We had a very easy stamp out of Senegal and an easy entry into The Gambia, well for the UK and Canadian passport holders who can enter for free and do not need a visa. In our research we also found that the Australians could enter for free and it would just be Sawa and his Japanese nationality who would need a visa at the border. The immigration officer couldn't seem to understand that the passports were Australian and not Austrian and claimed that visas needed to be bought. Very unfortunate for the Australians as the internet clearly states that they don't need a visa.
From the border we took a taxi journey to the ferry to then cross the river to the capital Banjul. The ferry was a great experience as we watched vehicles, goods, sheep and masses of people squish on not the biggest of boats. I was chatting to man who worked for the port security and he was travelling anyway to Banjul so he gave us a lot of help getting our on-going transport to the coast. We could have done it without his help but it was worth paying a couple of dollars extra for a bit less faff. It took us a good 4 or 5 hours to get from the border to being in a hotel. We ended up right on the beachfront in an area called Bakau.
We spent 3 nights in the hotel on the beach. It was nice to spend time sleeping in a bed and not really doing a lot. I spent one day looking around the markets and lounging on the beach and the following day Lucy and I went on a 4 hour walk to Biljilo Forest monkey park. We didn't see a lot of wildlife after we left the main gate area but it was nice to have walk in peace without anyone trying to sell you something!
Our last night was spent in Georgetown (Janjanbure). It was a bit of an adventure to get there though as it was a public holiday aimed at cleaning up the country. As a result there was only one bus running that day and we had to walk an hour to the bus stop as taxis weren't running either. The express bus was due to take 3 hours but it left 45 minutes late and we had arrived 45 minutes early to get seats. Good job we did. The seats were narrow and there was no leg room but at least we had a seat. The bus was jam packed the whole journey. It was great for people watching though and at one point I had chickens in my face and hanging against my legs, thankfully still alive! We arrived 6 hours later in the pitch black as the town was suffering from power cuts. We found somewhere to stay and had the longest wait for food yet- 2 hours!
Georgetown is a great place for viewing wildlife on boat trips as it is an island. The boat trips were very expensive though and we only had a few hours in the morning spare so no one went on one. Everyone in Georgetown was so friendly, saying good morning and not wanting anything from us. Whilst walking on a dirt track away from the main street a family with 7 kids came running up to me and Lucy very politely shaking our hands and asking our names. An old man also invited us to look around his garden which was right on the end of the river. It would have been nice to spend a bit longer in Georgetown but we needed to get to the border to meet the truck.
The border wasn't that far but it wasn't a main border post and people didn't really seem to know where it was. We took 3 bus taxis to get there (massively overloaded minibuses which only leave when full), the last taxi saying that it wasn't leaving until 6 more people came. Who knows where those people were going to go or when they would turn up so we just paid for the 6 tickets so that we could leave.
The border didn't even have a sign post and we couldn't get our passports stamped as there was'nt an immigration office, just customs. We were very thankful to see the big yellow truck waiting for us though!
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