Day Six. Barra to Madiyana. 13km
Friday 16th April. The final part of our expedition required a long weekend. In addition to walking twenty-eight kilometres, further time would also be needed for two crossings of the River Gambia and a return journey by Landrover from Ginak Island to Barra.
On Friday morning we travelled to Banjul and walked into the ferry port. We paid 7 dalasi each for our ticket and retired to the waiting area whilst the vehicles were loaded. I have never seen so many people waiting to cross and when the gates were opened a mass of passengers surged forward. With such huge numbers pressing into the bottleneck of the loading ramp, carrying bags, balancing boxes on heads, leading goats and carrying chickens by the legs, and with the deck of the ferry already packed with vehicles, our progress was soon halted. It was one of those crowds in which no individual is free to go as they wish; everyone simply moves with the group. There was no doubt, however, that we would be able to get on; if they had moved the ferry away then we would have all fallen off the ramp and into the water, so we patiently inched forward, most of us in good humour, pushing and pulling and helping each other to board the boat.
The crossing takes around an hour, depending on the state of the tide, and exactly which one of the three ferries you happen to join. The passenger and vehicle decks were filled to capacity, overfilled in fact; safety precautions appear not to take a high priority. Vendors of any number of items circulated through the crush, selling drinks, snacks, watches, clothing and torches. One man was selling chewing sticks, which are used locally in place of toothbrushes. You chew the end until it frays and then it can be used fairly effectively as a brush. He was claiming that his particular sticks were better than any other, that the wood contained some natural medication that would preserve your teeth and gums, and he was doing a rapid trade.
We arrived in Barra and bought water and some bread and ñeebi for lunch, and headed for the beach. We turned back on ourselves to an old concrete jetty alongside the ferry port, and watched our ferry load up and depart. And then we started out along the sand, commencing the northern portion of our walk. After just a kilometre we encountered Fort Bullen, built on Barra Point around 1830 to restrict the movement of slave ships. Between them the battery of cannons here, and another on Banjul island, were able to cover the full width of the river mouth. The cannons are still in place; most are rusted but two in front of the fort have been painted in the colours of the Gambian flag. There is also a Second World War anti-aircraft gun emplacement in one of the four circular corner bastions, but this is difficult to view as the fort has recently been commandeered by Gambian police and is longer open to visitors. We passed the fort (on the seaward side, of course), had a look at a clump of rare Gambian cacti, and ate our lunch beneath a baobab tree.
At Barra Point the river mouth ends and the coast turns to run northwards in a smooth arc, all the way to Buniada Point, just short of Senegal. We would be following this gentle curve for the remainder of the day. The tide was low and we easily crossed the Niji Bolong onto Ginak Island, and a crab pinched my toe as we paddled across. This island is separated from the mainland by the narrow shallow bolong, and forms part of the Niumi National Park. Here it is possible to see bush-buck, green turtle, spotted hyena, leopard, bottle-nose dolphin, the endangered clawless otter and the West African manatee. Of course, we saw none of these creatures, but it is nice to know they were there. The island is also locally known as a good spot to grow marijuana, and although this is an illegal drug here officials are averse to coming to Ginak for fear of the ancient spirits that reside here.
We ambled along the beach and encountered only one person in the entire stretch since we joined the island, who invited us to his home. But we declined, believing we had somewhere to stay up ahead! Although Fort Bullen behind us receded into the haze, the distant extremity that we could see ahead appeared reluctant to get any closer, so we plodded on. In the early evening we arrived at some simple buildings behind the beach; perhaps it is a tourist lodge ready to open, but the doors were locked. Shortly beyond that we passed a construction site of another group of unfinished buildings in cement block. And then finally we reached Madiyana Lodge, which has beautiful huts and a pleasant bar. At the front some earlier buildings have collapsed into the sea; much of the Gambian coast suffers from sand erosion. No-one was staying at the lodge, but the watchman hurried off to the village to fetch the bar lady and chef, and we took a bucket bath in the outside washroom behind our hut. Unfortunately when the staff arrived we found they wanted to charge ludicrous prices both for the room and for a meal, and they were not for negotiating. So we packed up our stuff and retreated to the half-built place back down the beach. We lit a fire, and ate and drank most of our remaining provisions. We hung our mosquito net from the rafters of an unfinished hut, lay a sheet on the sand beneath it and slept there, dreaming of a good meal and a comfortable mattress in the village of the man who passed us on the beach.
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