Glenys Roberts visits The Gambia for the Daily Mail

Glenys Roberts, writing in the Daily Mail, takes a chance on The Gambia and discovers its more sophisticated side, visiting three hotels from our luxury collection...

My Gambia gamble: Taking a chance on this tiny African state - and finding much to love.

The temperature is in the mid-20s, the hotel pool beckons and the world’s most handsome waiter is waiting with a G&T.

I have just arrived at Mandina Lodges in The Gambia’s sacred Makasutu forest, about 30 miles upriver from the airport, and am about to be shown to my room. It is a floating lodge on a green creek, on which cheerily dressed women in dug-out canoes are picking oysters off the mangrove roots.

Suddenly, a Goliath heron, about 5ft tall, settles on my private jetty to fish for his supper. For a long time, The Gambia has had the reputation of being the Costa del Sol of Africa: cheap, cheerful and a little tatty. But it has a more sophisticated side.

My first day proper starts with a leisurely canoe trip up the creek to the palm forest to meet the 104-year-old wise man Sangatta, who blesses a juju (lucky charm) for me. It finishes with a sunset cruise to the Gambia river, the great waterway that bisects this tiny country wedged into Senegal. We chug past the oyster processing factory and sandy shores where green vervet monkeys scrabble for crabs. Past children splashing in the shallows while their fathers cast their nets Biblical style. Read Glenys’ article in full here.

The inviting pool at Mandina Lodges in Makasutu Forest

Glenys also enjoyed dinning at the cliff top Ngala Lodge by the Atlantic Ocean

A glimpse of the luxurious Coco Ocean Resort and Spa.