Last night we received a copy of a shore pass that we would need to pack with us while in Banjul today. The formal forms had not be able to be processed the regular way, since the internet had quit working for a few days. These were hand-printed and signed, except one of us had an unsigned one by accident. Thinking that might present a problem, we went to the front desk, and asked if it was OK. It was not OK, and a new one had to be issued…..and signed. These visas for The Gambia will cost us from $117 to $125, but posted to our account after we leave. With last minute “bargaining”, the final price had not been calculated. At least we did not have a face-to-face passport check. At the end of our visit, we would need to turn these cards into a box at the gangway.
The ship was supposed to be arriving early to Banjul, The Gambia, but due to tidal fluctuations, we had to delay our docking by a few hours. The water depth would have been too shallow to enter the harbor. Because of that time change, all of the tours had to be delayed as well. For the very first time on this cruise, we had a booked tour with our travel agency, actually the second one. The excursion in Bali we had reserved was too long in duration, so after much deliberating, we chose to not go.
Long story short, the tour today had been changed to the afternoon instead of morning. Being that we do not get any refund if we choose to skip it, we changed our minds and decided to go. After all, it was only 4 ¼ hours. How bad could that be? Well, we would find out.
But first, a little info on The Gambia is in order. This country has a population of 1,783,000 people that speak mainly English, although it is a Portuguese-influenced society. It is a country that is a tiny sliver of land in the center of Senegal, with Banjul, the capital that houses the seat of government. It is the smallest country in Africa, and a long time destination of sun-deprived Europeans. Beaches and high end resorts draw them here by the thousands. This country is also number one for bird-watching, with a total of 560 species of migrating birds. If you are searching for traditional music, eco- tourism, landmark sites to the slavery past, then The Gambia is for you. Since a major river by the same name flows through it, you can take a wooden pirogue boat up the currents.
One place worth mentioning is their general market, Albert Market, the largest of its kind in The Gambia. It was described as friendly, slow-paced where the vendors like to haggle. Again, we would find out later in the morning.
The best time to visit is November to April, during the dry season. These days, the top things to see are the Atlantic coast party resorts and fishing villas. The place to study the history of slavery is James Island. They have fine markets, but still has the distinction of being the quietist capitals in Africa. It is also a goat-raising society, as we would see later in the day.
Food specialties here are domodah, a peanut stew or benechin, a rice dish with fish, veggies, and sauce. Their main staple is rice. Their favorite drinks are bissap, hibiscus juice, bouyi, which is baobab juice, or JulBrew, the local beer.
A random fact is Gambia may be famous for beaches, but it has the second shortest coastline in Africa after the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Now Barbara H’s lecture had some current info for us. She suggested, as in many ports around the world, to watch for pickpockets. Do not wear jewelry, bring tablets or computers to town, and don’t wear a backpack. It is a low income port…we had no idea how low income until we were in the middle of it. She advised not to drink the water or eat the local food. And again, no bottled water. Originally founded by the British, a fort was erected at the mouth of the river to stop slavery exportation.
There were a few ship tours here today which ran from 2 ½ to 8 hours. The costs ran from $120 to $240. This included a camel ride (sold out), a nature reserve, a palm forest and canoe ride, the highlights, and three tours that included lunch. One of those tours took the folks into Alex Haley’s “Roots” experience. The popular show, The Survivor, was filmed here at one time, but we never knew exactly where.
The ship was providing a complimentary shuttle to the Albert Market, beginning at 10am, or whenever the ship was cleared. And that is what we did shortly after the clearance was announced. There was not even the resemblance of a line for this ride to town. Some of the passengers have become numb to the normal understood courtesy of first-come, first-served. Chaos was the name of the game to get on one of these small transfers. Eventually, Henk M appeared and did organize somewhat of an orderly process, before someone got hurt.
The ride was short, but we sure would not want to walk the 2 mile distance through the pier, which was partially flooded from an unknown source of water. One of the spa’s beauticians and her friend did walk the bridge, and happened to hook up with a local who accompanied them to town, for a few dollars. These fellows would stick to you like barnacles (Brenda’s pet name), and people were giving them money to please go away. It worked too, sadly.
What we found at this market was not a really pretty sight. All of the roads are basically sand, with potholes, and broken cement blocks. It created an “accident waiting to happen” scenario, where one elderly man experienced when he fell from the bus into an open ditch. Lucky for him, this ditch was dry, but at least three feet deep. He must have had an angel on his shoulder this morning, since he came out without an injuries…..just a wounded pride.
At this point, we have to admit, we saw many passengers turn around, and re-board the same shuttle. We were game to go deeper and explore what was here, as we are not so easily scared off. The market was a maze of mostly cloth-covered stalls selling everything you can imagine. Besides the usual trinkets, we saw a wet market with veggies, fruits, and grains for sale…..all of it on the cloth-covered sandy ground. Fresh or smoked fish was being sold from open-air dishes, mostly plastic wash tubs. The flies were extra. Even the local cats were not interested in the platter of aromatic fish guts that were being piled high.
Moving on quickly, we came upon an area where the fabrics were displayed. One nice bolt of a cotton print caught our eye, and we negotiated a great deal for two meters of 90 inch wide piece. It was $10 USD, and will make a nice lightweight jacket. Surrounding this area, several young men were busy with their old-fashioned sewing machines, appliqueing designs on future dresses and shirts. These fellows objected to any photo-taking, although we may have done this without them seeing it. When they did see you taking pictures, they often demanded money if you wanted more shots. This was the case for the rest of the day. Especially photographing women….ask first, then walk away if they objected.
There was a section where hand-carved furniture was being created and sold. The vendors tried selling us anything, including the headboards and matching chests of drawers.
We did run into Barb, Freddie, and Maurice, all of whom were running through here in a rapid speed, mostly looking for the way out. After picking up a few things like a woven basket, a jewelry set, the fabric, and a Gambia t-shirt, we also found our way back to the shuttle. There was still the vendors and their crafts to check out on the pier.
Not hungry for lunch yet, we hydrated in our room, working on photo-downloading until 1:30pm. That was our meeting time for the Discover Banjul tour with our travel hosts. It was the same identical excursion as HAL’s tour, because it was the same, only less money. It was the second tour we had booked with their credit towards tours.
As we said previously, we had been scheduled to leave early in the morning for this 4 ¼ hour excursion, but we got bumped to the afternoon. The three buses we had were supposed to be filled with guests and off on the tour by 2pm. However, at 2:40pm, we were still waiting for the early buses to return, before we could begin our tour.
We ended up leaving with all three coaches full before 3pm, and figured we would be back past the all aboard time of 6:30pm. The plan was to shorten the time at each site, which was fine with us. So the first stop was at the National Museum, which was not exactly what you might expect. Small, but obviously an old home turned museum, the stop was short in duration. The people there wanted an extra $2 if you wished to take photos. No one was interested.
We continued on to drive through Arch 22, which is a fairly new to the city. Built in 1994, it represented the military coup that occurred here. There is a viewing arena for watching parades that occur here. There is also a textile museum attached to this arch.
On our way out of the city, we passed through mangrove-like ponds full of bird life. We did see a few of the residents such as whimbrels, blue herons, magpie crows, black kites, greater egrets, reef herons, and blue kingfishers. A few rollers were perched on the overhead power lines as well. Sure would be fun to see the major route of the migrating birds from Europe, but it is not this time of year. We also passed by several peanut factories, where the peanut oil is extracted. It is one of their major exports.
We came upon a city/village called Bakau, located 10 minutes from Banjul. Besides a local craft market, it is the pick-up point to go see the Katchikally Crocodile Pool within the confines of this village. All of us transferred to smaller buses to ride to this pool, which was an eye-opening trip. The housing here was basic, created with concrete speed blocks, and covered with corrugated tin roofs. Close and tight, and concrete-fenced, it was not the nicest places we have ever seen. A step above a shantytown, many of these abodes sported satellite dishes on the roofs. Go figure…..they may have limited services and food, but sure do enjoy TV.
At the wire-fenced pool, we saw something shocking……an open ditch used for sewage. The water was flowing right past the homes and the kids playing in the streets. The aroma was less than pleasing, and it actually burned our eyes. The Katchikally Pool housed somewhere around 90 Nile crocodiles, most of them young. If we did not know better, we might have guessed these crocs were not real. One of them is named Charlie, and is a croc that has starred in a British documentary. The folklore is that if a native woman touched these crocs or used the pool water (grossly green with algae), they would increase their chances of having a baby. Or contracting a fatal disease, in our opinion. Many folks did touch the croc, but not us….no thanks….a photo will do just fine. We could not leave soon enough to get away from the stench. We did purchase one beaded necklace to make the vendor happy at the exit.
Back at the entrance, we were given a few minutes to pay a visit to an elementary school, where they sang for us and begged for money donations. Then we had 5 minutes to shop at the craft market. They had a carved chair that someone bought at the pier for about $70. How you would ship it home was another problem.
Then we continued to a demonstration of tie-dying skills with batik fabrics. The demo was short, but the main idea was for us to buy their products, of course. Few folks purchased anything. Except us, since one of us spotted a fabric-covered jewelry set. Something quite unique to this area. And cheap.
Another stop was made at a hotel/bar/restaurant called Smiling Coast. We had two beers…the local one called Jul Brew. Cold and tasty, it was safe to drink, and we even had 5-star restrooms to use.
On the way back, we drove through the area where the embassies were located in Serrakunda. This was more like a real modern city with stores like Safeway and pharmacies, etc. There was one stop light in town, but it was not working today. Many Sunni Muslims live here, so there are several mosques in the area. There were no McDonalds or KFC restaurants in this country.
On the way back to the pier, we made a u-turn to take photos of the Arch 22. Finally back to the pier by 6:45pm, we boarded the ship and waited to leave. Glad to have seen more of the country, but also glad to be leaving. Knowing now how the ebola virus had spread so rapidly in these countries four years ago, we can understand the conditions that made it flourish. Our guide said the biggest killer of locals is malaria these days. Also marijuana is infiltrating the scene. He claimed if we wanted to buy some, he was the man to be seen. Really?
Sail away went overtime as we left the city. The temperature had plummeted and we did not last long on the aft deck.
Dinner was in the Pinnacle Grill for us at 8pm. Since the only thing we ate for lunch were small packages of trail mix and peanuts, we were most hungry for the great cuisine in the special restaurant. Grilled lamb chops and the 10 ounce filet were perfect.
Although we knew the second performance of 4ever, the four singers, we could not stay awake that late for all the tea in China. And since tomorrow’s port was Dakar, Senegal, we needed to get all the rest we could. Cruising can be hard work, right?
Bill & Mary Ann
City and dock area of Banjul
Local man selling Gambia $ and stamps
Ready to get lost in the market
Colorful local clothing
Native masks
Some carvings and art
