San Aches

During our last visit to Gambia in 2011 we asked our regular taxi driver (we keep in touch with him via email) if he knew of any other places we should visit - having been holidaying in Gambia since 2001 we were running out of new places ! he replied asking had we visited the San Ache farm? we were a bit puzzled  and asked him to explain, after a bit of charades and him trying to think of the correct word he explained  that San Aches "are like lizards but with no legs" we realised he meant snakes, from then on we always refer to snakes as San Aches.  Anyway we decided on this visit that we would visit the snake farm, my question was why the hell would anyone want to farm snakes???

The snake farm (or to give it it's proper name The Gambia Reptile Farm, is almost at the bottom of Gambia and was a good hours drive from our hotel in Cape Point, we had booked Buba (not the one in the red shirt in earlier photos) for the day and we arrived at the farm at about 9am - we do like our early starts!  It's not so much a farm as a rescue centre, there are indigenous snakes in Gambia and the locals are mostly afraid of them (me too!) so they tend to kill them, the centre is trying to re-educate the local population and to that end entry is free for Gambians Ken and I had to pay 200Dalasi (about £4.00 each)

The young man (1st photo) who took us round was very knowledgeable on his subject and was very keen in some instances that we should handle the snakes - Ken was far braver than me and Buba was clearly terrified.

The picture below is a rock python, Ken was fearless and went straight in although he was at the tail end not the hissing end! Buba and I went into the enclosure a bit more reluctantly, Buba saying that the last time he had been there they couldn't see the snake and the guide told them to "look up" and the snake was looking down on them from the roof of the enclosure - you can see from the picture the roofs are not very high so I can imagine Buba's fright, I said that I would stroke the snake if Buba would & Ken obliged with the camera

They also have some tortoises,  terrapins and crocodiles, some of which they are trying to breed

As we were leaving a couple of local children came into the centre and held out a carrier bag to the man who had been showing us round - he explained that the children will be paid if they bring any mice etc as these are used for food for the reptiles !

 

Ken had about read about a riverside camp type of place in Kartong so we headed that way, this is just about the furthest south you can go in Gambia (in fact at one point we were closer to Senegal) as the road literally stops at the mouth of the river. Buba referred to going to Kartong as "going to the seaside" it was certainly far quieter than the tourist areas.

 

Stala (the name of the camp) is on the riverside and has a bar area and a boat for trips on the river for birdwatching or fishing, we booked to take the next boat for birdwatching not fishing this time! Buba said that he had never been on a boat so we persuaded him to come with us.  While waiting for the boat to be ready (fuel) we had a cold drink and decided that we would have lunch here after returning from the boat trip.

We headed out up the river and many birds were spotted, a few pictures below.

Pelicans !

Osprey

Gulls and terns,

The trees are mangrove oysters and are in Senegal, that's how close we were to Senegal while on the boat.

 

 

We arrived back at the bar area and within a few minutes our lunch was served, there was no choice you have whatever is being cooked that day, today it was fish yassa with rice and some fried vegetables, and was perfectly fine.

 

Unfortunately we were not the only ones here, we had been joined by an UncleKnobHead (apologies to Peter Kay for nicking his phrase) who had brought 3 others with him one of which also turned out to be an UKH. They both  had to speak in the loudest voice possible and were trying to outdo each other with bird spotting, they were to take the same boat trip we  had taken and we were relieved when they headed down to the pontoon to the boat, our relief however was short lived as the boat had broken down and they returned to the bar and took their lunch while waiting for the boat to be fixed. So we had to put up with their loud and pompous conversation throughout our lunch.  At one point I asked Buba if his lunch was ok, prompting one of the UKH's to exclaim "why are they all called Buba?" I was very quick to point out how rude he was being, it was his use of THEY that annoyed me as Buba was sitting right next to the bloke, sadly it didn't shut him up.

 

About this time a 2nd boat drew up to the pontoon and disgorged a party of tourists (not English, perhaps Swedish) and rather worryingly we saw a group of local ladies in colourful costumes also entering the camp, these were to be the entertainment for the tourist group, the ladies proceeded to bang wooden bars together,  blow whistles, chant and dance at the same time. We listened for a few minutes but by now we were ready to leave anyway so tried to make a quick exit as we knew what would happen at the end of the dancing, but we weren't quick enough - one of the ladies followed us to Buba's car and held out the hat - we have no problem whatsoever in tipping people, Ken is very generous with all the people we encounter - bird guides/taxi drivers/boat drivers etc will all receive a good tip, but on this occasion we felt that it should really have been the group who paid, we gave them 50 Dalalsi anyway.

 

This camp had some rooms that they let out, and we have decided that if (when!) we go back we will spend a night or two there, all the rooms look out over the river and have a little patio to enjoy a Julbrew and wine - to avoid the problems encountered in the past we will take our own beer & wine !!

Picture is from their website.

 

 

 

Next time . . Birds and Fish