27 December 2008 - The Daily Express - Andrew Eames
With a year-round sunshine and a flight time of less than six hours from the UK, The Gambia's exotic wildlife and characterful lodges are within reach for a long weekend says ANDREW EAMES...
IT BARELY sounds possible, but within six hours of taking off from Gatwick on a grey winter’s morning, I am sitting on the balcony of my own floating lodge up a creek in The Gambia.
The sunset is flickering off the water, the creek bursting with fish and the sky veined with African egrets, returning from a day in the rice fields. A pair of giggling Mandinka women come scudding past on the rising tide, their hand-carved pirogues (canoes made from hollowed tree trunks) piled high with freshwater oysters. Meanwhile, the chef comes to enquire whether I’d prefer the ladyfish or chicken yassa for dinner. No chips or schnitzel here.
In this tiny west African country, tourism has been concentrated in an enclave of sizeable hotels on the beach. However there is a growing number of smaller, more characterful lodges popping up.
The best example is Mandina Lodges, eight eco-huts among laughing doves and malachite kingfishers, barely 20 miles from the airport. Mandina is the first luxury, safari-type lodgings to open in west Africa, and it is very much a labour of love.
Most of the love, and a great deal of the labour, is down to two Englishmen – Lawrence Williams and James English, who 12 years ago bought a scrap of land with the intention of setting up a backpackers’ retreat. In the end they acquired 1,000 acres of the monkey-rich forest, complete with resident palm-wine tapper and marabout, or holy man, and substantially upgraded their accommodation plans.
The result is inspirational: a huge pool, a jetty, a bar and restaurant made from rhun palm and malinda wood, with floating, stilted and jungle lodges each with a guide and their own dugout canoe.
Each lodge has a four-poster bed, private bathrooms open to the sky and fans rather than energy-sapping air conditioning. The two-storey stilted lodges have a separate bedroom and lounge area while the jungle-based ones have a private roof terrace overlooking the mangroves. People don’t come here for the party atmosphere, although the baboons can make quite a racket.
It’s a place to chill and forget the stresses of urban life. There’s something very satisfying about being in the same time zone as the UK; 9am in shivering London is shorts and fruit salad time on the Bolong Mandina, prior to pushing off in your canoe.
Guides suggest excursions: on water it could be fishing for barracuda and captain fish, or dawn and sunset paddling on the creek; on land there’s birdwatching trails and a walk in the woods to where the palm-wine tapper lives, for a cup of milky liquid which tastes like semi-fermented ginger beer.
Mandina is set in the Makasutu Forest with nature trails, wildlife trips and a clearing where craftsmen sell their products.
Tour groups come in here daily and villagers prepare lunch and sing for them. One of the most pleasing things about Mandina is that it is not an expatriate transplant. Williams and English, busy with new projects, largely leave it to their local team to run the lodge.
As well as Mandina, for a weekend break you could try the more modestly priced Safari Garden Hotel in Fajara, which is run by another British couple, Geri and Maurice Phillips. Set in a small compound within walking distance of the beach, their motel-style place has its own pool and restaurant, with cakes (beetroot and chocolate a speciality) made by Maurice.
While you’re there, ask them about their own eco-project, the Sandale Eco-Retreat, on the coast down towards the border with Senegal.
GETTING THERE:
The Gambia Experience (0845 330 2087/www.gambia.co.uk) offers three nights half-board at Mandina Lodges from £775pp (two sharing), including return flights from Gatwick to Banjul and transfers.
Safari Garden Hotel (dialling from the UK: 00 220 449 5887/ www.safarigarden.com) in Fajara offers doubles from
£29pp (two sharing), B&B. Gambia Tourism Authority: 020 7376 0093/www.visitthegambia.gm
* Something Different for the Weekend by Andrew Eames (Bradt Travel Guides, £9.99) is out now.
View this article online »
