17th Feb 08

Date: 16th Feb 08
Location: Sukuta, Gambia
Weather: Clear blue skies and sunshine, 35°c
Status: Ben & Luke – tired of Senegambia and the awful English tourists/street sellers etc, time to move on. Colonel – new suspension rubber and all ok

We’ve been camped up for 2 days now in Sukuta camp, Gambia and learnt a hell of a lot since we’ve arrived. It’s a fantastic place run by the German owners, Joe and Claudia and a destination for Overlanders on their journeys north and south, whilst we’ve been here there’s been another English guy called Tex whose driving a Unimog (wicked vehicle) and a few other Germans also passing through including Charlie!

Charlie deserves a new paragraph as he’s been fantastic, a 60yr old who’s been in the special forces for 25yrs, works for 3 months a year in Germany and now travels the world for the other 9 months! He’s here to sell the vehicle he’s driven down and as he’s returning to Germany in a few days has offered us loads of his kit; tent, awning, gas, rope etc and if we can find space we’ll certainly take it with us! We’ve sat down with him and discussed the next few countries as he’s been through most, found some brilliant roads on the map and got the addresses for some of his favourite campsites and hosts…its all we could ask for!

When I had a look under the Colonel yesterday morning I found one of the rear lower link suspension bushes had sheared so Joe the owner set about trying to find a replacement…..except this is Africa and it’s a Friday, so half day and again tomorrow and Sunday’s their closed and Monday’s a pubic holiday and the owner of the garage is also in a police cell so we’d be sitting tight until Tuesday at the earliest to find a new one…..that is except for Philip and Stef, another young German couple who are driving a Land Rover and just happen to have the part we need on board!! Hallelujah J J

Fixed the broken part and headed into tourist-ville to get money use the internet and realised quite how much I’m not missing certain things from the UK. Its so awful seeing the fat, sunburnt, England-shirt-wearing tourists parading the streets swigging beer and generally giving a truly disgusting to people of what our country’s about. Time to move on as the street sellers are starting to really get to us every time we stop and we need to get back to real Africa and the next few countries on the trip.

Early start tomorrow as we intend driving along the south of the Gambia river and trying to find some mangrove swamps and the people who live there in stilt houses, should be fun getting there as its off road most of the way but according to Charlie very worthwhile….and its fun throwing stones at the crocodiles as you try and clear the river to walk it before driving through! Love it, video camera to record please!


End of day location: Sukuta, Gambia
Distance covered: 10kms into town.