Enjoying the Smiling Coast

After one night in Ziguinchor, where a large spider in the bathroom had me awake most of the night, we made our way to Kafountine, in the northern Casamance. We checked into another paradise - this time 'Le Paradise'. We were the only travellers staying here, and a couple of local fellows who we saw only briefly. It was like having the whole place to ourselves! The owner, Eve, claimed that the beach was 200m away and the town 800m. We found the town alright, but the beach was a lot longer away than 200m for us - we must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. The highlight of the beach area for us was the pirogue builders. It was incredible to watch the men building these boats by hand, no machinery in sight. Some of these boats are very large as well, we couldn't get over how deep and wide some of them are. The men who build these boats are craftsmen and artists with great skills.

Wandering down the beach was not a quiet or lonely venture. I think we had someone walk with us almost the entire time we were on the beach, about 2 hours. Very friendly and nice of course, but ' ... wouldn't you like to buy my paintings/necklaces/carvings/wares or have me as your guide ...'? Our email address has been given out to half of West Africa it feels like! So far, no one has contacted us yet ...
As we didn't exactly know the way home, we picked a spot to leave the beach and set off to discover where we had put ourselves. In the end, we had a lovely walk (with no friends selling us stuff) through the sandy back roads of Kafountine. The Kafountine Stadium is situated right outside of Le Paradise (stadium meaning there are permanent nets - made from fish nets) and by the time we wandered back the action was in full swing. We stood and watched the local men play football with very few rules on a sand field bordered by the dump on one side, Le Paradise and a shop on the other and a main road which runs through it. Not exactly regulation size, and not regulation rules. If the ball bounced off a building or roof, it was still in play. Cherry picking was the order of the day and the only rule that all agreed on was a hand ball. The play was very spirited and fast moving and a couple of times we had to jump out of the way of the play, even though we were very far off the field. It was a ton of fun to watch, and the locals thought it was highly amusing that we were spectators to their game.

Eve fed us wonderful meals, all set up with a tablecloth (so fancy!), soft latern lighting and wine - very romantic, especially since we were the only two there. The place was really lovely in so many ways except for the big, ugly, creepy spiders that inhabit the area. Eve assured us that they are harmless, but because I am so squeamish, she had her son 'bug bomb' our hut. Unfortunately, this did not make it easier for me to sleep at night, as I imagined the spiders concocting all kinds of schemes against me in the dark. So by night three of little or no sleep, we decided to move on and head into The Gambia.

We arrived at the taxi stand early to get a good start on our border crossing day. The private taxi was too expensive for us, so we opted for the 'bus'. The bus is a large van that holds 26 passengers with the luggage on the roof. We bought our tickets, negotiated the additional charge for baggage and hopped on board waiting for the bus to fill. It didn't take long and soon we were on our way. The seats were even somewhat comfortable, until they put 5 people across ... and the windows didn't open, so it was a very hot ride. We were rolling along nicely, albeit bumpily, when the bus stopped and people started climbing out. We weren't sure what was going on until another bus came by and everyone from ours tried to cram onto the new bus. Then our new friend (who gave us a large bag of cashews) informed us that our bus was broken and that we either had to walk or try to get on another bus. The walk to the border was about 8 km in the heat of the day on sandy roads, so we decided to hang out and see what would happen next. After the first bus took about 10 people, a second bus came along and another 10 (not us of course) and there were 6 of us left. All of our luggage was on the roof, the only things we had with us were the camera, a water bottle and the bag of cashews from our friend. Since the van was now finally jacked up (this took an amazing long time to achieve), there was no way to retrieve any other goodies from our bags. So, we opened the bag of cashews and shared them around with our fellow stranded passengers and the men working on the bus. It's amazing how quickly strangers can become friends when you share food! When we all finally got on a third bus, our fellow passengers took very good care of us, ensuring that we had seats and that the bus did not leave with out us. When we got to The Gambia border post, we had to go inside and get Visitor Stamps in our passports and pay an entry tax (that turned out to be 3 times the actual amount). It took us a long time, but the bus waited for us and when the driver of the BrokeDown Bus found out how much we paid, he took off to the border office to find out why they charged us so much. It is very hard to argue with Border Officials when they have your passport in hand, so we just paid the fee. The driver was very upset with the way the border officials cheat tourists. The camraderie in the back of the bus with the young men was quite comical. The young fellow next to me decided that I was his wife and that Peter no longer has a wife. Then he asked me my age - poor guy! He looked at me and said - you are old! And then he asked Peter his age and promptly started calling him Poppa when Peter replied. Although I was old (he was only 20), I was still his wife and he wanted my hiking boots. We shared a lot of laughs with all the men in the back of the bus over this wife business.
When we finally made it to Brikama, our first driver also helped us to get on a minibus to Serekunda our final destination. We felt very taken care of and even though it took longer than expected, we enjoyed the experience.

The Atlantic Coast region of The Gambia is called the Smiling Coast, and it seems to be very true from our experience. The people are friendly and readily return a smile with a hearty hello and how are you. It is nice for us to be in an English speaking country again too. We can read the road signs and bill boards and we can converse very easily with everyone. At first we were greeting everyone with 'Bonjour', but we quickly got out of that habit, which will have to be relearned when we go back into Senegal.

We are staying in Serekunda, which is inland from the coast (about 4 km) and the major city in the coastal area. We chose to stay here so we could be central to the coast, to Abuko Nature Reserve and Banjul (The Gambia's capital city). Our little motel is in a very local area, and we are the only foreigners staying here, but we really like it. We spent one day walking to the coast. We had been told several times that the coast of The Gambia is very touristy and expensive (another reason we didn't want to stay on the coast), but we still wanted to have a look. The day that we decided to walk from Serekunda to Fajara (one of 4 coastal towns) was the last Saturday of March. This turns out to be significant because the last Saturday of every month is "Operation Clean the Nation Day" in The Gambia and consists of every citizen cleaning their home, business and surrounding area for a 1/2 day. Cars are not allowed on the roads until 1 pm and businesses don't open up again until after 1pm. Unfortunately, cleaning up also involves burning all the garbage collected in many areas so the atmosphere was thick and smoky the whole day with that lovely smell of burning plastic lingering in the air. Our walk to Fajara takes us along the main road connecting Serekunda with the coast, and in the morning because there were no cars, we were able to walk along the road - something we would not dare attempt now! It was so quiet, no horns honking, no people shouting, just Peter and I walking along the road with a few people passing us on bicycles.

When we arrived at the coast, we were surprised that it was actually difficult to access the beach due to private homes lining the beach. We did finally find our way down to the beach by walking beside the Fajara Golf Course (a very dry, brittle, brown looking golf course with dirt patches in place of the green). The beach area had hotels and restaurants along it and everyone wants to sell you something, but it still wasn't as touristy as we had expected. We suspect that further down the coast is where the big glitzy hotels are. We had also walked down to Fajara to visit an English bookstore, and since I was out of reading material, I was very much looking forward to a trip to the bookstore. You can imagine how disappointed I was when they didn't open after 1 pm .... I stood looking in the windows and sighing ... all those books, locked up beyond my reach ...sigh. We did make it down to the bookstore on Monday, so all is good now, but I was very sad on Saturday.

On Sunday we decided to visit Abuko National Park, which is very near to Serekunda. It is The Gambia's smallest nature reserve, but houses several different species. Our first monkey was just inside the park gates and many more followed (we have spared you the large part of our monkey photos!). There are hundreds of species of birds that call this park home along with a large variety of mammals and reptiles. Again, we don't know what species of birds that are in our photos, but they were very beautiful and interesting so we wanted to share. We enjoyed a lovely day at the park, wandering the pathways, watching the birds and monkeys for 3 hours. It got very hot toward the end of our stay, as the path started taking us out of the big, lush trees into more open and dry areas. All in all we really enjoyed the park and the animals that we saw.

On Monday we ventured to Banjul, the capital of The Gambia. Again, it is not far from Serekunda, so we made a day trip of it. Banjul has a small population base (35,000), but houses a huge, bustling market where we wandered through it's maze of stalls. It was a fascinating display of wares, food, and crafts. It was also the first market where we weren't hassled every step of the way, which was a very nice change.
We strolled the streets of Banjul and took care of some errands and decided it was time to head out. Our plan for later in the day was to visit the bookstore in Fajara and treat ourselves to a fancy dinner at a highly recommended Indian restaurant - The Clay Oven. The bookstore was all I imagined it to be and a little bit more (a little more expensive than I thought, but oh well, I'll have English books for a long time now) and the dinner was extraordinary. We enjoyed a first class Indian meal that rivals the Moti Mahal at home! It was a real treat for us (both as food and as an expense), but sometimes you just gotta do it!

We have been in Serekunda for 5 days now, and it is time to move on again. We will be heading inland/upriver in The Gambia, heading for Georgetown.

Until next time,
Lots of love,
Laini and Peter

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