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It was still dark and the rain was falling steadily as I waited for the taxi in the early hours of Saturday morning outside my friends flat in Southfields, south London. It looked like it would be another typical autumn day, grey, cold and wet. On the way to the airport the radio was playing in the taxi. The DJ was talking about the impending doom of the onset of winter and the fact that the clocks would be going back an hour this weekend. His final piece of advice to listeners who could not cope with the endless dark, grey days ahead was to travel south to find some winter sunshine. We were just turning into Heathrow airport; I turned to the driver and said, 'Now there's a good idea.'
A quick dash through the rain and I was in the terminal building and checked into my flight to Banjul in The Gambia. Today I felt confident that, for me at least, the weather could only improve. I was embarking on a six week road trip through West Africa; starting in Banjul, The Gambia and finishing in Accra, Ghana and travelling through the east of Senegal, Mali and Burkina Faso on the way. It was not a direct flight to Africa. The first leg took me as far as Brussels where I stopped for an hour and a half to change aircraft. The second leg took me to Conakry in Guinea, where we refuelled before taking the last flight of forty-five minutes to Banjul. We descended into Banjul International Airport across the green, lush forests of the Casamance region of southern Senegal. Ahead of us I could see the large estuary of the River Gambia flowing out into the Atlantic Ocean. The only thought going through my head now was; what am I going to do tomorrow? I put that thought out of my head and concentrated on today; we were only a few minutes from arriving, forty minutes ahead of schedule. Local time was now 18.00.
Stepping off the plane and onto the tarmac I was hit by the heat. In a little over ten hours I found myself transported from the cold of London to the tropical warmth of West Africa. I smiled in the excitement of being somewhere new and totally alien to my environment at home. The formalities at the airport, which was small but modern, an investment in the countries tourist industry, did not take long and I soon found myself haggling for a taxi to take me to a hotel. The only way to get to the city or the Atlantic resorts, from the airport is to take a green tourist taxi. I had decided to stay outside the city but away from the resorts and took a taxi to the Malawi Guesthouse just off Pipeline road between Fajara and Serekunda.
The sun was just setting as the taxi pulled up in the sandy street outside the guesthouse and parked under a palm tree. I checked in and opted for a room at the back of the building; I thought it would be quieter here away from the bar and the restaurant. I soon realised my first mistake as I was lying in my room. The generator was started up, which was just outside in the rear courtyard. It sounded like someone had parked a tractor in the courtyard. The sound of generators and electricity shortages would become a daily feature of life during my trip through The Gambia.
I sat down that evening for dinner at the restaurant and met the owner of the guesthouse, Mohammed. He asked me where I was from, I replied, 'From England.' 'I know that', he said, 'where in England?' It was then that the penny dropped. His accent was terribly familiar. It turned out he was originally from Petersfield in Hampshire. He had moved out to The Gambia in the early nineteen eighties, converted to Islam and changed his name from Robert to Mohammed. Wearing his white robes and cap and with a long beard he looked very much like a local, except for the tanned white skin. His roots from southern England explained the menu at the restaurant; pie, chips and beans, chilli, burger and chips, roast of the day as well as some traditional Gambian fare. Last year he had made the hajj to Mecca, taking one of his staff at the guesthouse with him. It was fascinating to hear him recount his stories of his travels in Saudi Arabia and especially to Mecca, a city that is closed to infidels.
I spent two days at the Malawi guesthouse acclimatising to my new surroundings. On my first night the generator was finally turned off at around midnight and I fell asleep in a room that gradually became warmer and warmer now that the ceiling fan was no longer working. By the morning the heat felt stifling. The mornings I spent at the guesthouse sitting out in the garden. After a very hectic last week at work back home it was nice to just sit down with a book and relax. The restaurant became very busy at lunchtime on Sunday. Mohammed's roast Sunday lunches seemed to be a local institution with the ex-pats as well as the locals.
In the afternoon I went off to the Abuko Nature Reserve near the airport. I walked down to the pipeline road and picked up a shared taxi the couple of kilometres to Westfield Junction in Serekunda. Serekunda is the hub of the countries transport network and Westfield Junction is where the main roads meet. Serekunda has become the unofficial capital, mainly because Banjul, which is situated on an island, hasn't the space to expand. Serekunda has a very urban African feel to it, colourful markets and crowds of people thronging the roads. It is a very low-rise city, and really didn't feel like a city at all. There were not many large buildings, just a few banks overlooking Westfield Junction. The rest of the buildings were either small concrete houses or corrugated iron shacks. I worked my way through the crowds of people and eventually found a mini-bus going to Brikama, which dropped me off at the gates of the Nature Reserve.
For a park of only 105 hectares it has some very diverse vegetation. There is a stream that flows through the park, which allows both forest and savannah species to thrive here. I paid my entrance fee and walked into the park. It wasn't busy; I was the only person there. The path loops around the park and takes about two hours to walk around slowly if you appreciate the vegetation and wildlife on the way. In the centre is a lake fed by the stream, which is home to the crocodiles. From a hide overlooking the lake I waited patiently for the wildlife to make an appearance. Ripples suddenly appeared on the surface of the lake and in the distance I could see a crocodile slowly swim across the lake and down towards the hide. It swam past the hide and then disappeared back under water. The trees surrounding the lake were full of birds, some darting down to the lake to pick off insects. About 270 species of birds have been recorded in this one small park. Around the park I saw many monkeys. Trees would suddenly explode into life as I walked past, monkeys scurrying away in the branches. There are about 140 monkeys in the park from three species, the green, the patas and the red colobus monkey.
The following day I went off to Banjul. The city is very small with a population of about 50,000. Again I took a shared taxi to Westfield Junction and from there picked up a mini-bus going to the city and was dropped off on July 22 Drive outside the National Museum. I walked into the museum and felt rather guilty at disturbing the staff to buy a ticket. The girl behind the ticket desk offered me her services as a maid. I declined the offer and the staff left the building again to sit out in the garden and continue what they were doing before I disturbed them. The museum was fairly small but had some interesting exhibits on the local African peoples, the environment and the colonial period. Upstairs were many dusty old photos of former colonial governors as well as old tea sets, stamped with the royal crest, sitting in glass cases. After about an hour I left the museum and continued walking into the centre of the city and MacCarthy Square. The city was much quieter than I thought it would be, although as I approached Albert Market the streets became more crowded. That is when an out of work tourist guide from the coastal resorts found me.
I found it impossible to shake off this impromptu guide and resigned myself to being shown around the market. The market is the largest in the country and is the vibrant heart of the city. Everything was for sell here from fabrics and clothes to electrical goods and souvenirs. I'll give my guide his credit, he did seem knowledgeable but I still would of preferred to wander the market at my own speed by myself. At times it felt that he was following me around (which I suppose he was) rather than me following my guide. Eventually the only way I found to get rid of him was to leave the market and to tell him that I was returning to my hotel. After giving him a donation to help feed his child I walked back up July 22 Drive.
At the edge of the city I stopped at Arch 22, a massive gateway into the city built to commemorate the military coup of 22 July 1994 led by Lt Yahya Jammeh. In an apparently bloodless coup Lt Jammeh seized power from President Jawara, who had been in power since independence from Britain in 1965. In 1996 multiparty elections were held and Lt Jammeh's party, the renamed Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction, won and Jammeh was installed as the democratically elected president. The arch is 35 metres high and is the tallest building in Banjul. It consists of a balcony and triangular roof sitting on eight giant columns, four on either side. A lift takes you up inside one of the columns to the balcony where there is a coffee shop. Stairs from here take you further up to a small museum, which seemed to have borrowed most of its exhibits from the National Museum just down the road. Right at the top of the building are two small balconies, which had excellent views over the city, the river, harbour and the ocean.
The following weekend on Sunday I had arranged to meet my friend Joanna in Bamako, Mali. She only had a couple of weeks off work and was flying directly into the country. Today was Tuesday and I decided it was time that I began by road trip to Bamako. I checked out of the Malawi Guesthouse and found a taxi on pipeline road. I told the driver I wanted to take a bus going upcountry to Georgetown. I expected to be dropped off in the centre of Serekunda near Westfield Junction where most of the transport seemed to congregate. Instead I was dropped off at a bus depot on the other side of town. The driver assured me this was the place to catch a bus going upcountry. I had my doubts. In my experience of travelling, bus and taxi stations are places of chaotic crowds, hawkers, touts and an assortment of every kind of vehicle you can imagine. Instead this place was devoid of crowds and the other paraphernalia I would of expected. It was the Gambia Public Transport Corporation (GPTC) depot, a yard full of busses but no passengers. I walked up to the gate and asked the security officer if I was in the right place. He said yes and then brought a chair out of his office for me to sit on while I waited, and waited, and waited.
During this time a couple of other passengers turned up, which reassured me that I was in the right place. One man was taking the bus all the way to Basse Santa Su and was his first trip upcountry. He found out that most of the busses leave early in the morning. I had got there at nine and still missed them. The express bus we were now waiting for had broken down and was being fixed in the depot. Two mechanics worked on the bus for hours and eventually the engine exploded into life in a cloud of smoke. We thought at last we would be on our way, but when the bus stopped at the gates where we were waiting patiently, we were told that it was going for a test drive to see if the repairs had worked.
It was then that someone came up with the idea of sending out another bus to do the trip upcountry. So about ten minutes after the express bus left for its test drive, a rather old battered local bus with wooden seats stopped at the gate and we climbed aboard. One thing I noticed before boarding was the missing wheel nut on one of the wheels. On this whole trip I would become paranoid about missing wheel nuts and bald tyres. Nearly every bus was missing a wheel nut. Someone, somewhere in Africa must have a warehouse full of wheel nuts. The bus pulled out of the yard and I felt the euphoria of moving at last after waiting for nearly four hours. The euphoria didn't last long when we stopped at the bus stop about a hundred metres down the road where all the other passengers were waiting.
There are two main roads in The Gambia, one follows the north bank of the river and is a rather rough dirt road which frequently washes away during the rainy season; the other follows the south bank and is tarred and would be the road I would be travelling today. I sat next to the man who was making his first trip to Basse Santa Su and chatted for the first hour or so of the journey. At the first town we stopped at the bus was surrounded by women selling food and drinks from baskets and trays balanced on their heads. Lunch at last. I bought some bananas and bread through the window of the bus and managed to banish the hunger pains that had been building up inside me.
Late in the afternoon we stopped at the town of Soma, about halfway between Banjul and Georgetown. Soma is a crossroads town; this is where the Trans-Gambia Highway from Senegal passes through the country. We had time to get off and stretch our legs. In a tree overlooking the GPTC yard a large flock of vultures sat staring at us, no doubt eyeing up the food waste being thrown to the ground. The journey so far had been very green with patches of forest beside the road and small villages of round mud huts with conical straw roofs, set beside fields of millet and where we were near the river, or a tributary, rice paddies.
The road was not the smoothest and was badly potholed in places. Sitting on a hard wooden seat was becoming increasingly more uncomfortable. The sun set behind us and we still had not reached our destination. The bus continued to rattle and shake it's way down the road until it finally pulled up beside the river next to the ferry to Georgetown.
It was dark; there was no street lighting, only a few shacks alongside the road with oil lamps burning. On the bus there was also a Dutch couple; they dragged their rather oversize suitcases down to the river and climbed into the small foot passenger ferry. Meanwhile my travelling companion, who was continuing the journey to Basse Santa Su, wanted me to take a photo of the two of us. While we were doing this I missed the small ferry. I walked down to the river and sat on a log and waited for another boat to make the crossing. While sitting there a guide from Georgetown found me. He would prove to be invaluable as we made the final leg of the journey into town. The car ferry was moored on our side of the river and soon a car appeared to make the crossing. The ferry was very small; it could only carry a couple of cars at a time. Unfortunately the engine had broken some time ago, so in return for free passage the foot passengers, including myself, hauled the ferry across the river using a cable moored to a tree on the other side.
It was very hot and humid. Sweat was pouring from me as the ferry silently slipped across the river as we all tugged on the cable. A couple of cars were waiting on the other side, a taxi and a minibus. I climbed aboard the minibus with my guide for the journey of a couple of kilometres into town. I told my guide I was going to the Baobolong Camp on the edge of town, next to the river. He stopped the bus at a corner in the dark. We were in Georgetown. There was no street lighting in the town; it was so dark I couldn't make out any buildings. I knew from studying a map of the town earlier in the day that the Camp was down a side road to the east of the first corner in town. I was confident that that was where we were now. The two of us walked in the dark down a dirt road. As we walked people appeared out of the blackness along the road. I could hear voices and other sounds of town life around me but found it hard to see anything in the gloom. Some dim lights were burning in the windows of buildings we passed, but it was not enough to illuminate the way for us.
After about half a kilometre we came to some bright lights and the entrance to the Baobolong Camp. I had finally completed the first leg of my long journey through West Africa. I checked into a small chalet and returned to the reception and bought my guide a drink to thank him for getting me here. I would of never found the place in the dark without him. We went into the dining room to sit down and cool off with our drinks and found the Dutch couple and their guide already there. We were the only three guests at the camp.
I was eager the next morning to go out and explore the new town I had arrived in. I was intrigued after my arrival last night in the dark. Georgetown is situated on the northern shore of MacCarthy Island, an island that measures 10km long and 2.5km wide. Ferries connect the town to both the southern and northern banks of the River Gambia. During the colonial period the town was an important administrative centre. Today it is a quite tranquil place trying hard to attract tourists from the coastal resorts to enjoy the abundance of bird life and other wildlife that can be found along the banks of the river. I was expecting to find a rather grand, if somewhat decaying old colonial town with some old buildings lining the main street. Instead as Joany, Willem and myself walked through town we only found a collection of corrugated iron shacks lining the main street. Down by the waterfront are some old colonial warehouses, which the locals call the slave house. This is more a story to interest tourists rather than fact. The warehouses were built in the second half of the 19th century whereas slavery was abolished in the British colonies in 1807. Today the warehouses are unused and are slowly falling apart as the surrounding forest reclaims them.
We decided that morning to hire a boat to take us out on the river. Back at the Baobolong Camp we set our guides, who showed us into town the night before, the task of finding a boat. Joany drove a very hard bargain with the guides and we eventually got the boat for a couple of hours at the price we wanted. The boat didn't seem the most seaworthy and Joany joked by asking me if I had any corks to plug the holes. We sailed off downstream; one of our guides busied himself plugging the holes in the boat and mopping up the water seeping in with a large sponge. The outboard motor screaming at the back of the boat did its best to scare off most of the birds and any animals we were likely to see. It was reported that hippos could be regularly found wallowing in the river at the western end of the island, and it was here we were headed. We reached the end of the island and turned off the outboard motor and let the boat drift on the current keeping our eyes peeled for the elusive hippos. After half an hour or so the hippos remained elusive so we turned back for Georgetown, stopping along the way at another camp 3 km from Georgetown for a couple of cold beers.
I spent two nights at the Baobolong Camp. It was a very nice relaxed place to stay and the owner, Laurence, was very helpful and friendly. During the afternoon it was just too hot and humid to do much so I found a shady tree and dozed off for a few hours. Sleeping under shady trees seemed to be a national pastime in The Gambia and I soon got the hang of it. Within a matter of days I had it mastered and truly felt like one of the locals. On our second evening we were still the only three guests at the camp and Laurence made us a large buffet dinner of rice, millet, salad and a stew in peanut sauce. It was delicious. I retired to my chalet that evening. You know that you are near a river when you have to clear your room of frogs before going to bed; they were everywhere - at least they helped to keep the insect population down.
The next morning we took the minibus back to the ferry crossing and once again hauled the ferry across the river to the other side to wait for some transport to arrive. Joany and Willem were taking a bus back to Soma where they would change and take a bus to the Casamance region of Senegal. They were on their way to Guinea-Bissau. When I returned home I received an email from Joany. While in Guinea-Bissau an army general attempted to seize power and they spent two days sheltering in a hotel room while the bullets were flying. The attempted coup was defeated and when the borders reopened they headed back to the much safer rebellious Casamance.
I took a bush taxi to Basse Santa Su, a trip that only took a few hours; I arrived at lunchtime. Basse is the easternmost town in The Gambia located on the southern banks of the river. Today was Thursday, market day. The town was very lively and busy, a stark contrast to the laid back atmosphere of Georgetown. After checking into the Jem Hotel near the edge of town I went off to the bank to change some money. I was finding this country far more expensive than I planned; I had already spent my budget of £100 for the week in five days. I made my trip to the bank just in time. The town receives its electricity on a rotor system and the power was due to go off at two that afternoon and with it the commercial life of the town. Tonight was also to be a 'lights out' night; the town only receives power for about four evenings a week.
Late in the afternoon, once the heat of the day had subsided, I went for a stroll around town. I stopped at the bush taxi station to make some inquiries as to taxis making the trip across the Senegal border to Velingara. I planned to go to Tambacounda in the east of Senegal on Friday, which would then give me two days to get to Bamako for Sunday evening to meet up with Joanna. As I walked around town I was not bothered or pestered by anyone, it was as if no one could see me; the crowds of people went about their business oblivious to my presence. It lent the town a relaxed feeling despite the frenetic activity of market day. I ended up down by the river at a craft centre housed in an old warehouse called Traditions. The place was quiet and I went upstairs to sit on the balcony with a pot of tea to watch life go by on the river. The owner, as well as running the craft workshops, was also a keen bird watcher. While I sipped my tea she pointed out the rather rare Egyptian plover, also know as the crocodile bird, as they flew up and down the river. On the river the many small boats crisscrossed from bank to bank laden down with passengers, bicycles and mopeds.
That evening there was no food available at the hotel so the owner gave me the name of a recommended restaurant in town and I wandered out into the dark to find something to eat. There was a different feel to the town now it was dark. There were still crowds of people moving silently along the streets, the only illumination came from the headlights of passing cars. I passed a small rice paddy on the way to the town centre where fireflies darted about. In the dark I found it impossible to find this restaurant, so I stopped and asked a group of men sitting on a log beside the road. One of them shouted and a boy appeared who showed me the way. I walked through a curtain that served as a door into this shack. There were two tables covered in plastic tablecloths on either side of the room with a wooden bench in front of each and two oil lamps hanging from the ceiling. There were two other people eating at one of the tables. Behind the counter a large pot of stew was bubbling away on a charcoal fire. Tonight's menu was stew and bread. I was given a plastic bowl of stew and a hunk of bread and sat down to dinner. There was no cutlery and I proceeded to eat the stew with my fingers, soaking up the sauce with the bread. Despite the surroundings the meal was very good and very cheap. On the way back to the hotel I stopped at some roadside stalls, which were either lit with candles or oil lamps, to buy some bread, nuts and bananas for breakfast the next morning as I was going to be making an early to start to cross the border to Senegal.
I walked to the taxi station in the morning and arrived there at about 06.30. The yard was the only part of town that was busy that morning. I found a taxi doing the trip to Velingara amongst the many cars parked in the yard. The taxi was an old battered Peugeot 504. I went and sat on a wall and waited for more passengers to arrive. A couple of travellers from Slovenia, Matevz and Vesna, were also waiting there. We chatted and it turned out that they were waiting for the same taxi to depart. Today they were also going to Tambacounda in the east of Senegal and from there travelling to Bamako in Mali.
After about half an hour we had enough passengers to set off and we loaded our luggage onto the roof of the Peugeot. Our first problem of the day was trying to get the car started; the battery was flat and the engine refused to turn over. The car was pushed out into the road and a group of boys and some of the other passengers tried to jumpstart the car pushing it up and down the street. The only sign of life coming from the Peugeot was the occasional puff of black smoke from the exhaust pipe as the engine tried to cough into life. It was not going well and it was decided to push the car to the next street where there was a slight gradient down to the river. We followed the car while the boys pushed. Still the car would not start. Someone went off to find a spare battery. When they returned a boy sat on the engine holding the wires connecting the two batteries while everyone else pushed. Finally after another three attempts the car exploded into life in a cloud of smoke that left bystanders choking.
The three of us, Matevz, Vesna and myself stood staring at the car in silence. Smoke was appearing from everywhere around the car as the driver revved up the engine in an attempt to keep it alive. This must have been the most dilapidated car I had ever driven in. The whole car was shaking and rattling as the engine roared and smoked. We squeezed into the car; smoke was billowing out from around the bonnet and was even coming through the dashboard and into the car. The smell of burning oil was intense. We set off out of town not knowing whether the car would make it to Senegal.
Once we left Basse Santa Su and turned off onto the road to the border it suddenly became apparent why the car was in such a bad state of repair. The road was little more than a dirt track. In places the road was fairly wide, but this was only because cars had been taking detours around the large potholes. There was a slow moving truck in front of us throwing up a cloud of dust, which was also choking us together with the smoke coming through the dashboard. We couldn't close the windows in the car because either there was no window or the winder was missing. We managed eventually to pass the truck. The landscape in the east of the country was very different than that from nearer the coast. We had left the forest region behind us and were now travelling through savannah. Tall grass grew right up to the road and was taller than the car. Amongst the interspersed trees were small villages and fields of millet and maize, which was being harvested.
The car stopped alongside a couple of huts beside the road. We had arrived at the Gambian border post. About three border guards were sitting on a bench under a large shady tree. We all wandered slowly across the road to one of the huts, giving the border guards time to get organised to process our passports. Our vehicle was the only one at the border post and it didn't take long for all us to complete the immigration formalities, once the guard managed to find his ink stamp in his desk. There was no barrier across the road; local villagers past by on their bicycles quite freely. We were now in no-mans land as our driver sped off down the dirt track to Senegal; at times it felt like we were part of some trans-Africa rally as we left The Gambia behind us in a cloud of dust.
A few kilometres along the road we arrived at the Senegal border post. The border guards seemed busier here than their counterparts just down the road in The Gambia. The buildings were larger and there was even a barrier across the road stopping us from preceding any further. We all sat in one of the buildings on a long wooden bench leaving our passports and identity papers in a pile on the desk for the immigration officer to sift through. After twenty minutes or so we were all officially in Senegal and we continued on our way to Velingara.
We didn't stop long in Velingara. Our taxi terminated on one side of town and transport on to Tambacounda left from the other. We all crammed into a town taxi for the short trip across town and from there picked up a minibus for the final two-hour trip along a nice smooth tarred road. We arrived in town along Avenue Leopold Senghor and passed by the guesthouse Chez Dessert where we planned to stay. I quickly shouted at the driver to drop us off here and we walked the few hundred metres back up the road to the guesthouse. There the owner, a large lady with an even larger personality, greeted us.
She immediately reminded me of Whoopi Goldberg. She was sitting outside the front of her house, the small annexe, which was the guesthouse, was to one side of the courtyard. Her daughters and grand children surrounded her in the courtyard. Her daughters were busy preparing lunch and a large pot of stew was bubbling away on a charcoal fire as well as another pot of rice. The smell of cooking floated in the air around the yard. Matevz and Vesna took the last room at the guesthouse, I think there were only three rooms, so the owner let me stay in one of her daughter's rooms in the house. Once I had dropped my bag off in the room I walked back out into the courtyard and commented on how nice the smell of the food cooking was. I was immediately invited to sit down with the family to join them for lunch. The food was as good as it smelled as we all sat on the ground in a circle around a large bowl and helped ourselves with our hands.
Later in the afternoon I walked into town to check out my transport options to the Mali frontier for tomorrow morning. The town was large and it took me a long time to walk to where the taxi station should have been for transport heading east. I couldn't find it and it was too hot to keep wandering around, so I strolled slowly back to the guesthouse and made a mental note to take a taxi in the morning; the driver would surely know where I wanted to go.
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