Western Sahara 2016

Western Sahara 2016

Wednesday 6 April 2016

Senegal and an escape to The Gambia

From Guinea-Bissau where I last wrote, we crossed the border into the south western corner of Senegal - the Casamance, described by guide books as Senegal’s “most seductive region”. Our first stop was the fishing village of Elinkine where we spent two nights camping on the sandy banks of the Casamance River, and took a pirogue (wooden canoe type boat) over to the island of Karabane. From Elinkine, we headed to the rather more touristy resort of Cap Skiring - very popular with French tourists. We had a day here to shop and lunch in the many French restaurants before heading off to the smaller village of Diembereng where we camped for two nights. A 15 minute walk from Diembereng took you to miles of virtually deserted beach, perfect for long beach walks where you might bump into a few fishermen pulling in nets or some cattle sunning themselves on the sands but no tourists. Senegal has certainly provided a reprieve from the heat with a breezy coastline and much cooler nights - in fact we have complained of being cold a number of times!!

After four nights in the southern Casamance, it was time to cross over the river into the northern part. Here we stayed in the village of Abene, again close to a windswept beach. Evening entertainment at camp came in the form of a kaumpo dance, a “kaumpo” being an evil forest spirit, and some amazing drumming. We also visited the town of Kafountine nearby which has a huge fish market. Hundreds of colourful boats line the shores, and as the fishermen bring in their catches, the fish are gutted and then dried and smoked. It is a massive operation with thousands of fish smoking away, and lorries lined up to transport them away. Fascinating to see but the smell is quite intense as you can imagine!

The plan after our week in Casamance was to head into The Gambia, a tiny little sliver of a country that splits the north and south of Senegal. However, the Presidents of Senegal and The Gambia are currently locked in a war of words (which is not uncommon for these two countries) and have closed the borders. This happened a few weeks ago and varying reports have been heard as to whether it is just closed to commercial vehicles or whether tourist vehicles are able to cross. Understandably, OWA decided they could not risk taking the truck into The Gambia after reports of some other overland vehicles being allowed in but then not being allowed out the other side! So the trip has had to bypass The Gambia and take a 1000km detour around it to get to the northern part of Senegal. 

However, as it doesn’t seem to be a problem for small numbers of tourists on foot to cross the border, Lexi (my tent mate) and I have decided to leave the truck and do The Gambia anyway. A rather more appealing option than long drive days through Senegal and given we have been on a truck for over two months already… we will rejoin the group in five days time in Dakar.

Consequently, I find myself writing this under some palm trees on a beautiful Gambian beach after a fun filled journey of local transport to get here. It felt somewhat liberating to be making our own way after two months of decisions being made for us. We left the truck in a town 15km from the border where we hopped into a minibus which took us to the border, got out, walked through Senegalese immigration / customs, got our passports stamped, hopped back in the minibus to drive through no man’s land, then got out again for The Gambian immigration. Visitors passes stamped in our passports, we purchased some Dalasi (the local Gambian currency), and then found a “sept-place” taxi (a seven seater taxi that leaves when it is full) to take us to the next main town. From there, we got on another bus to take us west to the beach. We thought the bus was full when we got on but it turned out that our definition of full and the Gambian definition of full are somewhat different. Packed to the rafters, we reached the village of Sanyang, where we had a restorative cup of tea, before taking a bus to the beach along with the ladies taking lunch to their fishermen husbands. Three hours after leaving Senegal, and having spent only the princely sum of about two British pounds, we found ourselves on a beautiful stretch of Gambian beach eating freshly caught fish for lunch. The Gambia is a seriously small country because our journey on a map looked like it would take all day, but actually took no time at all.

The Gambia has something of a reputation for being rather tame compared to the rest of West Africa given that it is a popular British package holiday destination. However, the beaches to the south of the tourist areas are delightfully quiet and we are in fact the only guests at our hotel. There is one other hotel next door where we had dinner last night and were also the only guests! We feel as if we have our own private resort and a bargain at less than ten pounds a night each for our room and breakfast. Will have a couple of nights here before exploring some more of this little country…

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