The journey to Tendaba - Gambia, 7 Nov
I must say I couldn't wait to leave the city, I felt I'd 'been there and done it' now and wanted to see a lot more nature things. Given half the chance, I would have skipped the city day altogether really but Hidden Gambia did not give me that option. Every single itinerary had to start off with 2 nights in town.
Now, thinking I knew better (already?!), I didn't rush my breakfast like mad and tried not to stress about breakfast being late, yet again, but this time (good old 'Sod's Law') my driver was only 10 mins late and I just waited for him to come and get me and he waited for me to turn up at reception so we wasted 20 mins, ahhhh. Can't win. I did feel bad for the people waiting to be picked up after me but they, being smarter cookies than I was, they had read in the book that though Gambia is on GMT, it needs to be translated as 'Gambia Maybe Time' so they were not worried in the least and actually expected us to be 30 mins late minimum !
We went 2 hours on the South bank road to Bintang and it was quite interesting to drive through villages with so many basic houses... and so much dust along the road too.
The scenery was beautiful with some "oasis" with palm trees and ponds filled with water lillies. The rainy season had ended just 2-3 weeks earlier so it was still very green. We spotted lots of birds along the way, the pretty red bishops on top of tall grass, or quite a few herons around water holes.
We then boarded the Safari Queen motor boat where they served us a hot lunch and then it was a good 3 hour before we reached our camp for the night - Tendaba in Kwinella. Sometimes people are fortunate enough to see dolphins along the way, but we didn't see any, pity. In fact, as soon as we got to the wider part of the river, we didn't really see anything much at all as we were too far from the shores so it was a long boring ride so I tried to have a little snooze to help pass time...
We got to Tendaba at around 3pm and then just had 30mins to have a shower and grab a cool drink before we set off to the nearest village to see how the locals live (our guide was from there so everybody was quite friendly). Though the village was small they had a Mosque (85% of Gambia is Muslim, 15% is Christian and other traditional beliefs) and then we ventured onto the rice fields to look for more birds. The grass, at this time of the year was about 1.80m high which made for interesting pictures. The light was beautiful at 4.30pm and I got some dramatic shots as a result. It was a lovely experience. At 6.30pm they start lighting fires in cleared areas to scare off the warthogs and it smelt lovely and looked atmospheric actually.
We had a buffet dinner at 8pm and by then it was pitch dark (it got dark at 7pm pretty much on the dot) and they didn't even have candles to put on the tables and their energy bulbs on the high ceiling were 5W max (i.e. 40W equivalent) so it was too dark in the main [open] lounge to read for long and I found it a bit disturbing to hardly see my food. I asked for candles but no-one had any. I guess that's one of the downside of my job, I'm so used to issuing bright daylight lamps that I find dim lights more unbearable than the average person. I don't think anyone cared about my explanations anyway, it was a case of 'tough luck'. Next time I'll come prepared with my own candles I think ! (if there is a next time...).
My bed had a mosquitoe net but it was so thick that then I couldn't feel the air of the fan and I needed to feel the fan to be able to sleep so had to pack away the net and hope for the best. As it's no longer the rainy season, mosquitoes aren't as frequent so I got away with no bites that night. Besides, they always spray your room beforehand just to kill off whatever might have made it to your room. My bathroom was very basic but the toilet flushed... until 3am when the handle just jammed. Not great. But nothing I could do at 3am, I just went back to sleep.
I must say I couldn't wait to leave the city, I felt I'd 'been there and done it' now and wanted to see a lot more nature things. Given half the chance, I would have skipped the city day altogether really but Hidden Gambia did not give me that option. Every single itinerary had to start off with 2 nights in town.
Now, thinking I knew better (already?!), I didn't rush my breakfast like mad and tried not to stress about breakfast being late, yet again, but this time (good old 'Sod's Law') my driver was only 10 mins late and I just waited for him to come and get me and he waited for me to turn up at reception so we wasted 20 mins, ahhhh. Can't win. I did feel bad for the people waiting to be picked up after me but they, being smarter cookies than I was, they had read in the book that though Gambia is on GMT, it needs to be translated as 'Gambia Maybe Time' so they were not worried in the least and actually expected us to be 30 mins late minimum !
We went 2 hours on the South bank road to Bintang and it was quite interesting to drive through villages with so many basic houses... and so much dust along the road too.
The scenery was beautiful with some "oasis" with palm trees and ponds filled with water lillies. The rainy season had ended just 2-3 weeks earlier so it was still very green. We spotted lots of birds along the way, the pretty red bishops on top of tall grass, or quite a few herons around water holes.
We then boarded the Safari Queen motor boat where they served us a hot lunch and then it was a good 3 hour before we reached our camp for the night - Tendaba in Kwinella. Sometimes people are fortunate enough to see dolphins along the way, but we didn't see any, pity. In fact, as soon as we got to the wider part of the river, we didn't really see anything much at all as we were too far from the shores so it was a long boring ride so I tried to have a little snooze to help pass time...
We got to Tendaba at around 3pm and then just had 30mins to have a shower and grab a cool drink before we set off to the nearest village to see how the locals live (our guide was from there so everybody was quite friendly). Though the village was small they had a Mosque (85% of Gambia is Muslim, 15% is Christian and other traditional beliefs) and then we ventured onto the rice fields to look for more birds. The grass, at this time of the year was about 1.80m high which made for interesting pictures. The light was beautiful at 4.30pm and I got some dramatic shots as a result. It was a lovely experience. At 6.30pm they start lighting fires in cleared areas to scare off the warthogs and it smelt lovely and looked atmospheric actually.
We had a buffet dinner at 8pm and by then it was pitch dark (it got dark at 7pm pretty much on the dot) and they didn't even have candles to put on the tables and their energy bulbs on the high ceiling were 5W max (i.e. 40W equivalent) so it was too dark in the main [open] lounge to read for long and I found it a bit disturbing to hardly see my food. I asked for candles but no-one had any. I guess that's one of the downside of my job, I'm so used to issuing bright daylight lamps that I find dim lights more unbearable than the average person. I don't think anyone cared about my explanations anyway, it was a case of 'tough luck'. Next time I'll come prepared with my own candles I think ! (if there is a next time...).
My bed had a mosquitoe net but it was so thick that then I couldn't feel the air of the fan and I needed to feel the fan to be able to sleep so had to pack away the net and hope for the best. As it's no longer the rainy season, mosquitoes aren't as frequent so I got away with no bites that night. Besides, they always spray your room beforehand just to kill off whatever might have made it to your room. My bathroom was very basic but the toilet flushed... until 3am when the handle just jammed. Not great. But nothing I could do at 3am, I just went back to sleep.
posted by Sylvie at 12:05 PM
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