"Gambia, our perfect holiday " a The Gambia Travel Page by johndavid1988

In October 2006 I visited Gambia for the first time with some friends. When we arrived we drove from the airport in about 45 minutes to Gunjur where we where going to stay. We passed the busy city of Brikama with its lively market (and big pot holes) and then we entered into lush bush land with all kinds of palm trees, baobab and other trees. We drove through some small villages like Sifoe and Kity were kids waved at us. We stopped for a little while in Sifoe and we made friends immediatly.

This was a real eye opener we were in Africa and it was nothing like back home. But we felt at home immediatly also because our driver, the manager of the lodge we were staying, told us very enthoustiacly about all the things we saw.

We were surprised by how frienldy people are. We were warned that everybody is only there to hassle you. Well we did not thinks so. Yes in the busy tourist resorts you will find bumsters, but they are only trying to make a living.

We however noticed a difference in the attitude between the people from the small villages and from the bigger cities. The last ones were more stressed and some of them indeed tried to hassle us.

But all in all wonderful people with great smiles and happy stories. We met so many of them during our holiday and we made new friends.

I guess everybody that goes to a tropical destination dreams of white beaches and the most romantic sunsets. Well this dream came through. Many evenings we waited for the sun to go down as it was amazing.

But not only on the beach, but no matter where you were. When the time came for the sun to go down the sky started changing colour and this big red ball was up in the sky, going down.

Sunsets were the end of an exciting day and the start of a good evening with nice food, drumming, dancing or just relaxing