tennis by a 29 year old guy called "Highlife" who showed me a picture of his ex-girlfriend - an English woman well into her forties. One day Ursula and I took a walk along the beach and every ten minutes we would pass a middle-aged English or German woman hand-in-hand with a young, buff Gambian man, otherwise known as a “bumster”. This was a phenomenon we’d been warned about by Lonely Planet, but had never imagined would be so visible and widespread. Rich, aging European women flock to the Gambia in search of romance, company and a little bit more, and will often adopt their chosen bumster for their whole holiday, sitting with them silently at breakfast in the hotel and glaring stonily at any younger women who walk past. The really lucky bumsters sometimes marry their women, guaranteeing them a lifetime of raised eyebrows and a one-way ticket to Sheffield.
So what with the music, the animals and the
Me and my second snake fish
The fishing gods remain on my side. bumsters, our one week jaunt to The Gambia was far from being a bland tropical package-holiday. I've been to plenty of countries where when the locals see a white face you can see pound/dollar signs shimmering in their eyes. Here in The Gambia they manage to do that too but be charming and genuine at the same time. We were satisified... and it was their pleasure!
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melissa
non-member comment
great record
I really enjoyed this great record of our holiday - both the text and the photos. Excellent stuff.