Day 202
A nice ride down to the Gambian border. There are numerous horror stories about the border, bribes being asked for each stage, people being locked in rooms until they agree to fund lunch, medications being refused, and so on. So I’ve hidden my cash and malaria prophylaxis deep in my luggage and approach the border with some trepidation.
The Senegalese side is a breeze, as expected. Gambia is a bit complicated, and the two guys in front of me at one point negotiate a fee (one pays, the other doesn’t), but I get a stamp and a smile, no search, no questions other than where I’m going. I change my Francs for Delasi at a better rate than Revolut offers.
It’s about an hour or so from the border to Barra and the ferry across the Gambia River estuary. The grift here is quite something. I do appreciate the help from one “guide” who gets me to the right place to get a bike ferry ticket in exchange for a beer, but not his mates who think I should buy them a beer for nothing. This theme continues after I cross to Banjul.
Banjul is probably the tiniest capital in the world, being constrained on all sides by sea or swamp, it has some interesting architecture (variously colonial, modernist, brutalist), a council building, modern judicial and government assembly, but that’s it.
I ride on to Serrekunda (Senegambia) and will have to have a think about what to do next.
Day 205
I ride out of the city to a village called Kafuta to relax at a lodge near the river for a few days. The lodge is run by an American whose daughter is at a boarding school in Senegal. It’s also a meeting point for the young lads from the village who come and hang out here to play reggae and smoke. They adopt me as “uncle” and in one case “my father”. Every time I walk to the village all the kids shout “Toubab!” and want to shake hands. They never seem to tire of this game.
Day 208
Gambia really only has one tarmac road that goes from one end of the country to the other, crosses the river, and comes all the way back. All the other roads are sand and impossible to cycle on. This means all the traffic is on the one road and I have no other option. I can cope with the traffic, which only really gets hairy in the towns, but it’s absolutely horrible to ride on because of the pollution. It is many times worse than anywhere I’ve ever been, and I really can’t face several days of breathing this air, so I head back to Senegambia.
The news has been reporting a military coup in Guinea-Bissau, with gunfire, etc. I wasn’t so keen on going there in the first place but this means I’ll definitely not be going any further south.
Day 213
I’ve picked up a flight to Thailand at a bargain price, less than the cost of a flight from The Gambia to Europe. One of the guys in the hotel agrees to get some cardboard and tape, but when he comes back he’s got a 4×8 sheet of hardboard, with an ‘H’. This is not ideal but we make a bike box out of it. I’ve been warned that the scanner at Banjul airport is not big enough for bikes so we make provision to open a viewing hatch.
On arrival at the airport there are various hoops to jump through. There’s a guy in uniform outside with scales insisting he’s the official “pre-weighing” point. After watching him fleece the Belgians in front of me I give him short shrift and enter the airport. No-one has told me about the security exit fee, I knew there was an air entry fee, so I haven’t got 1000 Delasi on me. So they charge €20 instead (twice the Delasi price) and give 100D change, which is no use now.
After check in, I go to oversize baggage. As expected, the scanner isn’t big enough. The guy there tells me I have to unpack completely, put everything on the counter, makes a big song and dance about it, before agreeing to look through the top and verify it’s a bike. He then calls a porter to take it airside. This is the point where he will take it “carefully”, or not. I give in and hand over the remainder of my Delasi to buy them both coffee, “not a fee and definitely not a bribe”. At least there was some service in exchange for this one, unlike the policeman on a road checkpoint a few days ago who straight-up demanded a bribe to let me pass (he didn’t get anything, btw).
The hardboard case is in tatters when I pick it up in Bangkok, but it’s done a good job protecting the wheels from being crushed.