I almost never went to The Gambia. It is the smallest country by area in mainland Africa, without some of the enticing travel opportunities boasted by its neighbors. Tourists do come here, but they’re mostly Brits looking for a short flight to an English-speaking nation where they can lather up in unspeakable sunscreen quantities and sit on a beach.
The pull of seeing a new country won me over in the end. How hard could it be to travel from home in Dakar to Banjul, Gambia’s capital, 100 miles away in a straight line?
After powering through 23 hours on the road for 30 hours in the country, I found out it could be hard enough. I also learned that The Gambia is a unique, interesting slice of the world, and that even a short, superficial trip will leave the traveler with a new perspective.
South to the border
The most available public transport option in Senegal is the sept-place [seven-seats]. Unfortunately, it is not the most comfortable. The moment I crammed myself into the back seat of the ancient station wagon at Dakar’s main Gare Routiere in Pikine, I knew I was in for some hours of pain. Between a large maman and a muscular young guy, I contorted myself as best I could and watched the towns of Senegal roll by.
A Gambian passenger told me in English about her business bringing hair extensions up and down the coast of West Africa. Apparently, there was great demand everywhere, and she had quite a business empire that kept her on the road all year. Given her life of shoving into jammed transport week after week, her energy level truly impressed me.
By early afternoon we made Mbour, with its impressive mosque; the sun set over the parched flats of Kaolack; and the young guy jumped off in the dark at Toubakouta, giving me the heavenly reprieve of more space. The driver woke us up at midnight at Karang, the border town.
The difference between the Senegalese and Gambian sides of the border was incredible. In Senegal, we lined up in an airport-style maze of metal barriers and submitted our fingerprints to biometric scanners. Then we walked across a dark no-man’s-land to the Gambian side, where the immigration building was not immediately obvious. I finally tracked it down and handed my passport to a bemused solider.
“Hmmmm, Canada… do you need a visa?”
“No, we Canadians are visa free.” I had actually been nervous about this. The Commonwealth connection means that Canadians are officially visa free, unlike Americans who need to get a difficult visa. I wasn’t sure if this would be true on the ground.
“Hmmm, OK… go inside.”
The inner sanctum of immigration was a windowless room manned by a welcoming, shoeless official. We had a nice conversation about my trip until he forgot about my case to flirt with some ladies who had shown up to say hi. After they left, he wrote my details in a massive ledger that stretched back years, gave me a faded stamp, and sent me into The Gambia.
Crossing the River Gambia
The Gambia consists of two strips of land about ten miles wide, cutting into Senegal on either side of the mighty river that gave the country its name. It is ethnically similar to Senegal and shares a recent history of slave trade with other West African nations. Portuguese slave traders colonized it first, then the British, leading to this small strip of land retaining the English language in the middle of Francophone West Africa.
When my fellow passengers discussed the shared car price from the border to the river, they did so in Wolof; but the numbers were English, while in Senegal they are French. I had crossed the border from “cent francs” to “hundred dalasi.”
We sped through thick forest to the side of the great river. It was 3am, and the first ferry did not leave for three hours. The ferry terminal itself was closed, but the street market in front of it was full of people trying to get as comfortable as they could, leaning on broken chairs and lying on the ground.
When the time came, the crowd rushed to buy tickets and the vehicles started driving up onto the ferry, packing it with geometrical precision. I linked up again with the hair-seller and we managed to shove to the front. The crowd was lively and diverse: women transported cloth sacks on their heads and little kids in their hands, men wrangled with goats, and old people carved out space to sit.
We cast off toward the lights of the Banjul port. The river is three miles wide at the crossing point, and its water was completely still. I felt like part of a floating city on a great migration. The sky brightened as we neared the halfway point, creating an ethereal dawn scene on the still water.
The ferry docked, and the hair-seller and I jumped into a car driven by an older white British man she knew. We rolled out of Banjul, which is mostly just the old dilapidated colonial capital with no more than 30,000 people today. A road through mangrove swamps took us to Serrekunda, the real capital whose urban sprawl houses maybe half of the country’s 2.5 million people. I hopped out on a tourist street near the beach.
Gambia by Bike
“Welcome to Aaaafrica!” A tourist guide approached me with offers of resorts, guided walks, alcohol, parties, and more. It was 7am and I was not ready for a level of touristiness I had never seen in West Africa. I managed to give him the slip and set off through the Serrekunda back streets, looking for my guesthouse. The city reminded me much more of Lusaka, Zambia than of Dakar, with mostly single-story houses set behind walls on wide, sandy, empty lanes.
The guesthouse turned out to be an incredibly German place favored by over-landers. They had a detailed sign laying out the price of every possible sleeping configuration- tent camping, tent and motorbike, tent and car, car with built-in tent, minibus, lorry-camper… the list went on. I grabbed a nap and hit the streets.
I wanted to find a bicycle to rent for a day and see as much as I could. There were no formal bike-rental places in the area, but I found a shop selling bikes and talked to the owner. He agreed, on the condition that I leave him my drivers’ license. When he saw my home address in California, he told me he had lived there for a decade. The interaction proved that the world is small, and the kindness of Gambians makes travel there easy.
Riding south along the coast, I started passing through pristine mango forest and decided to look at the map. I was in the extensive Tanji Bird Reserve, unsure of whether I had any right to be. Figuring I could play the dumb tourist card if someone caught me, I turned off the road into the forest. Sand trails carried me towards the sea while spectacular birds darted through the trees. I reached the beach by carrying the bike through some swamps, ditched my stuff, and jumped in.
This is the joy of independent travel: to reach places of unexpected beauty, without a guide or group to distill and dilute the experience. To see a place as it is, rather than as a bullet on an itinerary. A few miles up the beach in town, there were countless tourists drinking on the crowded beachfront. I wanted to show them all how great this place could be, if you just try to see it for yourself.
The ride continued through the unbelievably bustling Serrekunda Market. It rivalled anything in India or Nigeria, infinitely bigger countries, with its crowds, traffic, vibrance, and outstanding commercial vibes. A few truly massive trees dominated the scene, as they no doubt have since the days of the old kingdoms, when griots passed down the knowledge through generations.
As the afternoon light painted the road dust gold, a truck crawled through the market with huge speakers, blasting upbeat music and Wolof announcements. A huge, thin man walked in front of it, looking about seven feet tall, dressed all in black and surrounded by an entourage. He cut an awe-inspiring figure. Despite asking around, I could not figure out who he was.
I reached the mangroves and swamps between Serrekunda and Banjul at sunset. Young boys played soccer on a dusty flat, outlined by towering baobabs and palms and the hazy orange yolk of the sun. I wished I had a camera. Angling back to the guesthouse, I passed the posh diplomatic enclave, with clean tree-lined streets and red earth sidewalks, so visually similar to Lusaka’s Kabulonga that I wanted to cry from nostalgia. An Indian-run store confirmed that far-flung community’s presence even in the tiniest of African nations. The day ended with a delicious chicken Yassa at a little roadside joint, and I sunk into the sleep of the dead after two days of pure movement.
Thank You, (The) Gambia
I had only two goals on my last day: figure out the country’s real name, and leave. I knew the official name was “Republic of the Gambia,” but even the common name sometimes includes “The” on the front. Most people on the street were just saying “Gambia.” The former Californian bike-man told me no one cared. The mystery continues.
Back at the Banjul port, an entertaining mass of humanity was waiting for the ferry. A group of Mamans dressed in brilliantly patterned cloth was vigorously debating. They created full sensory overload all by themselves, but there were also fruit and nut sellers, kids sprinting through the throng, stylish young people, serious men on their way to work somewhere across the river, and impatient folks standing up against the gate.
I joined the impatient crew. When the ferry was ready, the gate swung open and we flooded through to cross the River Gambia once again.
Retracing the path to Dakar in another sept-place, I thought about how the trip had been unquestionably worth it. Slow travel is deeply rewarding, but if a mad dash to Banjul and back is all I could get, I felt deeply happy to have seen something of the Gambia.