BIRD IS THE WORD-THE GAMBIA

I am going away with him to an unknown country where I shall have no past and no name, and where I shall be born again with a new face and an untried heart.
-Colette-

It was HOT last night.  I slept under my mosquito net as the blood sucking insects were rampant during the night and I would take the hit of it being a little hotter with the fan not penetrating the net as much with its cool breeze than sleep without the net and get eaten alive.  The power was scheduled to go off at 5am and then back on at 7am, but when it did switch off at the designated time, Ollie was still a little sun stroked and got up and asked a staff member to turn it back on, which they did, so I guess we all need to say thanks to Ollie for the continued air supply.  It really was a stinker and the way the rooms were ventilated and built, they just retain the heat and they really are a hot box to sleep in.  We were up early as we were off for a spot of bird-watching this morning and earlier the better before it got too hot out, and that is just not for us, the birds also know it is best to not be out in the midday sun and they all also have ‘bird siesta’s’, so it is best to get in early.  We were up at 6.15am, breakfast at 7am and we were in the boat and on the water at 7.45am.  The light of the morning was stunning and we were all able to get some beautiful shots of the water and the other boats that were moored at Tendaba’s small jetty.  We were in a large pirogue, which is basically a boat that is made out of wood locally.  They do come in all sorts of sizes, and due to the size of our group, to my relief we were in one of the larger boats for the 2 hour cruise.  I hate it when you see on an itinerary a ‘local’ boat, as I always have a fear of firstly not fitting into a ‘local’ boat but then the stability and the possibility of falling out as the second concern.  I am not sure why the falling out concerns me so much, as I can swim, but maybe it is the thought of my camera going in the drink?  Anyway, I didn’t have to worry about that this morning and we were all loaded without incident and we were on our way. 

Tendaba Camp is located on the river-side in the Kiang Central district about 100 km up the River Gambia from Banjul.  The area is characterized by a broad tidal river bed, savannah swamp and mangroves.  Tendaba Camp is a well-established and possibly the most well-known tourist destination for short excursions away from the Atlantic resorts of Kololi and is ideal for eco-tourists interested in both wildlife and birding as it is situated on the riverside, very close to Kiang West National Park.  We motored the 15 minutes it took to get across the Gambia River and we then entered on of the estuaries/creeks and we were rewarded with bird spotting straight away.  I always thought I had the inclination to be a twitcher (bird watcher) but I have never really gotten into full on yet.  I did bring a pair of binoculars that I got for Christmas last year, but besides using them for 2 days in the Masai Mara, they haven’t had a lot of bird time just yet.  Sian is an avid bird watcher and they didn’t have a pair of nokkies, so I was more than happy to pass over my pair so that someone who does know what they are seeing and appreciating would get better use out of them.  They are a good pair, I do have to say and I must get onto it when I get home.  I do live in Africa/Kenya after all and I am sure I have a lot of birds on my door step if I took the time to look.  I wonder if there is a bird watchers group in Nairobi?  We spent the next 2 hours exploring a few of the creeks and waterways of the area creeks that penetrate deep into the mangrove forest. While we motored and drifted, we saw and heard lots of birds including the Blue-breasted Kingfisher, Hamerkop, Spur-winged Goose, Sacred Ibis, Abyssinian Roller, African Blue Flycatcher, Marabou Storks, Squarker Heron, Red beaked Kingfisher, Senegal cookle, Malakai kingfishers, Egrets, Wimprels, Sand pipers, Pelicans and Pied kingfishers to name a few and we were lucky to see in the distance the largest bird of the heron family, the Goliath Heron.  We were the only people in the boat this morning and it was wonderful and the right call had been made to get out early, because the sun was already starting to heat up and you could pretty much see all the birds disappear as the heat then started to knock.  We were back at Tendaba at 10am and already it was a scorcher.

The rest of the day was a day of leisure.  There really wasn’t much that could be done here even if you wanted to.  There was a local village, pretty much next door to Tendaba, but Clem went and had a look around there and he said it is just a typical fishing village and no shops, even for drinks.  There was an option for the afternoon to go for a drive on their game trucks, which looked super cool and a roofless version of Madge, but the heat was just about unbearable and the thought of sitting in the heat with no shade just did not resonate as fun with me, and half of the group agreed and we changed our minds about going out at 3.30pm.  There were 6 brave souls who were still going to tackle the game drive and at least they had some time to rest, eat some lunch and then head out later.  The other deciding factor for me is that they don’t have the big animals in the Kiang West National Park.  The only animals they hoped to see were antelopes, wart hogs and 3 different species of monkeys.  I am lucky that I have done a lot of game drives in my travels and the heat outweighed the possibility of seeing some D grade animals (sorry to the antelopes and monkeys) so I was hoping for a productive day of blogging.  So with that said I grabbed my laptop and headed for the main restaurant area and sat under what was warmer under the palm frond roof than it was outside and I attempted to get some words down for my blog entry for Bissau.  Besides people from the group coming and going and distracting me, it was even too hot to type and gather my thoughts.  I have also been procrastinating over the Bissau blog for the last few days and if nothing else I wanted to finish that entry today come hell or high water.  It seemed it was going to be a much tougher task than I had thought.  It is also tricky as I need to try and conserve/utilize my laptop battery when I can, as there is no power during the day hours, so I blog as much as I can till it goes flat and then I have to charge it in Madge, so that I would be able to keep blogging in the afternoon.  It is like a 2 shift stage type of thing.  Everyone knows I am trying to get out of Bissau today and come lunch, I was STILL in Bissau and knew I would have to crack along this afternoon.

Lunch time at Tendaba is a busy affair.  It is a well-known place for birding and there were a few couples around, some with guides and some on their own and just before 1pm, 2 large groups arrived to be fed and it looked like one of them were going to be staying the night and the others had just come for lunch.  It was a buffet for us all and after last night’s wait, I was skeptical that there would be enough food for the 50+ people milling around waiting for the go ahead.  Straight up you could see Tendaba have done this a few times before and there was an entrée of tomato soup and they had a staff member dish this up and after that was cleared and the 5 different dishes bought out for the main, it was a serve yourself option and I have to say there was enough food, and I was one of the last to go through, so I am not sure why the dinner took so long last night as they do seem to know their gig when it comes to food.  Either way it was delicious and after lunch the visiting parties left, the group that was staying tackled the heat and the sun and went on an afternoon bird cruise and at 3.30pm our 6 brave soldiers headed for the safari truck for their 3 hour game drive to see antelope, warthogs and monkeys.  I was still glad I opted out for it as it was still blinking hot when they left.  I popped my laptop onto Madge to charge and tried to have an afternoon sleep in the room, but after 25 minutes of trying to find a cool spot on my bed and covered in sweat (as the fan was not working as the power was off) I was covered in a ball of sweat and figured I would be cooler outside.  The second you leave your rooms, it is like stepping into air-conditioning, which when it is 36C outside and considered air-conditioning gives you an idea on how hot the rooms are!!! 

So it was back to trying to get out of Bissau and blog.  Richard had asked if the camp would get the Arsenal football match on the TV this afternoon at 4.10pm.  They said yes and they even turned on the power early at 4pm so that we could turn on the TV.  It all looked very promising until they started to scan through the 100 channels they seem to have (a lot seem to repeat) and they couldn’t find the football channel.  A few phonecalls were made, channels flipped and then the news was broken to Rich that there was a bad signal and they can’t get the game.  So some beers were opened anyway, a few people peeled off to rest and read and then 10 minutes later an old fashioned radio was bought out, the type that wheel on the end to move between stations and they had a telecast of the game instead.  It was really poor reception but so sweet that they did bring out the radio and when they realized that the reception wasn’t that great they bought out a slightly bigger one and Richard walked around the bungalow trying to find some better reception and in the end found a spot outside and with his beer under his arm and the transistor radio in his hands he listened as best he could to the game.  I struggled through yet the same blog entry and I am happy to report I finally finished it around 5pm and I admit it may not be my best piece of writing.  It was done in about 20 stages, interruptions, lack of writing mojo and the heat but it was done and I am finally out of Bissau and when the gang ask where I am now I can happily tell them we have finally left the city of Bissau.  It seemed to be an ongoing joke of the day, but I did it and then the blog juices did start to flow and I half completed the next days until my computer went flat again and I knew then it was time to have a break and read my book until the safari people returned at around 6.45pm. 

It appeared that I had made the right decision to not go on the safari; besides a few birds they didn’t see a single animal.  At all.  The poor bustards.  They were still glad they went and they said it just didn’t seem like the right time of year to even spot an animal as there was tall elephant grass and it reminded me of our ‘game’ drive in Pendjari National Park.  I am not sure why they take people in the park if they know it is not the right time of year, but I guess animals are wild after all and there could be a chance that you do see something, it is just a less likely opportunity than normal.  I will put some details in about the park anyway, as it is a big draw card for the country of The Gambia and I did see some of it, I just did the water section and not the land section as well.  Kiang West National Park is one of the largest and most important wildlife reserves in the Gambia.  It was declared a national park in 1987 and is managed by the Gambia Department of Parks and Wildlife Management.  The park covers an area of 11,526 hectares, and is located on the south bank of the Gambia River, in the Lower River Division in the Kiang West District.  The park is located about 5 kilometers away from Tendaba village, 145 kilometers from the Gambian capital city Banjul, and 100 kilometers from the Gambian coastline.  The Gambia River marks the park's northern boundary.  The park is unpopulated, with villages located close outside its borders.  The park has more than 300 bird species, more than half of all the bird species that have been recorded in the Gambia.  Some of the park's bird species have a very local distribution and are rarely observed in other locations in the Gambia.  Local people are permitted to gather a small amount of firewood and forest products, and to cultivate some rice within the park boundaries.  Annual forest fires badly affect the park. In 2001, a large fire burned through the length of the park for two days.  The park receives few tourists.  November to January are the best months to visit.

It is days like this that people ask how I have coped for the last 9 weeks.  It is a good question but my simple reply is that it is all a mental thing.  If you know you are overlanding on a trip for 10 weeks, you psychologically prepare yourself for 10 weeks.  So then you meet some-one who is doing the trip for 3 weeks and they have in their mind 3 weeks and 10 weeks just seems like a crazy, insane idea and on days like this it is hard, as the heat really plays a BIG part in this part of the world.  Besides that day we arrived into Pendjari National Park in Benin, I would rank that day as hot as what it had been today.  The power was switched on at 7.15pm and even though I was not so close to a ceiling fan, the instant breeze that came off them was just simply amazing.  I was also prepared with bug repellent which I have been applying continuously the whole day and I don’t think that I have any new bites to report.  Unlike Sir Richard who had been attacked in his bed last night, even though he had the net and the rooms had been sprayed he had over 20 bites on each knee and bites around his ankles and just looking at all the red spots made me want to itch them all for him the poor thing.  THAT is what I am scared of and after my bite fest in Benin and Sierra Leone (touchwood) I have been able to contain another bitefest like that so far on this section.    

After dinner Sam had organized for some local dancing at 9pm.  I was knackered but with the Togo and Benin dancing having been SUPER AWESOME I made the effort to attend the dance that was just outside the main bungalow.  Well I hate to say I only lasted 20 minutes as there seemed to be only one man singing/shouting and a handful of women clapping and looking a little less than enthusiastic and they grew in numbers as I left.  When Helen came back to the room just after 10pm, she said it didn’t really improve; there was no proper dancing or costumes as such, so I didn’t miss out on much which always makes me feel better when I don’t attend things.  There had been talk again about the kitty on the trip and apparently I had missed the big discussion when people were having pre-dinner beers.  I am a staunch supporter of the kitty needing to somehow be better organized that what it currently is but I think you also need to think of a solution which to me is the prepayment of the damn thing and get it all out of the way.  Dragoman do need to change the wording on their trip notes and also make it more clear as to what kitty entails and they are the only company that does not get people to prepay it unlike their rivals of Intrepid and Tucan on most trips.  I will write a blog just on the kitty, but it seems I am not the only one that has a problem with the workings on the trip and it is nothing to do with Sam and his treasuring/accounting skills, it is the company and the trip notes that need the overhaul.     

So that basically sums up our 2 nights and one full day in the African continents smallest country (mainland).  It really is just a transit country for us and unless you are into seeing more birds, it is a twitchers paradise, there really isn’t much more on offer, well in the rural areas anyway.  The country is well known for its beautiful beaches, but unfortunately we wouldn’t be seeing the Gambia coast on this trip, but with the people being so friendly, the main language is English, I could see myself coming back here again if the airfares were reasonable enough and then I could checkout the capital and the beaches.  It has been a hot box though and that is something that has been difficult to deal with the last 2 days.  HOT AS AN OVEN.