Baku Creek
Another lazy-ish day
11.04.2019 - 11.04.2019
View
Galavanting in The Gambia 2019
on Grete Howard's travel map.
The plan this morning is to take the path from the Observation Deck, through the mangroves, onto the main road and down to the bridge.
Village Weaver
Hooded Vulture
Long Tailed Glossy Starling
The trail meanders along the edge of the creek and heads for the road, but ends in a builders yard, obviously private property. There is a gate, but it is locked, so there is no way for us to join the road here, so we end up having to walk all the way back to the observation deck and through the hotel again.
In the hotel grounds we spot some Green Vervet Monkeys, including a very young baby clinging to his mum.
Out on the road we are amused to see a sign for Tesco Mini Market – in reality a small shack selling bottled water, ice cream and a few essentials.
Having spend the last four days almost exclusively in the company of birds, Kotu is proving a bit of a culture shock. Outdoor cafés are full of fat, middle aged cougars with tattoos, piercings, bleach blonde hair and the obligatory toyboy Gambian hanging on their arms. We hurry past to reach the bridge over Kotu Creek, a well known bird watching spot.
Pink Backed Pelican
The place is teeming with the gorgeous little Long Tailed Cormorants:
Pink Backed Pelicans, African Spoonbills, Long Tailed Cormorant and Great Egret
Grey Heron, Sacred Ibis and Marsh Sandpiper
African Spoonbills
Common Redshank
Pink Backed Pelican
Sacred Ibis and Grey Headed Heron
Senegal Thick Knee
We are approached by a couple of guides offering their services, but we are pleased to find they are much more likely to take “no” for an answer than the people we encountered during our visit to The Gambia 23 years ago.
Lunch
Back in the hotel, I request my food “extra spicy. Gambian spicy, not tourist spicy”. It still only arrives as a 2-3 on Grete's scale of 10.
Cheese and chilli omelette
Burger and chips
Refreshing fruit juice - youki?
After having asked for our food “extra spicy” at lunch, we are amused when we return to the room to find this large pack of toilet rolls sitting on our patio table. Are they trying to tell us something?
We are chilling in the room with a drink and some snacks when we overhear someone outside mentioning the name “Mandina Lodges”. Our ears prick up, as we are waiting to hear about what time our transfer to Mandina will be tomorrow. Yesterday we waited for 45 minutes for the rep to turn up (at the advertised time), but he didn't show. This afternoon, however, he is here, although he's knocking on our neighbour's door instead by mistake, so we go out and ask if he is looking for us. At least we now know that we are leaving here at 10:30 in the morning.
Dinner
Chicken Saté
Seafood mornay with crepe
We spend the rest of the evening chilling on our private patio with a few drinks.
Posted by Grete Howard 05:41 Archived in Gambia Tagged birds monkeys trail birding heron egret vulture ibis pelican spoonbill whimbrel mangroves west_africa starling weaver cormorant tesco spicy gambia bird_watching nature_trail thick_knee sandpiper vervet_monkey the_gambia gambia_experience bakotu bakotu_hotel kotu observation_deck kotu_creek tesco_mini_market toilet_rolls
The monkey photos stole my heart reading this morning.
by littlesam1