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Tuesday 11 January, to Makasutu national park and Brikama
Gambia and Senegal 2005 - part IV
Elisabeth & Teije2006-08-26 17:55:42
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We are up at half past six, we really went to bed too late. After a quick breakfast we walk to the entrance where we are picked up by a minibus at half past seven. Dawda, working for African Adventures, will be our guide, a friendly and spontaneously boy. We start by picking up more people from other hotels in the neighbourhood and then drive towards Makasutu national park where people from the wild are taken care for. There is also a research center. The park is a bit south of Brikama where we will later stop to have a look at the famous market with woodcraft.
When we arrive at Makasutu we first get coffee and an extensive explanation about the history of the park. A musician is playing music in the background, on an instrument called Kora. It is a charasteristic West-African instrument, a combination of a harp and a lute with a big half-round resonance-box and a total of 21 strings. It has a lenght of almost 1½ meters. And, naturally, there is a Baobab tree on the central terrain, like most communities have in this part of Africa.
The baobab can become 20 meters tall and more than a 1000 years old! This tree plays an important part in numerous African myths and legends. And all parts, the bark, the fruits, the leaves, the wood, etcetera, is used by the people for medicinal purposes or in rituals. When we start our walk through the jungle we notice that the word jungle is not completely correct: it is more cultivated woods with broad pathways. Except for the exotic trees, it could be just a forest in Holland.
But first we are going to make a trip in a large canoe on the bolong (a creek) through the mangrove forest . The canoe is a large hollowed trunk. The large number of birds that live here seem to have a day off, since we almost see none.
The trip is supposed to last 45 minutes but after 25 minutes we are back on land again and except for a lonely heron we only see piles of oyster shells. The oysters live between
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Gambia Gallery
