Travels in the south - Casamance and The Gambia

I've just returned to Dakar having spent a lovely 10 day trip to the Casamance and The Gambia with two American girls - Shani and Laura, who work for a Family Planning NGO in Dakar.

The Casamance is the region of Senegal south of The Gambia, which is inhabited by the Djola tribe. The area has struggled with civil unrest in the 1990's and 2000's and so the tourist industry had suffered badly, despite it being the most beautiful area of Senegal. Although the miltary is still present we saw no signs of unrest and everyone we spoke to said the region was completely safe.

We took the overnight ferry from Dakar to Ziginchor, which took 16 hours. In 2005 the previous ferry had an accident where all passengers lost their lives so since then there is many security and safety checks to prevent overloading. We had out passports and baggage checked 11 times before we left the port! The voyage was not very enjoyable since it was pretty rough and various people were vomitting around us, but they did show a few American films (dubbed in french) to pass the time.

The Casamance is a great place to relax and just peacefully pass away the time- walking, cycling, sunbathing, reading and swimming etc. and we did just that. We took a beautiful 2 hour pirogue trip through the mangrove swamps between Ile de Karabane and Djembering, and an hour's walk through countryside to avoid a halfday nightmare journey of 3 or 4bush taxis. August seems to be the season of Catalonian tourists because there is a direct flight from Barcelona to Banjul in The Gambia. We met a couple of lovely girls from Catalonia who did not speak much french so we travelled together speaking English and translating into French or Wolof (Shani speaks fluent Wolof!), a linguistical challenge!

We then passed through into The Gambia on Thursday. I was intrigued by this tiny anglophone country of 1.5 million population, completely surrounded by Senegal. I remember being told years ago that the shape and size of The Gambia was determined by the distance the British canon balls were able to secure either side of their navy ships on the river. The river certainly seems the lifeline of the country. The Gambia has a vibrant tourist scene - in fact, in my opnion, maybe too much so! We had a surreal Saturday night on the Senegambian strip - take-away pizza on the beach, karaoke in a Irish pub (where I met 3 Geordies!), a couple of bars, followed by dancing til 4am in "Nirvana", and finishing up with a chips from a fast-food stand on the way back to the hotel. We literally could have been anywhere in the world.

The Gambian currency (Dalasi)is much stronger than Sengal's CFA. The cost of living more expensive too, nearly twice the price for simple food things such as water, eggs, bread. For tourists too, the accommodation was at least twice the price of the campements we were staying in Casamance. However, despite this I got the impression that the same problems of poverty, urban migration looking for work and limited healthcare access exists. Using WHOSIS (the global health observatory from the WHO) a quick analysis of health trends shows little difference between Senegal and Gambia - life expectancy identical (59 both sexes), HIV prevelance 1% or 0.9%, <5 mortality 106 or 108 per 100,000 respectively. There is more of a difference between maternal mortality, which is offered considered the best indicator of a efficacy of a healthcare system - 690 deaths per 100,000 live births in The Gambia, 980 in Senegal. One difference between the two countries surpised me, there seemed to be many more people in The Gambia that couldn't speak any English compared to the number of Sengalese who couldn't speak any french. Is this a consequence of the education system or a remnant of the different in colonial powers? or maybe an sampling bias due to the areas we were travelling through in Senegal compared to the Gambia?

I'm glad we took the time to visit The Gambia because it certainly is an interesting country, friendly people, easy to travel round, and a variety of activities - watersports, beaches, birdwatching, cultural villages. In fact, I think it would be a great country to visit with children as an easy introduction to Africa.