So yes I've been gone for almost a week, but I wanted to get a chance to tie up all the loose ends and talk about our last couple of days in The Gambia since they were so special.
On Saturday we went to Makasutu Culture Forest, a nature reserve just outside Brikama. Anna used to work there so she went with us to show us the ropes. On the way there, we got stuck in the mud! We knew it was bound to happen with all of the puddles we had been driving through the whole time we were there, but it was funny all the same. With the help of some neighboring boys, we got the car out and took an alternate route. Makasutu was gorgeous! The name actually means "holy forest" and the entire place was absolutely beautiful. We set out on a short hike to the edge of the Gambia River, where we were supposed to take a canoe out. Unfortunately, the water was too low and we didn't get a chance to go, but we were secretly okay with that since it was miserably hot. We continued our hike and came to a hut where a "fortune teller" lives. The man predicted long ago that Makasutu would become an attraction for people all over the world, and because he was right, the owner let him stay. It was interesting to hear a little bit of history about his family and one of our group members even got her palm read!
About 10 minutes further into our hike we got to the lodging part of the park. Our tourist book described the rooms as some of the most "luxurious rooms in The Gambia". There were about 6 floating houses that slept 2 and they were impressive! The park also had what they called "jungle houses" which were small 2 story houses for 2 that were very luxurious! I swore that if I ever go back to The Gambia that I will stay one night there!
When we got back to the front of the park we were greeting with lots of baboons. We enjoyed watching them interact and getting lots of pictures of them! After we had enough baboon watching, we were served a plethora of traditional Gambian foods and were entertained by some Gambian women who danced under the Baobab tree for us. We got to join in at the end and had so much fun attempting to dance along with them.
Saturday night a few of us went to Senegambia to have one more night of pizza at our favorite restaurant. We danced along with the live music, people watched, and had great food! We sat on the beach for a couple of hours afterwards and just enjoyed hanging out with each other. I think we all started to realize how soon our trip was going to be over and wanted to spend as much time with each other as we could.
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