To The Gambia

30th April – Gambia

Dinner yesterday was a bit of an experiment. After parking up, we went
to look around the huge indoor market, but it was starting to close
down, so we didn't stay too long. I was interested to try some of the
street food, so bought a baguette filled with cooked haricot beans
from a stallholder, who wrapped it in newspaper. It was actually very
good, although the first bite contained a big bit of gristle, which
seemed an odd constituent of a vegetarian dish. It was fairly hot and
spicy, and I wondered how my digestion would fare with warm,
pre-cooked, hand-prepared spicy food, but I did fine with it. We also
bought a couple of baguettes and some groceries, and Nicki had a
cheese baguette back at the truck.

We left Kaolack at a reasonable time, just before 10 o'clock, easing
the truck out of its cramped enclosure. Finding the road south towards
Gambia was fairly straightforward, although we did miss one turning.
The roads were not up to Senegal's usual standards; large potholes in
places meant the traffic often headed out onto the dusty verge for a
while before pulling back onto the tarmac a little further down.

The drive to the Gambia border was fairly unremarkable, and we were
there before noon. We cleared Senegal police and customs without
hassle or cost, at the busy little border town, but were soon
surrounded by money changers wanting to sell us Dalasi. They were
fairly enthusiastic, although not intimidating. We got back into the
truck, which can be a considerable vantage point, and played them off
against each other through each window. They insisted we'd have to pay
a fee to the police, in Dalasi, which we thought was unlikely. After a
while one of the more reasonable women realised that we weren't going
to be a pushover, and told us not to bother changing money and just to
go onwards.

We went to see the customs officers, who being Gambian all spoke
English, and were very friendly, followed by the police, who were
equally affable. The station manager told us all the things we could
do in Gambia at great length, and actually offered to be our tour
guide if we wanted. We said we'd know where to find him. It did take a
while to process all the various bits of paperwork, but there was no
pressure and no money changed hands. Finally, we were in Gambia.

Gambia is bisected by a large river, and most of what we were
interested in was on the south side of the river. There is a ferry
crossing from Barra to Banjul, so we headed down to it. As we drove,
we noticed that not only children were waving to us, but also men and
women, for pretty much the first time. Gambia has a reputation for
being friendly and it appeared to be deserved; even the police were
very friendly and easy-going.

We passed a stall selling ferry tickets, but thought we'd carry on to
the port. When we arrived there, we immediately hit the queue, and a
man named Bob came over to see if we had our tickets. We hadn't, of
course, so he directed us back up the road to the stall we'd seen,
which had a weighbridge off to one side. There was much discussion
with the staff there as to what tariff to charge us, but in the end we
paid the Land Rover rate plus a 20% surcharge because of our size.
This came to about £6.70, which we paid in CFA; the currency you pay
depends on the country of origin of your vehicle! I was quite glad
they didn't put us on the weighbridge, as I thought they'd probably
have charged us more if they knew how heavy we were. While I was in
the office, Nicki chatted with some young boys, who told her that
Chelsea had beaten Man U 3:0 yesterday!

Back we headed to the port, where we met up with Bob again. He
explained he was a volunteer guide who helped people in the ferry
queue. This sounded a bit suspect, but he led me to the office to
register my ticket, and I followed. We were clearly in for a long
wait; despite it only being mid-day, we were told we'd probably be
able to cross the same day and not have to wait overnight! Bob told us
to defend our place in the queue to the death if necessary. He seemed
trustworthy, but I'm not always able to judge this, as became apparent
later.

There were a variety of men chatting to the passengers in the queue,
including Moses, who had stayed in South Wales for a while before
visiting friends in Manchester, and Solomon, a Rastafarian who had
studied in Birmingham and was now a music student in Banjul. He told
us what nice people Rastas are, which turned out to be a bit ironic as
the day progressed. We guessed that these men would all want money out
of us at some stage.

The day was hot, and Nicki fell asleep in the back of the truck while
I waited in the driver's seat to avoid losing our place in the queue.
The hours ticked by, and gradually we got further down the road. After
we'd eaten our baguette-and-cheese lunch, Bob told us that somebody
had been fiddling with our gas tank locker, and he'd shooed the kid
away, which is a little annoying as it's the one and only thing on the
truck which isn't lockable! I'll have to buy some padlocks for it and
secure it somehow. By this time I was starting to trust Bob more.

Moses and Solomon drifted by to pass the time of day occasionally, and
at one point two boys of about 12 years in age chatted to me for some
time. One was very tall and the other very short, so they made a
comical pair. They were really nice kids and gave me their address;
I'll try to send them a postcard when I get home. Solomon expressed
some concern that maybe we'd have problems getting on the ferry due to
our size, and introduced us to the Head of Security, a very
self-important man, who asked us if we had a mobile phone, or a car
stereo, to give him… We protested, correctly, that we didn't have
anything like that to give, but at one point he even turned up with a
black bin bag for us to put our booty in! To keep him happy, as we
didn't fancy camping overnight in the ferry queue, we gave him the
equivalent of a pound.

At this point, Moses started trying to get something out of us, coming
up with all sorts of catch phrases such as "It's nice to be important,
but it's more important to be nice", which I got sick of in the end.
He and Solomon weren't actually doing anything for us, apart from
chatting, so we didn't see how they'd earned anything from us. Moses's
tactic was to bang on at us for hours on end, moaning more and more,
until we got sick of him and closed the window, but it did take some
considerable time to get to this stage. By this time we were near the
gates to the ferry compound, and hoped that once we got into the final
queue we'd be free of hassle, but no such luck!

While we were waiting, a big Mercedes and a whole entourage of 4x4s
were escorted to the front of the queue. Bob told us it was a
minister, or diplomat, or something. Gambia has national elections in
a few weeks' time. Fine for them, but they delayed our ferry crossing!
We also saw the long line of lorries queuing the other way down the
road; apparently they wait up to three weeks to cross, but it's still
more cost-effective than driving the long way round the river.

Just before we entered the compound, a burly guy in a t-shirt asked
for our ticket, saying he was a security guard. We had no way of
knowing this, and Bob had told us not to give our ticket to anybody,
so a comical discussion ensued where I refused to hand the ticket
over, and the guy got progressively more incredulous that I wouldn't
believe he was a security guard, until in the end he virtually
wrenched the ticket from my grip – he WAS a guard, and was doing his
job, but how were we to know this! At last we got through the compound
gates, and waiting in the final queue. We learned that the "new, fast"
ferry which by this time we'd heard a lot about had broken down, and
this, combined with it being a Sunday, and the day before a holiday,
and the end of an Islamic conference in Senegal, meant that the
normally slow crossing had almost ground to a halt.

Our "friend" Solomon the Rastafarian appeared, asking what we'd sorted
out to give him. As he'd not done anything apart from introduced us to
the security guard, and I'd already given him a pen, I wasn't about to
give him anything at all. He came up with some story about me telling
him I'd sort something out for him in the compound, which was of
course rubbish, and then accused me of calling him a liar. My patience
was starting to wear thin, and in the end I shut the window, and then
he started to get really irate… he called me every name under the sun,
banged on the door and window, and generally made himself a right
pain. He had an accomplice with him, and quite rightly Nicki told me
just to ignore him, but he was trying to provoke me in any way he
could. In the end, he threatened to break off our door mirror, and
things were starting to get a bit nasty, but fortunately for us, the
Gambian driver of the car in front of us noticed what was happening
and found one of the port security guards, who remonstrated with
Solomon and chased him off elsewhere. The security guard was very
nice, and told us to call the police if it happened again, and even
gave us his mobile number in case we had any further problems.

Bob was still with us on and off, and was giving us information; as
he'd been really helpful, and was a genuinely top bloke, we gave him
(without any prompting from him) the rest of our CFA coins, and a pen,
which he seemed quite chuffed with. One more pen as a gift to the
loading official secured our eventual access to the ferry.

So if anybody reading this goes through Barra port, we'd suggest you
trust Bob implicitly, ignore Moses, and do your best to run over
Solomon, who is just the scum of the earth! It wasn't a great
introduction to Gambia, but I think it was totally unrepresentative.

The ferry was predictably crowded and interminably slow. We spent a
good 10 minutes just reversing out of the berth, making something
considerably less than half a knot, and things didn't get much better
when we were heading in the right direction. We got out of the truck
and stood on the upper deck, to get some fresh air, although the four
engines belching out smoke made that difficult. Groups of passengers
on the lower deck made themselves at home around the truck, which,
being a Land Rover, wallowed sideways, backwards and forwards with the
motion of the ferry. The crossing took about half an hour or so, but
by the time we landed at Banjul it was dark.

I nearly failed to stop at the police check at the ferry port, as it
was dark and noisy, but shortly after we were following the traffic on
the main roads leading Banjul. Nicki was navigating, using the Lonely
Planet's inadequate maps, plus our 25-year-old Russian military
digital maps, which are great maps, but out of date and only 1:250,000
scale. She did remarkably well in guiding us to Serekunda, but from
here things got a bit confusing. We wanted to turn off the main road
to go to Camping Sukuta, but the maps disagreed, and the dual
carriageway was being worked on, so there was an unsigned contra flow
in operation, with traffic moving in all directions. We hunted in vain
for our turning, and eventually turned down a side road and asked for
directions. The Gambians are really friendly and helpful, so only too
happy to give us directions, but each successive person we asked gave
us slightly different directions. We went left, we went right, at one
point we went the wrong way down a one-way street, but were stopped by
the local people who sent us off in the right direction again. The
road deteriorated beyond anything we'd seen before, in some places
resembling a battlefield, with features which transcended the bounds
of potholes and became craters and ditches. You could virtually lose
the whole truck in some of them. I pointed out to Nicki that in the
UK, Land Rover owners would PAY to drive down these roads! We
eventually picked up signs to Camping Sukuta, and found the right
road, but missed the crucial last sign so didn't get into the campsite
until after 9pm.

The campsite is German-run, the facilities are great and clean, and
it's popular with overlanders. We wanted to go into Banjul by taxi for
the day on Monday, but as it's a holiday, everything is shut, so we'll
probably mooch around locally for the day and go in on Tuesday
instead.

Dinner yesterday was a bit of an experiment. After parking up, we went
to look around the huge indoor market, but it was starting to close
down, so we didn't stay too long. I was interested to try some of the
street food, so bought a baguette filled with cooked haricot beans
from a stallholder, who wrapped it in newspaper. It was actually very
good, although the first bite contained a big bit of gristle, which
seemed an odd constituent of a vegetarian dish. It was fairly hot and
spicy, and I wondered how my digestion would fare with warm,
pre-cooked, hand-prepared spicy food, but I did fine with it. We also
bought a couple of baguettes and some groceries, and Nicki had a
cheese baguette back at the truck.

We left Kaolack at a reasonable time, just before 10 o'clock, easing
the truck out of its cramped enclosure. Finding the road south towards
Gambia was fairly straightforward, although we did miss one turning.
The roads were not up to Senegal's usual standards; large potholes in
places meant the traffic often headed out onto the dusty verge for a
while before pulling back onto the tarmac a little further down.

The drive to the Gambia border was fairly unremarkable, and we were
there before noon. We cleared Senegal police and customs without
hassle or cost, at the busy little border town, but were soon
surrounded by money changers wanting to sell us Dalasi. They were
fairly enthusiastic, although not intimidating. We got back into the
truck, which can be a considerable vantage point, and played them off
against each other through each window. They insisted we'd have to pay
a fee to the police, in Dalasi, which we thought was unlikely. After a
while one of the more reasonable women realised that we weren't going
to be a pushover, and told us not to bother changing money and just to
go onwards.

We went to see the customs officers, who being Gambian all spoke
English, and were very friendly, followed by the police, who were
equally affable. The station manager told us all the things we could
do in Gambia at great length, and actually offered to be our tour
guide if we wanted. We said we'd know where to find him. It did take a
while to process all the various bits of paperwork, but there was no
pressure and no money changed hands. Finally, we were in Gambia.

Gambia is bisected by a large river, and most of what we were
interested in was on the south side of the river. There is a ferry
crossing from Barra to Banjul, so we headed down to it. As we drove,
we noticed that not only children were waving to us, but also men and
women, for pretty much the first time. Gambia has a reputation for
being friendly and it appeared to be deserved; even the police were
very friendly and easy-going.

We passed a stall selling ferry tickets, but thought we'd carry on to
the port. When we arrived there, we immediately hit the queue, and a
man named Bob came over to see if we had our tickets. We hadn't, of
course, so he directed us back up the road to the stall we'd seen,
which had a weighbridge off to one side. There was much discussion
with the staff there as to what tariff to charge us, but in the end we
paid the Land Rover rate plus a 20% surcharge because of our size.
This came to about £6.70, which we paid in CFA; the currency you pay
depends on the country of origin of your vehicle! I was quite glad
they didn't put us on the weighbridge, as I thought they'd probably
have charged us more if they knew how heavy we were. While I was in
the office, Nicki chatted with some young boys, who told her that
Chelsea had beaten Man U 3:0 yesterday!

Back we headed to the port, where we met up with Bob again. He
explained he was a volunteer guide who helped people in the ferry
queue. This sounded a bit suspect, but he led me to the office to
register my ticket, and I followed. We were clearly in for a long
wait; despite it only being mid-day, we were told we'd probably be
able to cross the same day and not have to wait overnight! Bob told us
to defend our place in the queue to the death if necessary. He seemed
trustworthy, but I'm not always able to judge this, as became apparent
later.

There were a variety of men chatting to the passengers in the queue,
including Moses, who had stayed in South Wales for a while before
visiting friends in Manchester, and Solomon, a Rastafarian who had
studied in Birmingham and was now a music student in Banjul. He told
us what nice people Rastas are, which turned out to be a bit ironic as
the day progressed. We guessed that these men would all want money out
of us at some stage.

The day was hot, and Nicki fell asleep in the back of the truck while
I waited in the driver's seat to avoid losing our place in the queue.
The hours ticked by, and gradually we got further down the road. After
we'd eaten our baguette-and-cheese lunch, Bob told us that somebody
had been fiddling with our gas tank locker, and he'd shooed the kid
away, which is a little annoying as it's the one and only thing on the
truck which isn't lockable! I'll have to buy some padlocks for it and
secure it somehow. By this time I was starting to trust Bob more.

Moses and Solomon drifted by to pass the time of day occasionally, and
at one point two boys of about 12 years in age chatted to me for some
time. One was very tall and the other very short, so they made a
comical pair. They were really nice kids and gave me their address;
I'll try to send them a postcard when I get home. Solomon expressed
some concern that maybe we'd have problems getting on the ferry due to
our size, and introduced us to the Head of Security, a very
self-important man, who asked us if we had a mobile phone, or a car
stereo, to give him… We protested, correctly, that we didn't have
anything like that to give, but at one point he even turned up with a
black bin bag for us to put our booty in! To keep him happy, as we
didn't fancy camping overnight in the ferry queue, we gave him the
equivalent of a pound.

At this point, Moses started trying to get something out of us, coming
up with all sorts of catch phrases such as "It's nice to be important,
but it's more important to be nice", which I got sick of in the end.
He and Solomon weren't actually doing anything for us, apart from
chatting, so we didn't see how they'd earned anything from us. Moses's
tactic was to bang on at us for hours on end, moaning more and more,
until we got sick of him and closed the window, but it did take some
considerable time to get to this stage. By this time we were near the
gates to the ferry compound, and hoped that once we got into the final
queue we'd be free of hassle, but no such luck!

While we were waiting, a big Mercedes and a whole entourage of 4x4s
were escorted to the front of the queue. Bob told us it was a
minister, or diplomat, or something. Gambia has national elections in
a few weeks' time. Fine for them, but they delayed our ferry crossing!
We also saw the long line of lorries queuing the other way down the
road; apparently they wait up to three weeks to cross, but it's still
more cost-effective than driving the long way round the river.

Just before we entered the compound, a burly guy in a t-shirt asked
for our ticket, saying he was a security guard. We had no way of
knowing this, and Bob had told us not to give our ticket to anybody,
so a comical discussion ensued where I refused to hand the ticket
over, and the guy got progressively more incredulous that I wouldn't
believe he was a security guard, until in the end he virtually
wrenched the ticket from my grip – he WAS a guard, and was doing his
job, but how were we to know this! At last we got through the compound
gates, and waiting in the final queue. We learned that the "new, fast"
ferry which by this time we'd heard a lot about had broken down, and
this, combined with it being a Sunday, and the day before a holiday,
and the end of an Islamic conference in Senegal, meant that the
normally slow crossing had almost ground to a halt.

Our "friend" Solomon the Rastafarian appeared, asking what we'd sorted
out to give him. As he'd not done anything apart from introduced us to
the security guard, and I'd already given him a pen, I wasn't about to
give him anything at all. He came up with some story about me telling
him I'd sort something out for him in the compound, which was of
course rubbish, and then accused me of calling him a liar. My patience
was starting to wear thin, and in the end I shut the window, and then
he started to get really irate… he called me every name under the sun,
banged on the door and window, and generally made himself a right
pain. He had an accomplice with him, and quite rightly Nicki told me
just to ignore him, but he was trying to provoke me in any way he
could. In the end, he threatened to break off our door mirror, and
things were starting to get a bit nasty, but fortunately for us, the
Gambian driver of the car in front of us noticed what was happening
and found one of the port security guards, who remonstrated with
Solomon and chased him off elsewhere. The security guard was very
nice, and told us to call the police if it happened again, and even
gave us his mobile number in case we had any further problems.

Bob was still with us on and off, and was giving us information; as
he'd been really helpful, and was a genuinely top bloke, we gave him
(without any prompting from him) the rest of our CFA coins, and a pen,
which he seemed quite chuffed with. One more pen as a gift to the
loading official secured our eventual access to the ferry.

So if anybody reading this goes through Barra port, we'd suggest you
trust Bob implicitly, ignore Moses, and do your best to run over
Solomon, who is just the scum of the earth! It wasn't a great
introduction to Gambia, but I think it was totally unrepresentative.

The ferry was predictably crowded and interminably slow. We spent a
good 10 minutes just reversing out of the berth, making something
considerably less than half a knot, and things didn't get much better
when we were heading in the right direction. We got out of the truck
and stood on the upper deck, to get some fresh air, although the four
engines belching out smoke made that difficult. Groups of passengers
on the lower deck made themselves at home around the truck, which,
being a Land Rover, wallowed sideways, backwards and forwards with the
motion of the ferry. The crossing took about half an hour or so, but
by the time we landed at Banjul it was dark.

I nearly failed to stop at the police check at the ferry port, as it
was dark and noisy, but shortly after we were following the traffic on
the main roads leading Banjul. Nicki was navigating, using the Lonely
Planet's inadequate maps, plus our 25-year-old Russian military
digital maps, which are great maps, but out of date and only 1:250,000
scale. She did remarkably well in guiding us to Serekunda, but from
here things got a bit confusing. We wanted to turn off the main road
to go to Camping Sukuta, but the maps disagreed, and the dual
carriageway was being worked on, so there was an unsigned contra flow
in operation, with traffic moving in all directions. We hunted in vain
for our turning, and eventually turned down a side road and asked for
directions. The Gambians are really friendly and helpful, so only too
happy to give us directions, but each successive person we asked gave
us slightly different directions. We went left, we went right, at one
point we went the wrong way down a one-way street, but were stopped by
the local people who sent us off in the right direction again. The
road deteriorated beyond anything we'd seen before, in some places
resembling a battlefield, with features which transcended the bounds
of potholes and became craters and ditches. You could virtually lose
the whole truck in some of them. I pointed out to Nicki that in the
UK, Land Rover owners would PAY to drive down these roads! We
eventually picked up signs to Camping Sukuta, and found the right
road, but missed the crucial last sign so didn't get into the campsite
until after 9pm.

The campsite is German-run, the facilities are great and clean, and
it's popular with overlanders. We wanted to go into Banjul by taxi for
the day on Monday, but as it's a holiday, everything is shut, so we'll
probably mooch around locally for the day and go in on Tuesday
instead.