It is often said that the "real treasure" of the Gambia is it's people. That is definitely true.
Fatou's fruit stall on Kotu Beach just below the craft market. "Fatou" seems to be quite a common female name in The Gambia, but not as common as "Lamin" is for males.
Three young Gambian boys from the Fula tribe.
The dress this young Fula woman was wearing caught our eye. There are hands printed on the skirt.
We met this young Gambian girl while her father showed us around Fort Bullen on the northern bank of the mouth of the river Gambia. Her name is Dankay.
On our road trip to Janjangbureh we passed through the busy market town of Soma. These kids are riding on a cart pulled by a donkey.
This young man is called Malang Sama. He is a student and works part-time as an assistant cook at the Bird Safari Camp at Janjangbureh. He cooked our lunch aboard the 2+ hour morning cruise to Sepu.
This Binta Bah who works as a barmaid at the Bird Safari Camp. She served us very welcome cold drinks while we were watching the wildlife.
This is The Man...Sweabou Janneh, the boat captain. He very skilfully navigates this large wooden pirogue using a rudder and the throttle on the single outboard motor.
We hired Mansa Dampha as our guide to go bird watching at dawn. He was very expert and it was definitely one of the highlights of the whole trip. He also came on the pirogue down river with us.
This young woman is from the Fula tribe, and lives in a compound that we visited on the way back from Janjangbureh.
A Fula boy. We had to ask everybody for their permission to take their photograph.
The great musical trio at the bar on Sunset Beach. Ismael Lo rocks!
We went to an African Buffet meal at the Bungalow Beach Hotel. Great food, and we were treated to good entertainment as well.... six drummers, and more than a dozen dancers. A great night out.
This is a very typical sight on the beach. Girls selling fruit and fresh peanuts from tries balanced on their heads.
The same duo.
A group of fruit sellers walking home in the late afternoon sun.
Sally with our Gambian friend, Amie.
Another photo of Amie with Sally
Here Amie is off duty. She came to say farewell to us, and very kindly gave Sally a tie-dyed dress and Nick a shirt.
The people of the Gambia are truly wonderful. They are very poor. This 100 Dalasi note is worth less than 3 British pounds. We were told that the average wage in The Gambia is about 700 to 800 Dalasi per month. A very well received gift for a family is a sack of rice, their staple food, which costs about 300 Dalasi.