We got a real taste of Gambia today - we befriended the locals! So as promised, we returned to Pa the juicester and his friend Seni. They remembered our names and shouted with smiles across the beach, happy that we had honoured our promise. The juice itself was somewhat hard to gulp down, because it was mashed bits of fruit which wasn't terribly flavoursome and had an odd smell. This was no biggie though, because having seen how hard they had worked squeezing mainly by hand several bits of fruit to create two glasses, it was almost an honour to have the drink. It took around 10 minutes for the two lads to prepare by the time they had peeled the fruits, squeezed the juice and carved some ice off of their giant block. We sat down and chatted with a few of the guys and some of their friends joined us too. A little boy who belonged to one of the craft ladies favoured Pa and came to hang out with us too. Turns out Pa has Facebook and we gained a new friend today! He spoke to us about Gambian life and his off-season job as an electrician. Turns out he lives at home with his mum and brother - he had invited us to meet them some time! Such a lovely time with them all!

We even made Ana number 19 very happy today after buying a large fruit selection from her! Before we even had a chance to step onto the beach, Ana came scurrying across the sand shouting hello. She was delighted that after several tries of persuasion over the last couple of days, today was the day we gave in! Our intention was to buy some today anyway, but she didn't know that and seemed very happy with her successful sale. 

The vibe was lovely, and we were having a great morning on the beach in the sunshine with our new friends. We therefore decided to go with Seni to the bar he works at, and had lunch. He joined us for lunch and chatted to us about the Gambian way of life. He explained that he had gone to school but his family could only afford to send him to school until the age of 6, and mainly only so that he could learn English and have a job. He also told us a little about his job now, where during the season he is a sunbed attendant for the bar - getting paid nothing but relying solely on tips. We felt for him massively because the tips the sunbed attendants made were split between 5 of them, and on busy days this could be split between 20 of them! He kept us company for the entire meal, except for a quick 10 minutes while he went to take part in one of his five daily prayers. The most touching thing was that we handed him some money as a thank you for showing us around, and he refused claiming we were friends. At this point, Angie's (the thomas cook rep) advice was contradicted by this action. She claimed that "the locals don't want to be your friend for nothing". How wrong was she about this? We insisted Seni take the 25 Dalasi - all of about 40p, and he was over the moon. We headed back to the hotel for some time by the pool. 

It's a real struggle to keep short our experience in the evening. We had walked along the Senegambia strip, the single road in Gambia which was filled with a range of zooming taxis, extremely impoverished locals including young kids and babies playing on construction sites right by the roadside and many other people just perched around the road on stalls selling various items like nuts or fruit. Hasslers were not as common here as on the beach, though we had encountered a few classic bumsters looking shocked that we did not recognise them. (A classic scam as we had read).

 

We chose a burger bar which was buzzing with reggae music and the three guys who manned the restaurant were awesome. A guy with dreads, a youngish boy as the chef of the barbecue and a standard waiter. They were a cool gang, fascinated by our selfie stick and posing for a few photos. The experience wouldn't have been complete without hasslers though - one guy on a table opposite, tried to sell us some of his wooden carvings for around £100, and a busking band played in front of the restaurant then came in with a hat asking for donations. We refused this time, but gave the restaurant lads a nice tip - they were extremely welcoming!

We braved the walk back and made it back before dark. We had come across Idi (from day one) and explained that we had already booked a tour. We had also come across William (Angie's friend) and confirmed plans for monkey park tomorrow. We were being recognised and greeted all over town today, and really started to feel part of the community. Today was thoroughly enjoyable.