So far, every day could have been described as epic, but today, we hit the ground running with immersing ourselves in the culture. We met with William in the morning and after a racy dash to the peanut stall, we were well on our way, equipped with essentials for the monkeys at Monkey Park.

Bubba was our driver, and luckily he drove a green taxi - as opposed to a yellow and green one in which the drivers were clear risk-takers and most without licenses. He dropped us off at Monkey Park and informed us that he will be waiting to take us to our next destination. 



 



We paid for our tickets, and also for William's. It was the expectation that as part of the 'guide fee', tourists pay for their entrance. Once inside, it was a fairly standard looking bit of woodland with sand on the path. No monkey in sight meant William whistled several special calls to the monkeys, and before long, they appeared sure enough. Eagerly awaiting peanuts, they jumped at our bag and William quickly made sure that he was in control of the bag. It was a scary feeling seeing all these almost-mini-humans jumping and snatching vigorously at the bag of peanuts whilst growling at one another, and it was so reassuring to know that we had the experience of a local with us. William gave us handful of peanuts which we were able to offer to the monkeys. Now slightly more calm, they took our offerings gently and calmly. Their hands were soft, and they seemed to grasp slightly against your hand as they took their peanut. Along the way back, we spotted termite mounds which William talked us through and we were shown several types of trees and told of their various medicinal uses.





(termite mound)
Sure enough, Buba was ready and waiting to take us to our next destination. It was about a ten minute drive to Crocodile Park - a slightly sacred place where the water was considered holy and aided fertility. We drove past what we considered to be 'real Africa'. Small shacks, shanty buildings, make-shift constructions and various other living spaces surrounded native African dressed women who balanced baskets and the like on their heads, and local children, often barefoot,running across the distinctly orange dirt. As we drove further into this village, the smell of running open sewers was over-bearing. Not far beyond, we had reached the sanctuary of crocodiles. Upon arrival, we were invited to stroke a real life crocodile who was sunning himself or cooling off, we couldn't quite tell. Again, surreal. We continued our walk for a short while before we reached the end.




 









When we got back it was only around midday, so we got ourselves ready for a long walk on the beach, this time in the opposite direction. Sure enough, upon stepping onto the beach, we were flagged down by Ana the fruit lady. She took a serious tone: "so I prepare some fruit for you today?" as if fruit was a requirement of our day. We told her we were walking today and we will see how we feel after lunch. The walk was lovely, and we opted for lunch in a beach bar, with cushioned sunbeds on the beach - relaxed was an understatement. The beautiful walk back was lush and we walked with our feet in the sea. We popped over to our juicester friends, though Pa was nowhere to be seen!! Ana checked if we want fruit, as ever and we told her we would try and get some Wednesday but we will definitely see her Thursday morning, before we leave.

For dinner we headed back to the Senegambia strip, but our burger friends were not there tonight!  Some odd looking Gambian-who-had-lived-in-Birmingham tried to invite us in, but we explained that we were just looking to see the guys we made friends with, and are now heading back home. He swung his arm around Joe and ushered us towards his friend who was a taxi driver. This was quite a scary and risky experience as the guy went out back to some dark back road to retrieve his car - luckily we were taken back home and not driven away and held ransom somewhere! What was lovely was that William was waiting by the hotel and opened the door for us and checked we were ok. Third time we had seen him in one day - it had proved to us that he was trustworthy and a reliable friend in The Gambia. 


We got an early night tonight, ready for our Roots trip tomorrow.