Gambia Travel : Visit the really wild show
Nov 23,2007 00:00
by
lamin
Charley is perfectly still as hands are laid gingerly upon him, but it's impossible to escape the nagging fear that stroking a 1.5m Nile crocodile isn't the greatest of plans. More than 100 of his esteemed colleagues are mere metres away and, potentially, ready to chow down on a man-sized snack at any given moment; this doesn't feel particularly safe.'Try lifting his leg. It's cold, isn't it?' says the man posing as a guide. That he has no uniform and has just sprung out of nowhere at the prospect of making some money from a tourist isn't exactly comforting either.
It would be fair to say that Health and Safety regulations aren't exactly high on the list of priorities in The Gambia and the Kachikally Crocodile Pool I'm currently visiting is an absurd attraction. Essentially just a fenced-off pool full of some of the Earth's most dangerous creatures, your only protection is an unnervingly hazy local legend.
A true gent
According to the myth, this unique spot was founded when a man came to the aid of a woman who was crying by the side of a well. He asked what was wrong and she told him that her child had fallen down it.
After trying to help, the man had to concede that he couldn't see the child, to which the woman replied that she was telling porkies in order to see whether he was a goodhearted chap.
To reward him, she blessed the pool with 'lucky' waters that would bring health and aid fertility. And, to prove that she really did have the power to do this, she would fill the pool with wild crocodiles that would never hurt a human.
Despite credibility being stretched to absolute breaking point, the story seems to hold true. Many people go further by getting water from the green algae-ridden pool and showering in it, hoping to increase their chances of conception. It often works too – Kachikally is one of the most popular children's names in the area.
Even more amazingly, despite all the petting and buckets being dunked into their habitat, the crocodiles seem content to just lie there and take it rather than wield a merciless trail of destruction through a tour group.
Charley is the friendliest but those teeth are most definitely for real and one of these days he's surely going to snap (in both senses of the word).
Cruising for hippos
This gung-ho approach to vicious wildlife appears to be a recurring theme throughout The Gambia. Go to any village along the river which shapes Africa's smallest country and you'll have a fishermen fighting to take you out for a hippo-spotting cruise. That hippos kill more people in Africa than all other animals put together and would make mincemeat of the tiny boats doesn't seem to enter the equation.
Whether it's an attitude of total positivity, opportunism or simply not grasping the gravity of the situation is difficult to work out.
Nevertheless, it's an attitude that spreads across the nation. Just off the main tourist strip on the Atlantic Coast is the beautiful Bijilo Forest Park, where you are greeted by a solemn-looking manager.
'There are two types of monkeys here,' he says. 'One is the green colobus monkey, which is friendly. The other, the red monkey, you should watch out for. They do not like human contact and may attack if they feel threatened.' Wonderful.
Behind him is a noticeboard showing the other types of creatures in the park. Butterflies, birds and chameleons make this coastal haven their home, as do snakes.
'Some are harmless,' he adds, pointing to an illustration of a huge python. 'And if you see the poisonous ones, remember that they're probably scared of you.'
The further round you go, the more isolated you feel. There are fewer people and creatures have a habit of leaping out. Around one sharp corner is one of the red monkeys, who shoots a look of pure evil before scarpering up a tree.
You have to be careful about spending too much time looking up though; you may be about to tread on a snake and one look at the board on the way out goes to confirm that, yes, that stripy thing that bolted across the path could probably knock out an elephant.
BARE ESSENTIALS
The Gambia, a small sliver of land surrounded by Senegal on Africa's west coast, is the continent's smallest country. Six hours from Britain, with no time difference and a sunny year-round climate, it's an ideal winter sun destination. There is also great wildlife-spotting to be had.