Our port of call today is Banjul, Gambia. Its official name is the “Republic of The Gambia”. It is the smallest country in Africa and is surrounded on the North, South and East by Senegal. On the west is the Atlantic Ocean. The Gambia River, which runs from the East to the West, splits the country in half. It’s current population is 1.87 Million (2013). The Portuguese were first here in 1455 but never created a presence. In 1765 Gambia became part of the British Empire and, as a result, the official language of the country is English. It gained its independence in 1965. Banjul is the capital of the country with a population of about 400,000, but it is only the 4th largest city in the country. 94 % of the population are followers of Islam.

The tour I picked was a long one in duration (8.5 hours) because it involved, first, a 2 hour boat ride up the Gambia River to the small port village of Albreda, which is then a short walk to Juffureh, the ancestral village and home of Kunta Kinteh, the subject of the now famous 1976 television documentary based on Alex Haley’s book:  “The Saga of an American Family”. We were warned that the boat taking us to the village would be pretty spartan (very basic are the words used, with no air conditioning, seating on plastic chairs, etc). That did not deter either of us as we wanted to seek out this piece of history we were aware of. We watched the ship video describing the trip which showed what I would call a fairly large yacht-type boat as our mode of transportation. No problem; we will manage.

When we arrived at the dock to board our boat for the ride up the river we did not see the pictured yacht; what we saw is shown in the picture below! What came to mind was “The African Queen”! Being the adventurous travelers we are, we took the change in stride and gingerly boarded the craft. Because there were many of us there were actually two boats of a similar design that would be making the trip. The good news is that the boats were open rather than the closed cabin expected with the original boat, so excessive heat would probably not be a problem. Also there was quite a breeze blowing when we left at 8AM thus making the ride comfortable. Both boats left the dock and proceeded upriver. That is when we ran into problem #1-there were waves on the river and suddenly water was being sprayed into the boats and onto us! Luckily they had side-screens made of colorful cotton cloth that could be pulled shut so we lost some of the breeze but avoided most of the water spray as we progressed up river. There was coffee (instant) and tea plus cookies available to help pass the time. The literature said you might want to bring a book to read but we figured it would be more fun to watch the scenery as we went. Unfortunately, the river is very wide  and there was nothing but mangroves on the shore so watching the world go by became boring pretty fast.

It did take all of two hours to reach our destination, the tiny village of Albreda where problem #2 showed up. There was a deteriorating concrete pier at the village but no evidence of cleats to tie up to. Also the wind was still blowing and the boat rocked in the wavy action of the river. The additional problem was that the tide was low and our boat sides were quite a bit below the edge of the pier, giving rise to the problem of how do we safely exit the boat to get onto land. After several attempts to somehow lash the boat to the pier the locals went to get their smaller skiffs with the idea of transferring us first to the skiff, then beaching the skiff to allow us to proceed to shore. It worked and luckily no one was injured as the transfers were made in bobbing waters. Many local men appeared to offer hand holds to us as we exited the boats. I had to laugh when it was my turn the young man said, “here, grandpa, hold my hand”! I could not question his choice of words as I am obviously a grandpa.

When ashore local guides took us around the area to see the slave museum which contained pictures and stories (sad era of history) about man’s inhumanity to his fellow man and to visit several other local sites related to the slave trade era. We stopped at the local preschool and were greeted by dozens of smiling, happy children who wanted to shake our hands and sing us a song. They were delightful!

We then were walked across the local “highway”(a dirt road) to the village of a Jufferuh, where we first met the village chief, in this instance it happened to be a women, who welcomed us to her village.

Once welcomed to the village we walked to the ancestral home of Kunta Kinteh to hear briefly his story of capture and life after being a slave, and then to meet and take photographs with an 8th generation descendant of his, an elderly women and her son. It was her father who first met Alex Haley in the 1970s. The family still Iives in the compound of very modest homes in the area. Yvonne questioned why Alex Haley and the TV producers who made so much money on the series did not do more for the village!

As we walked back to our boat for the return trip we encountered problem #3:  The wind was still blowing a bit, the water was still choppy and unfortunately the tide had dropped so the deck of our boats were even lower from the concrete pier than when we arrived. At first the thought was we would sit on the edge of the pier and jump the short distance to the boat’s deck where waiting hands of boat attendants would gather us onto the boat. Now, the people on this trip are of an advanced age and not as agile as they used to be which turned out to pose a tremendous problem as they either said they could not easily sit or jump so a Plan B  needed to be implemented. The new plan involved getting back into the local skiffs, ferried out to the larger ships and climbing back over the sides of the boat to get inside. And so it started. Unfortunately, in some cases people ended up on the wrong boat and needed to climb a second time to return to their proper boat. All this was done with the boats (big and small) bobbing in the water.  Again we were extremely lucky and the transfer was somehow accomplished without anyone being injured. The trip back found smoother waters but the wind was now gone and it was hotter as it was late in the day. They did serve us a surprisingly good buffet lunch of chicken, fish, pasta salad, rice and couscous salads on the trip back.

As we approached the dock in the harbor from which we left we ran into problem #4: the tide had fallen and the pier was WAY above the deck of our boats. How do we get off? There was no ladder on the pier and we certainly could not somehow propel ourselves upward by 3-4 feet to reach the pier. Solution: we basically climbed to the roof of our boat, climbed over the railing with two crew members supporting us from the back so we did not fall, while 2-3 local men, standing on the pier, grabbed our hands and literally picked us up and deposited us on the pier! It was a chaotic sight but successful! We all managed to safely exit the ship and return to safe ground!  Needless to say it was quite an experience and I can safely say everyone was very glad to get back to the safety of our ship.

Tonight we were treated to another show given by comedian/magician John Lanahan and he was as funny tonight as he was the first time we saw him-a very enjoyable entertainer.

Tomorrow is another day at sea. We enjoy the breakup of touring days with days at sea. It gives us a chance to relax and recover!