the gambia, starting to get interesting

day three:
lamin boy and a friend of his picked us up at 9. went to a crocodile pond in bakau, not far from the hotel. there were crocodiles everywhere! as it's a holy place the crocodiles don't bite. we even touched one! women who can't have babies can swim with the crocodiles, as the water is sacred. met a man who said it was his uncle who found the pond, and that there's a white crocodile in there somewhere.

after the crocodiles we went to the nature reserve in bakau. on the way there we stopped to look at a cow-market. some of the monkey's in the nature reserve were so used to people that they came up to us and took peanuts from our hands! we stayed for a long time, just to look at the monkeys so close to us. it was interesting to walk through the jungle and listen to birds and see monkeys up in the trees too of course, but being able to sit on the ground with monkeys only a few metres away felt enormous. they had black nails and very cute little hands. we also saw hyenas, baboons, different birds and big turtles. the hyenas were much bigger than i had thought.

after the nature reserve we went to the river, where we went on an hour boat ride to look at clams growing on the mangrove roots and big birds. when we got there we met a thin white dog with one of her hind legs turned backwards and the bone sticking out about a decimeter :( lamin boy bought us a bag of boiled clams.

went to see lamin boy's family. when we were driving on the dirt roads with houses and people all around millions of little children were running after the car screaming for sweets and money, and lamin boy told us to throw sweets through the windows for them. felt horrible. there were children everywhere, and they were fighting over the lollipops and it was impossible to hand the sweets to them politely, because they were so wild.

met the president! he was in a hurry though, and didn't have time to stop.

went to a beach called paradise beach and had lunch there. the food was good and the beach was nice, but it was too early on the vacation to be able to relax and enjoy it. too many new things to think about and i felt exhausted. all the friendly and smiling people who pulled in us from all different angles almost made me want to hide somewhere and not have to see anyone before i came home again.

stopped somewhere to look at the fishermen selling fish to the markets. lots of people and fish and dogs evereywhere. fun fish. some of them had enormous teeth, and some had bright colours. looked at how they smoked the "bonga fish", and got to taste some. very much bones, and difficult to eat.

back at the hotel we sat outside our room and fed two little cats with chips.  ¶ 12:09 PM