Silence of the Rams

After several days relaxing in Banjul, the Terranauts decided to spend a few days exploring the inner Gambia, or the bush. We’d already witnessed the darker side of the burgeoning Gambian tourism industry, which attracts thousands of European package tourists to the beaches of Banjul every year. Blistering red blobs playing bingo by the swimming pool, Club Wow, and some excellent local cuisine (gravy and soggy chips) to name but a few highlights, it was time to get out of town. Destination: Tendaba – 125 kilometres inland over the worst potholey roads of the whole trip. We didn’t realise that before we set out. A Gambian friend I met last year – Solomon (who this year was awaiting us, mysteriously, at the border) advised us that “the road South is bad, man – you better go North.” Feeling a tad overconfident after cruising over Saharan sandbogs and axle breaking dirt roads in Senegal, we reassured him that Dusty was indomitable and headed South.

5 hours later we were still going up and down over 4 foot dirt crevasses on a road that seemed to have been peppered with minor explosives. Dodging cows and suicidal bush taxis, it was interminable hell on wheels. We were interested to see that at the entrance and exit of each small village there were handpainted signs educating people about HIV/AIDS written in Wolof and then Mandinka as we moved inland. This is part of a national government program. We passed 3 young women on the road wearing HIV/AIDS T-shirts and swung the car around to say hello. They didn’t speak English but we pointed to the YouthAIDs posters on the car grinning and gave them some tags. They looked bewildered and we wondered whether they understood what on earth we were talking about.

We made Tendaba by nightfall, to a Gambian run eco-camp set up by a Swiss sea captain in the early 1970s. There we met our friends, 3 fellow rally teams – the Swiss mix, the BMW boys and Air Freshener. What a location – on the Gambian river, a bird spotter’s paradise, with a little wooden jetty jutting out over the water where we sat supping cold beers and looking at the stars.

The next day we spent Tobaski – the Muslim equivalent of Christmas – in the nearby village, Kwinila,where a local family dressed us in traditional clothes and sat us in the hot sun at a religious ceremony in a nearby field. We returned to the family compound to witness the throat slitting of 2 freshly shampooed rams. Despite the blood and guts, the ensuing stew we shared with the family was a rare honour. All the girls were getting ready for the festivities later in the evening, drawing bucketfuls of water from the well to wash their clothes and hair. Traditional clothes were replaced by tight fitting lycra and crop tops and ceremony turned into a pulsating dance party in the village hall – the only place with a lightbulb in the whole village. Wherever we stood, there was a wall of small children flanking us, staring up with enormous chocolatey eyes. “Minty Toubab, minty toubab” – “Sweetie sweetie white man”. When they started pinching my bottom, I decided they weren’t so sweetie.

Next day we returned to Banjul on an empty tank (no gas stations apparently, or electricity inland) with Dusty’s engine fan making strangled metallic sounds. The bearings were going in the fan motor which meant major league repairs for her new owner to be. We feel a bit guilty for putting Dusty through such brutal final days. It’s hard to describe exactly what the car sounded like but imagine driving a combine harvester over a field of barbed wire, and you’ve just about got it.