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Back in the Taxi and we made our way to Kaolack, the next biggest city to get another taxi to take us to the border of Gambia. The taxi crew in Kaolack are quite a lively bunch and a hard group to bargin with. I think we nearly lost Franck in crowd of taxi drivers bargaining hard. We were bundled into the seven seater taxi, the only way to travel - well the only taxi you can get to the border and we were off on our journey again, only to stopped once by an police officer who gently wanted to remind the driver that there was a difference between the speed excessive and more excessive, apparently we were going at the latter. The change between people in Sengal to Gambia was hugely noticable, gone was the agression and crowding, to the calm polite and informative Gambians, maybe it was just I could understand them moving into an english speaking country, but I definitely liked the atmosphere and attitude more in the Gambia.
Border crossing went well, Franck finally became legal again after missing an entry stamp from Senegal to receive all his required stamps in his passport - phew. We jumped in another taxi and headed for Banjul, where we had been told that we could either get the ferry but it might take a very long time as there were only 2 running that day instead of the usual 3, or we could go by small boat, however we must pay someone to carry us on - this is obligatory - and by carry on I mean literally pick you up, place you on their shoulders run to the boat and pop you in, we were informed it was to ensure you did not get wet. I thought this sounded quite fun but I was out voted in favour of the ferry option. We were in luck as a ferry was just arriving. From the ferry, I watched on as many people were removed from a small boat on the shoulders of a Mr Universe of Gambia - dad you would have been proud.
The ferry crossing seemed to take a lot longer than necessary, I think this was due to the fact the captain noticed one of the lorrys strapped to the boat swaying dangerously close to falling on its side with the motion of the waves, so the ferry seemed to crawl side ways against the waves like a crab.
In Banjul we decided we would like to take a taxi to Kartong, a little quite village at the other side of Gambia on the border of south Sengal. We asked the taxi driver how long this trip would take and were informed with a big intake of breath "its very far", "so how long do you think it will take?' 1hr and 30mins, bless the perception of time and distance in a small country, I guess I should related to this being Scottish, its like Cupar to Glasgow away!!!!
We arrived at our Eco lodge of choice, Sandele, a bit of a treat as it was a bit pricey, but lovely surroundings, fab beach to run on and lovely rooms that were designed and created with local materials - all very eco, down to the compost toilet! We were even welcomed with a bit of nature, a nice friendly snake came to join us, Franck called me in a slightly higher pitched voice than normal, come see the snaaaake, it looked more worm like to me but was a snake. The next day we visited a reptile reserve (don't get any great expectations when I say reserve, we toured it in a matter of footsteps but it was very informative), of course nearly every small thin snake we were shown was the one we had seen in our room. Our guide then asked us a trivia question, until we realised it was a trick - name the most dangerous snake in the world - we all shouted out our responses, 'mamba' 'green one' 'black one', spitting cobra - they can spit 3.5 m (not 30 as one of our group thought and started to back away quickly from the cobra enclosure), the answer of course was the trouser snake, we all looked blankly then the penny dropped, as was explained to us the trouser snake can pass many diseases, I wonder why the guides I seem to meet always make jokes like this, it must be in their schools or practice or just follows me around. Anyway, in case of interest the 2nd most dangerous is the puff adder! Learn a new thing every day!
Until the next entry - i have entered us all into a class of Katonah yoga ho ho
- comments
Jaq Brilliant...I too would have voted in favour of being carried to the small boat.