Holiday in African Village

The beginning of our trip has been a real pleasure. Our hotel is situated in the middle of the small African village of Bakau. It is a cosy little fishing town, which has not yet sold its soul to mass-tourism like most of the Atlantic coast of Gambia. The place is a perfect for a small holiday and at the same time a good base for exploring the most interesting sights in Gambia.

On Monday we decided to visit Banjul, the small capital of Gambia. It was at the same time an opportunity to try out the local form of transportations, the Bush Taxis. The bush taxis proved to be more a game of how many people you can fit into an old beaten up van than a mean of transportation. It was quite an experience for four Scandinavians to be packed in a van with 12 local Africans, but at least it got us to the capital city.

Banjul is not like the average European capital. It does not have fancy buildings or great monuments, but what it lacks in architecture is more than compensated for with local charm and friendly locals. The trip did however include a tour of the dusty National museum, shopping at the local dodgy market and a visit to an ATM.

When we are not using the bush taxis for transportation, questionable bikes and Osman take us around the small country. Osman is our “private” taxi-driver, who is a fantastic source of entertainment as well as our guide when the takes us around in his very old and very very beaten up Mercedes. The Gambians are not known for their great driving skills, but we are comforted by the fact that most cars are not able to exceed the speeding limit of 60 kph.

The only annoying thing about Gambia is the local bumbsters (hustlers). We been in many places around the world where people hassles you by dragging you to their restaurant or tries to sell you a series of fake Rolex watches, but none as annoying or persisting as the Gambians. They follow you around for what seems to be hours acting as your friend (despite of the fact that you have told him 20 times to go away). At the end he will of course demand money for his tour are have you to buy something in favour of his services as a guide (as if we could not see for ourselves that the small things they pull out of the ocean was fish). Fortunately there are only 10-15 of these annoyances in our local area and by now they have all realized that WE DO NOT WANT YOUR SERVICES!

To sum up our trip so far: Good food, fantastic weather, nice hotel and friendly people. We are all really enjoying our stay in Gambia so far.:-)