A Gamble on The Gambia

April break and what to do? We thought about a range of different options but I had been thinking about a trip to The Gambia for some time. The reason for this is that my parents visited there twice. In fact, their last trip there was one of their last proper holidays that they took together before my mum was diagnosed with cancer.

Lindsey was frustrated that we hadn’t booked anything the usual 6 – 8 months in advance so insisted that I would be in charge of planning and booking the trip. The reason my parents went there in the first place is that The Gambia is a package holiday destination for Brits. Once you start looking into it you find companies offering the package deals but assuming you are coming from the UK. From what we could tell, there are two reasons to visit The Gambia on a package trip. Firstly, it’s a beach holiday with some genuinely nice beaches and secondly it’s for birders – hence my interest and also my parent’s interest 20 years ago.

One of the things I remember my parents saying about their trip was that there was a guy at their hotel who would feed vultures everyday at a certain time. While researching we found a hotel where this exact thing still happens today. The hotel is quite old so I was convinced this was the same hotel my parents had stayed in all those years ago. We included a few nights at this hotel for that very reason.

The first hotel we stayed in (Mandina River Lodges) is buried deep in amongst mangroves. The package company we used were confused that we weren’t coming from the UK so resolutely refused to book us an airport transfer. I figured we’d just get a cab from the airport but should have known that this fly by the seat attitude was never going to ‘fly’ with Lindsey. Cue the usual airport meltdown. We found the taxi area and were soon directed to arguably the most dilapidated taxi we’ve ever been in (and remember we lived in Myanmar)!

It was a Mercedes from the 80’s I would guess and was painted a nice matt sky blue colour. We left the airport and it immediately broke down. The driver managed to get it started again which involved me starting the engine. The problem then was that he didn’t really know where it was AND would not listen to our directions provided by Google. I’m pretty sure the reason he didn’t want to take the suggested turns was because those particular roads were very bad and there was only so much his car could take. Eventually we had to enter onto the sandy bumpy roads towards the lodge but it still really wasn’t clear where the place actually was. We followed the directions now pretty closely but they just ended up taking us to a dead end in the middle of a forest. You can imagine Lindsey’s levels of stress at this point but just to ramp up the situation, the car chose this point to get a flat tyre. The driver was annoyed but was clearly experienced in changing tyres. He had a spare tyre and tools with which to change the tyre but the car had no hand brake so we had to go and find rocks and things to help stabilise the car. Finally, the tyre got changed and we headed back the way we came to where there was a donkey sanctuary. On the way we stopped as there was a dilapidated looking lodge and I went to investigate. I go a bit lost while doing this and Lindsey’s stress levels ramped up a few further notches. From the donkey sanctuary car park we managed to get the driver to call the lodge who sent a motorbike to find us and lead us back to the actual lodge. We gave the driver a hefty tip for his trouble and then met our greeting party – a rather large domestic cat.

From here on out things got a lot better. A nice British lady showed us around and was bemused as to why the tour company had not given us a better room or suggested that they arrange an airport pickup. She immediately upgraded our rom to the best one they had for free which was a lovely floating room on the river in amongst the mangroves.

The next morning we had coffee delivered directly to our room and watched all the river birds from our floating patio. These included the Giant Kingfisher which we both love to see. That morning we went on a bird walk with a local guide who was our guide for the whole trip. He was pretty knowledgeable about all the birds and wildlife which was great as that area was teeming with wildlife.

When we weren’t on either a bird walk or a boat ride we hung out in the lodge area itself or swam in the pool. The pool had the advantage of visiting birds coming in for a splash sometimes even while we were actually in the pool. These included kingfishers (pied not giant) and bee-eaters. I took about 8 million photos but only got a handful of good ones.

There were two non-bird wildlife highlights from this part of the trip. Firstly there were the resident bats which roosted in the roofs around the eating area. They had carefully positioned ropes hanging down that they could swing round to encourage the bats to leave before guests sat down to eat. When we got back one evening I managed to get a video of them making their odd squeaking noise which I had no idea they made.

The other wildlife highlight was seeing a Black Cobra on one of our morning walks. I spotted it about 20 feet away and I would say we got about 15 feet away although our guide was decidedly cautious. He said that it was rare to see them during the day. It was going very slowly at first but then slithered very quickly into a hole nearby. Super cool to see!

We had a lovely time at the first place but after 3 days left for our next stop the Senegambia Hotel, which I’m sure is the one my parents stayed in when they came years before. This was an odd place in that it had combined lots of different hotels at one point so all the buildings looked different but our room was fine. It gave on to a beach allowing us to go for beach walks and we soon found a dive beach bar for a beach beer. The hotel was next to a strip of restaurants so we went there for dinner and people watching. We had heard that older British women sometimes go The Gambia to meet younger men and we saw several examples of this while we were there. Having spent time in Thailand where the same thing happens the other way around it gave us pause for thought and made us think about what these couples are both getting out of the arrangements.

At this point we had arranged for a bird guide to accompany us each day for a morning walk and he duly showed up on the first day. He was a very knowledgeable guide which was great and we saw loads of birds while with him. On the first day we rushed back to the hotel so that we could see the famed vulture feeding. There were no signs to speak of but judging by the appearance of the vultures we knew where to be. There was a bench and we duly sat and waited for the spectacle to begin. Only it didn’t. It turned out that the guy who normally did the feeding was celebrating the end of Ramadan so didn’t show up. We figured we would come back the next day but while we were there he simply never showed which was a shame. Still I got this video of the poor hungry vultures waiting in vain.

Our final hotel was another beach hotel called Kombo Beach Hotel and was pretty basic but actually fine. The beach walk was nice and we soon found the one viable restaurant where we eat for the last couple of days. This had the advantage of some accompanying street dogs which we soon became friends with. One of the highlights of this part of the trip was a visit to a small museum and garden to try to find a particular bird, the Oriole Warbler. We duly found the bird and I got some shots and a video. At one point we were watching out for birds and all of a sudden spotted a rather large crocodile right on the path we were on. I pointed this out to our guide who did not seem too bothered at all. Then as we looked around we started to see more crocodiles and it turns out that this place had loads of them. We could have stroked one if wanted to but we politely declined.

While looking through some old family albums the other day I came across these two photos. I’m fairly sure that’s the same place we saw the crocodiles. My Mum obviously did NOT decline the opportunity of stroking a crocodile. The other shot is my Dad standing underneath a palm tree the waiting vultures at the Senegambia Hotel.

Visiting The Gambia was definitely a bit of a gamble. If you’re not into birds then I probably wouldn’t recommend it to be honest but we actually really enjoyed our time there. A few extra photos (mainly birds) and videos for any one that’s interested are below.