While we were in The Gambia doing charity work in the school we jumped at the chance to see a bit of the country and local community as well. We spent the weekends on excursions and exploring The Gambia! We visited the Crocodile Pool - where there were no boundaries between you and the crocs! You were allowed to touch them as well, but we arrived just after they'd been fed and they were less than cooperative and wanted to laze around in the sun rather than come over and meet us!
We posed in a huge silk cotton tree! While in Africa I saw some of the largest trees I have ever seen, some must have been hundreds and hundreds of years old!
We also visited a Batik Factory and were given a demonstration of the traditional techniques of batiking and were able to have a go ourselves! I bought myself a few pieces of artwork - I thought they'd make great resources for school!
The fishing village - now this was an experience! There were unbelievable amounts of people, fish, boats and gulls on the beach, it was quite overwhelming (as was the aroma of drying and smoking fish). The men bring the fish up from the boats in buckets and wheelbarrows and the women lay out the catch at the top of the beach for locals to buy.
We visited several craft markets (all of which made a considerable dent in my bank balance!) I bought enough African musical instruments to create my own Gambian orchestra! I bought a drum, balaphone, two kora's, six different types of shakers, rattles... all of which would be fabulous for an African music lesson!
The Monkey park was brilliant. There were thousands of monkeys scattered around the nature park and the trees and surroundings were beautiful. There were so many adorable baby monkeys! I saw this little family group cuddling and stroking the newly born baby monkey in the centre of their huddle... so cute!
Here's me, our guide Lamin and a huge termite mound in the nature park
Our guide, Lamin, very generously invited us back to his compound to meet his family and to enjoy a traditional Gambian meal. Above is Lamin and his elder daughter cooking the food ready for us to eat!
They served up Barracuda Benachin - a spiced and tomato flavoured rice dish, as I cannot eat fish I could only try some of the rice - but what I did try was absolutely delish!
The next course was Goat Domoda and rice - my favourite! The locals call this dish "peanut soup" and it is a very rich peanut sate-like sauce
The meal was followed by the most delicious fresh mango and bananas! They were the best bananas and mangoes I have ever eaten! As most Gambians do not have electricity and therefore lack refrigerators, the women and children shop for food at local markets every day and the ingredients are fresh and it shows in the flavour of the food.
Towards the end of our two weeks we went down the river Gambia on a little boatride through the mangroves. It was lovely!
The Gambia Girls!
Yesterday I took a little trip to Port Lympne Zoo with some lovely people.. the weather was shockingly bad, mostly torrential rain (gotta love British unexpected downpours), but desipte the adverse weather conditions, we had a lovely day and saw most of the animals... all except the gorillas, a little disappointed about that but I can't blame the gorillas for wanting to hide away from the elements in their cosy beds!
This was my favourite little fella, he sat posing for photos whilst enjoying a crunchy carrot and leaves...
Me and the Lovely Joanne by the hedge maze
The giraffes were out in the safari enclosure. It's great, the animals have so much space to roam alongside other animals that would naturally share their habitat.
One of the white rhinos came to say hello
We took bets to see if I was taller than the giraffe or not....... I wasn't!
Deluxe hot chocolate break! After all the rain (whoever said summer was supposed to be sunny anyway!) we needed a warming beverage!
Tiger sitting in the rain...
It's such a shame that the mansion isn't open to the public anymore... only for weddings and events. It was always a great part of the zoo visit!
Baby!
