From Keur Soce to The Gambia

Picking up from our last post...we traveled another 100 km or so to The Gambia. We went to drop off some stuff for a friend and renew our visa. For those of you who do not know your West African geography, The Gambia is a country completely surrounded by Senegal. The Gambia borders the Gambian River about 15 km on each side. Rumor has it, the way the British staked out their claim was by taking boats up the river and shooting canons out on both sides, wherever the canons landed is where the border of the country was. Don't know if it's true, but it's interesting.
We needed to get to Banjul, the capital, and in order to do that we had to take a ferry. By the time we got to the dock and waited for the next ferry to come it was already dark.
It was interesting being on the ferry because there were a lot more white people than we usually see in Malika. It was interesting to be one of many, many nationalities on this ferry.
We stayed with some friends of friends of Herma's (that's already 3 degrees of separation), but it doesn't really matter because we have found people to be VERY hospitable. So these friends-of-friends, ended up having their OTHER friends from Holland over, so we all went to the beach to hang out. We thought we were in for just a short dip-in-the-ocean and head somewhere else, we ended up staying at the beach ALL day, it was amazing.
The Dutch friends ended up knowing these locals who were Gambians, but sounded like Jamiacans. Actually, they ALL sounded like Jamiacans. But the locals ended up owning this restaurant/bar right on the beach. They brought out beds to lay on, and Cokes and peanuts, it was SO nice. It was like a resort...but not like this one which was full of fat toubobs (white people). It had more of a off the beaten path feel, it was super cool.
After a while, the owners of the place decided to shut down the bar and all the guys went to play futbol.
You know? Soccer?
Those who weren't playing futbol were just playing in the surf.
Or, just enjoying the sun. Crystal's dread buddies.
After the game, we all just hung out and enjoyed the sunset.
Later that night we were all planning on going to a Sizzla reggae show, but Crystal had gotten sick earlier that day. We were all a little dehydrated so we drank some water from the fridge that we THOUGHT was filtered (cue music, da-da-duh) almost immediately Sandro started to throw up. So it just ended up being Scotty...
...and "the crew". The show went until 6 in the MORNING!!! We were going to catch the 7AM bus back to Senegal, but Sandro and Crystal were still too sick to go. Luckily neither of us got sick from the water, just Sandro. So we stayed an extra day. We didn't do anything exciting because of the sickies, but we did manage to get out and go to this super cute Jamaican restaurant...
...where Scotty and Sandro had fish head soup.
It was really cute, but still rustic and a little run down which just added to it's character. They had a couch and books. It's the kind of place where the workers and their friends just hang out all day.
The next day we all felt good so we got ourselves to the ferry and this nice Ocean Search and Rescue guy helped us get a fair taxi to the border. Once at the border we got our new stamps and hiked the 2 km to the bus/taxi station to catch a bush taxi, which is really just a run down mini station wagon full of people. It took us 8 hours to go the 150 km from the border to Malika, crazy, but that is Senegal. Needless to say, we were HAPPY to be home.