20250215 Seabourn Sojourn Grand Africa Cruise Day 82/96 - Banjul, The Gambia

Grand Africa Cruise Trip Day 82/96 - Banjul, The Gambia - Nature Walk

Before we begin today's missive, I have to correct something. If you were looking for the answer to the trivia question from yesterday, I forgot to put it at the end of yesterday's blog. I have corrected that, but to save you from having to go back and look, the only country with a name ending in "h" is Bangladesh. On to today's blog.

The Gambia - what's that? It turns out that there are exactly two countries in the world with the word, "The" as the first word in the official country name. One is The Bahamas. The other is The Gambia - our 104th country.

The location of The Gambia is weird as it is surrounded to the north, east, and south by Senegal and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. It is essentially a finger of land sticking into the middle of Senegal.

An interesting ship on our sail-in

I'm no expert, but I think they sailed a bit too far

I think we could fit a lot more people on there

Musicians were waiting to welcome us

Our tour started at 9:30 - Abuko Nature Reserve.

We passed by low areas with lots of birds

We passed by the National Assembly building

We also passed by Arch 22 - a monument in Banjul

Arch 22 was to be renamed to Never Again Memorial Arch in honor of the former president’s victims of human rights violations.

We passed McCarthy Square where they were practicing

In three days, on February 18...

...The Gambia will celebrate its Diamond Jubilee - 60 years of independence

All branches of the military were represented

Anglican Church - The Gambia is around 85% Muslim and 15% Christian

We passed by a bunch of cool murals

Driving by the Banjul Museum

Another look at the Arch 22

Not a big building

Local markets

We arrived at our destination - Abuko Nature Reserve.

This guymeetst our buss

We followed the lower route and then returned via the upper route

A Western plantain-eater

Termite mound

Lots of vultures were circling

An example of a parasitic tree that encircles and chokes out the host tree

Egrets, decorating a tree

An anhinga

Theoretically, that brown lump in the middle is a crocodile

Ants, creating a highway

Red colobus monkey

A different style of weaver nest with an entry tunnel on the top

Another Western plantain-eater

Another parasitic tree - they compare them to human ribs

several male and female red-billed firefinch

Agama lizard

An interesting flat, velvety seed

We saw lots of vultures

Hooded vulture

Black kite

Red colobus monkey

Green monkey

More vultures

Birds were fighting over fresh figs

Vervet monkey

More vultures

What a face

A sleepy hyena

He did respond to calls with his name - Peter

This huge fly of some sort kept hovering in front of our faces

Bronze Mannikin

We finished our time at the reserve and rode the bus back to the ship, taking in the sights along the way.

We saw several of these

huge chairs are a thing here

Couches are available too

Lots of small mosques were all over

Another donkey cart

Barbing accessories?

Yet another donkey cart

Crossing The Gambia River

Another view of the Arch

The other side

As we sailed, the Arch was visible

Another view of the beached boat

A sprinkling of colorful boat

We were dropped back at the ship. We wandered through the vendor stores set up outside the ship and then returned to the ship to grab a bite.

Looking at the so-called sunset from the Observation Bar

It was yet another cloud-set, where the sun disappeared behind low-hanging clouds with no appreciable sunset show

We dined in Earth & Ocean tonight with friends It was a little chilly so we were happy when they turned on the outdoor heaters. Arlona still sported a coat and that helped with her comfort. I was closer to the heater and made it without a jacket.

We will dock tomorrow in Dakar, Senegal, our 105th country and 100th visited since retiring in January 2018.