West Africa Road Trip – Page 2 – Erin Travels The World

Going to The Gambia

To be honest, my visit to The Gambia didn’t get off to the greatest start. I landed at 11 pm and my hotel didn’t pick me up like they were supposed to, and I had an uncomfortable taxi ride. One of the quirks of The Gambia is that sex tourism is fairly common there, but in an unusual twist, women are the primary consumers. Basically, what Thailand is for older men, The Gambia is for older European women, which means that there’s an extra dynamic in traveling there as a white woman. The locals tend to assume that’s why you’re there, which…. was very much not what I was looking for. My taxi driver kept offering opportunities for us to “party” together while I reiterated that I just wanted to go to my hotel to sleep.

That said, The Gambia is a very popular destination for British people to come for beach vacations, and I can see why. My hotel was really nice, and I had a swim-up room with an ocean view. I had a full day to kill before I was supposed to meet up with my tour group, so I paid a small fee to have my room for the full day and just vibed in the pool for the morning.

The view from my room! I could get used to this swim-in pool option.

From there, I went to go meet our group! People were arriving at staggered times, but the six or seven of us who had arrived first met up and got a cab into downtown Banjul to explore. We started by climbing up to the top of the Banjul arch, which had a nice little exhibit on the history of The Gambia at the top.

It also had some pretty decent views of the city!

From there, we headed to the market. We wandered around for a bit and explored, which gave me a much better sense of Banjul than I’d gotten from the resort.

If you’ve never looked at The Gambia on a map, I’d recommend pulling it up now. It’s one of the more interestingly shaped ones. It’s basically entirely coastline – a tiny bit that borders the Atlantic Ocean, and then the majority of it is along the coast of the Gambia River. The only land border it has is with Senegal, because it essentially takes a chunk out of the middle of Senegal.

What this means is that it’s pretty much entirely wetlands, and therefore it is a very good place for birdwatching if that’s a thing you’re interested in. I am not a birdwatcher, but I am friends with one, and when I see cool birds, I try to get a good picture and send them to my friend Kellen to identify.

This little guy is a hooded vulture, and he is critically endangered! Kellen was absolutely floored that I was able to see one so close. Apparently, The Gambia, southern Senegal (the Casamance region), and Guinea-Bissau are the only place where their population is stable. Globally their population has decreased about 85% over the last 50 years. I saw several of them during this trip, and it was so sad to learn how rare they’ve become, but I’m glad that I had the chance to see them and learn about them through this trip.

Anyway, the next day was the official start of the tour! We had a briefing and then headed off to explore a bit more of the Gambia. We started with a fishing village. Fishing is a huge industry in West Africa and so we got a chance to see the markets and the beautiful painted boats several times as we made our way along the coast.

After a really pleasant lunch on the river, we headed south to the border with Senegal! This one was one of the easier land borders to cross, because most of us were not visa required to enter Senegal. But even an “easy” land border in West Africa can still be very time consuming, as we would learn over the coming days.

All in all, mixed reviews on The Gambia. The main tourist infrastructure, focused on beach resorts and partying, is really not my cup of tea, but when we got away from that and got to the areas like Banjul and the areas en route to the Senegalese border, I had a much more pleasant experience. It doesn’t really appeal to me enough to want to return, but I am happy that critically endangered vulture is thriving somewhere.

Dakar: The Gateway to West Africa

In late October, I flew out to Dakar to start a three-week trip in West Africa! The majority of this was through Wander Expeditions, but I tacked on a few days at the beginning so that I could explore Dakar before meeting up with everyone else in Banjul.

Because of the way that my flights were scheduled, the distance from the airport to the city, and the limited time I had, I ended up booking a private tour for the two days I had so that they could also handle my airport transfers. It was an amazing experience! I felt like I had a chance to see so much of the city and beyond, and my guide and I had some great conversations about Senegalese history, culture, and how Dakar fits into the broader West African landscape. I landed in the morning and we immediately headed out to Gorée Island.

Gorée Island is one of the most famous sites in Senegal. The history there is incredibly dark – it was one of the larger ports for the slave trade. I toured one of the homes that had been used for that and saw the Door of No Return, where countless people last touched African soil after being ripped from their homes and sold into slavery. It was very moving experience. I also appreciated getting African perspectives on this. I’ve learned about the Atlantic slave trade in US history, but that is primarily focused on what happened when enslaved people arrived in the United States and leading into the Civil War, the Civil Rights movements, etc. The exhibits at this museum spoke more about the capture, auctions, and harrowing journey across the ocean.

What makes it such a fascinating place is that despite that dark past, the modern day Gorée Island is charming. It’s chock full of colorful buildings and art galleries, and can absolutely hold its own with the types of islands I’ve been to off the coast of Croatia or Italy for a pleasant day trip. That dichotomy was unexpected.

The people at the gallery above are painting with sand! They’re using glue on their brushes to create the patterns and shapes, and then spreading the different colors of sand to make the pictures. If I wasn’t at the very beginning of the trip, I would have definitely wanted to buy one, but I thought these paintings would be too delicate to survive the itinerary ahead. We had lunch on Gorée Island as well, and walked around for a while. By the time we got back on our ferry to the mainland, I was starting to doze off. Whether that was from the heat or the jet lag was anyone’s guess, but my guide suggested I go back to the hotel, have a restful afternoon, and then we would start a little earlier the next day and get through everything else we had planned.

It was so cool to watch him play this instrument – it sort of seemed like a cross between a harp and a guitar.

I definitely needed the rest. And it was a good call to push the city tour to the next morning when it was cooler, because we started with the African Renaissance Movement! I was super excited to see this, because I had listened to a podcast about it. 99% Invisible did a whole episode on how North Korea has helped fund and produce art for African nations in a very interesting diplomatic move. We headed up the stairs to the top, where I got to see the plaque honoring North Korea’s aid in creating it. From what my guide said, this was designed by a Senegalese architect and then North Korean sculptors helped to create it, then shipped back the pieces for assembly in Dakar.

We visited a few other sites across Dakar before heading north out of the city. Most notable was Pointe des Almadies, which is the westernmost point on mainland Africa! I always find it interesting to see how we mark those types of extremes – sometimes, like the Four Corners in the United States, people will say it’s boring, but it’s also so fun to me that we as a society took the time to both measure and celebrate these rare borders or geographical locations. Earlier this same year had been my very first visit to Africa, and I had been on the complete opposite side of the continent.

From Dakar, our next stop was Kayar, which is a fishing village. I loved this visit. First of all, I was clearly the only tourist. It wasn’t all that far from Dakar, but it was so far removed from the development and bustle of the city that it felt like being in another world.

We walked along the beach and watched the fishermen work. This wasn’t the only fishing village I went to on this trip, but it was my favorite because I was only with the one guide and I felt a little less intrusive than when I was with the big group. I could stay quiet and watch the rhythms of how they worked, the men pushing the ships out to sea or pulling them back in, with the men standing along the shore waiting to haul in the catch and the women working to get the fish ready to sell at the market. It looked like hard work.

The elaborately painted boats were also amazing to see up close. Kayar had so many, as far as the eye could see in both directions. After we had walked along the shore for a bit, we walked through the area where they were drying the fish, and by then the guide and I had gotten a bit lost from where the driver had parked so we walked through town to find a new place to meet up.

After lunch, we headed to Lake Retba, also known as Lac Rose. You may have seen gorgeous pictures of the pink water – those are outdated, as of fall 2022. There’s been flooding and it has diluted the algae and salt levels, so it mostly just looks like a normal lake now. Nonetheless, it was still nice to visit. We did a 4×4 tour along the coast, which was fun, and then a quick boat ride on the lake.

I posted this on Instagram and got a lot of responses of people telling me this janky-looking boat gave them stress. We didn’t sink, I promise!

From there, it was back to the airport and onward to Banjul! A lot of the trip is still left to come, but reflecting after the full three weeks, I would still say that Dakar was one of my favorite destinations from this trip. It’s one of the top places I would recommend to people if they are interested in traveling to West Africa, especially if they are less familiar with the region. The development that I saw in progress makes me really excited for the future of Dakar as well. It was a great start to the trip!