We got the chance to do some super-fun excursions while we were in Gambia. First, we went to a park that kept the crocodiles so well-fed and fat that you could pet them, sit on them, feel their cold bellies, whatever. It was intriguing to see the big crocodiles and their little babies. We tried to be careful not to go too closely to the babies because Mom might attack us for another reason besides food.
We also visited a fish market and a cattle-raising park. The fish market was very interesting; the boats came in and they had special places to smoke the fish, dry the fish, whatever it was they needed to do with it. But, there were flies everywhere swarming on the fish. I was very glad I didn’t have any sandals on. I would like to think I hadn’t eaten any of that this week, but I’m sure that I had. At the cattle park, we saw all of them – it was a bit sad. Most of them were tied up, but appeared to be fed fairly well for the most part. This was my first encounter with a little child who asked for sweets. I didn’t know what she was saying at first, I thought she was saying I was sweet, but I was sad to tell her that I didn’t have any once I figured it out. This little girl had a little baby on her back. Then she asked if she could be my friend. Of course, but I’m not sure what she means by that, because I wasn’t going to be back.
From the cattle place we went to another really neat park area to see animals. There was a crocodile lake here too, but you couldn’t touch the crocs here! We didn’t see any though. We did see plenty of monkeys though which was quite entertaining, especially the ones holding the little babies. It’s amazing how much monkeys act like humans. Also as we were walking through the park, a python passed directly in front of us! This was pretty freaky. It was gone before we knew what was happening, but man was it a huge snake. I was impressed. There were lots of beautiful birds here as well. We eventually got to a little park area with caged animals. Local baboons had been caged because of their aggressive behavior towards humans. At one point I apparently got too close to a small one who was reaching his hand through the fence to get some grass, and the big baboon came running at me on the other side of the cage and lept at the cage and then started shaking it furiously. I guess they didn’t like me! I did feed them some grass which they fought over through the holes in the fence that they stuck their hands through. I also noticed them sitting there and picking bugs from each others’ mains. It was quite entertaining. In another area, they housed animals that were sick for some reason which they kept for observation until they got better. There were a couple monkeys, a ginormous tortoise, and a really impressive looking bird, possibly a stork. In another fenced area, there were hyenas. The ones we could see were all sleeping, but they were huge beasts/dogs. I wouldn’t want to mess with one of those.
From this park we went to Lamin lodge which is another landmark for Gambia. It was a rickety old place, but you could rent a boat for an hour and go around and see the wildlife, and the oysters growing in the water. We took the boatride after annoyingly talking down another local scam-artist from the ridiculous take-advantage-of-tourists price of 1500 dalasi which is 60 USD/hr. We laughed and started walking away, but eventually talked him down to the equivalent of $12 USD for the hour which was still probably too much, but we got the best boat that he had. After talking about how we heard there was a lot of pot in the country, our guide ended up taking out his “Bob Marley” and passing around the joint with his two other guide-friends. Two joints. Along the way we noticed some really beautiful, very very large birds. It was a nice way to end a wonderful day.
After this, we got Indian food and then I went home and passed out at 9 am, and didn’t wake up the next day until 7 am, last minute because we had a guide picking us up to take us on another full-day excursion. I was still exhausted when I woke up.
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