We're all tourists

We've never before been in a country where we felt so clearly tourists. 

But we were, and as you can read in my blog it took some time 'outside the tourist resort' to get used to the feeling - and get over it. If ever we really can, that is. 

One major drawback was that we could never travel on our own to discover the country by ourselves. Leaving the resort for an outing, or even to buy something, meant a driver and a guide. Two non-NGO whites in a car is too strange, and we knew we couldn't talk ourselves out of trouble if anything happened. 

So tourists we were. That wasn't too bad when it was only the two of us and our Gambian guide, strolling along the market stalls. 

It was pretty horrible when we toured with a group. That was extremely embarrasing, to be honest. 

The Gambians changed too, when confronted with a truckload of white people. 

Not kind, welcoming and modest anymore but getting to the point immediately and demanding money. 

Well - can't blame them, really. The safest way to see dire poverty is a holiday in the Gambia, I can assure you. In between the monsoon and harvest time  - well out of the tourist season - people inland still die of hunger. It's a horrible thought.

We end this strangest of strange weeks. 

I do hope I've given you a good impression of this amazing African land. 

We've only scratched the surface and we do want to go back. Learn more. We made friends with two very kind and affectionate Gambians, and they, Aisha and Sheriffo, want to show us their country when we return: a Gambia beyond the strip near the sea, that was developed for the white people.  

See their pics at the end of this post. I do hope they manage. I hope the Gambia does too. 

No Big Five

The Gambia is not the place to be when you want to spot the Big Five. There's not much Wildlife to be spotted, to be honest.

Local guides are happy to bring you past a ticket barrier to a sacred pond, infested with rather docile crocs - they're sacred too, pretty harmless and touchable. It helps they're not the size of a grown up Aussie Saltie.

Same guides are also happy to bring you to the tiniest of Official African Wild Life Parks - think 2 km by 400 metres - to show you endangered monkeys. When we did spot the monkeys (they were cute, we were thrilled to see them in their natural habitat and not in a zoo) the guides told us immediately this was a very special occasion because normally the endangered monkeys remained totally invisible.

The Gambia is famous for it's birds. All European birds seem to migrate to the Gambia. The thing with birds is you don't see them, unless you're a trained ornithologist. So apart from an inordinate amount of vultures - see something big in the sky and it's a vulture - we only spotted pelicans and ostriches.
Well, you can hardly miss them, can't you.

And hyenas. We saw hyenas. They looked pretty harmless and rather cuddly, behind bars. They were behind bars because they attack everyone and everything, so they're caught and locked away before they can feast on the locals.

That's your Gambian Wildlife. It makes for nice pictures, though...

The River, the Gambia, the vultures

One day we went to the river that seperates the Gambia from Senegal. Rough hewn 'dug-out' canoes crossed the river to and from the Gambia. Charming detail: the motorbike that was transported to the other side.

We cruised the river for almost an hour - mangrove bushes and pretty boring, just two green walls - and landed at the local border post. I love borders and this was a beauty. I am sure you will agree too when you see my photos.

We also saw an inordinate amount of vultures. They're everywhere. We have even seen them in the chic tourist resorts where they sat in the palm trees and walked on the lawns - you could walk right up to them.
It felt all very Wildlife.

Talking about wildlife: the Gambia is not the place to be for your Big Five. They've got crocodiles (holy), monkeys (endangered), hyenas (scary) and lots of birds (invisible).
Let's start with the river.

 

Nature? No nature. The savannah landscape of the Gambia

Let's leave the streets, markets and residential areas for a while and head inland, away from city and tarmac.

I think - do correct me if I'm wrong - the Gambian landscape is between lush green South Africa (as shown in the glossy travel guides) and the dry and barren Sahel desert. More Sahel than South.
The Gambia is savannah. Most of it dry savannah. To be honest, landscape wise that's a bit boring.
Now the Gambia is really lucky with the River - ok, that's the whole idea of the Gambia.

The Gambia.
I never gave it a second thought really, but the name of the country is the name of the river. The river that runs through Senegal.
So there's large Senegal, with this river in the South running due West into the Atlantic. The riverbanks, up to 25-30 km. North and South of the river, makes up the Gambia, the country.

Despite the river the land is mainly dry with the occasional solitary tree and fields where peanuts (groundnuts) are grown. Those fields had to be pointed out to us - couldn't see the difference between uncultivated and farmed land. Sorry.

What we did notice though - almost the moment we stepped outside the confines of the hotel - was a strong, heady scent of a herb that reminded us of Italy. We guessed it was thyme. We found out it was called the 'Gambian tea bush'. Latin name Lippia, hip to head high, not a thyme but a sort of oregano.
You drink it as tea, it's sold on the markets and just about everywhere you go you can pick it for free. Brought some to Holland - exactly the sort of souvenir I like to bring back home.

Let's give you an impression of what the Gambia looks like - away from the river.

Streetlife: the paved roads

In most of the Gambia - think 98% of the country - the roads are unpaved. As a tourist you don't see much of the unpaved Gambia. The tourist resorts are concentrated in a tiny and wholly paved dollop along the coast and as tourists you're supposed to stay there.
It's rather not - - - encouraged to travel the 350 or so kilometers due east to the other Gambian border.

In that tiny dollop you'll see the Streetlife as we saw it, on those paved roads. The one outside our hotel for example, the one and only Highway running all the way from the Airport to the capital Banyuls.

It did remind us of Indonesia, albeit not so (horribly) crowded.
But here too hikers, cyclists, mopeds, cars, mini vans and lorries share the same space, with the occasional donkey cart thrown in for the local touch.

For a glimpse of the true blue unpaved roads I'll blog next, and tell about the 'streetlife' in the village right behind our hotel.
This was as exotic as it gets, and exactly how I guessed the 'real' Africa would be. One of those 'I'm in a National Geographic documentary' moments. IRL. So keep reading....

PS If you've ever wondered where all the cars go to that we discart, the really really crap ones: Africa.

Tanji, a fishing industry - on the beach

Here's another illuminating example of the Gambian wholesale and retail trade.
I wrote a blog about our visit to the two largest markets - Serrekunda and Albert Market - and we saw (but never dared visit, too shy) the shops that line the streets.

One day we visited the most extraordinary market we ever clapped eyes on: the daily, wholesale and retail fishing market on (yes, on) Tanji Beach.
Tanji Beach is the most important fishing 'harbour' of the Gambia. Twice daily fishing boats arrive at the beach and sell their catch in rusty wheelbarrows - that's the wholesale part - to the vendors, who in turn sell the fish on small upturned plastic boxes to the public. Or on a piece of cloth. That's the retail.

The fish that is not sold the same day is either dried or smoked, after which it's packaged in loose wooden crates and send to the middle of the African continent, or kept on ice.
On ice, in - please note - our discarded fridges and freezers. I'm not kidding. I think this was the most baffling part of the market.

That said, we've never ever even been near such an unknown and unfamiliar place. We were grateful for the chance to see such an important part of Gambian daily life, but the dire poverty of it all was difficult to deal with.

Outside the tourist resorts : contact with the Gambians

There's a lot of Gambia outside the tourist resorts.
But it takes a crash course to deal with the fact that you're the rich one in any encounter, and it took us almost a week before we knew how to have an easy, interesting and in the end a wonderful time with the Gambians.

When we - finally - knew we left the beaten path and strolled around happily in the village behind our hotel.
We watched children playing football - Gambians love football - we saw the women sitting outside the compound, we bought sweets in the tiny shops that are part of their homes, we chatted with the children that came to greet us and we walked back to the hotel in the company of a local teacher who had an awful lot of knowledge of the Gambian educational system.

A very African experience! It was absolutely wonderful, the quiet, the spaceous roads, the contact we had with the people that lived there. Finally past the white-and-rich vs. black-and-poor. It felt great. That's why we want to come back.