Yesterday my friends, Lucy, Oquin and I went on a pretty incredible adventure to a remote eco-tourism resort called Makasutu. We've been told that it was a must-see and it certainly was! We heard it was about a 20 minute taxi ride and that we could take a serious of 7 Dalasi (28cent) taxis. We left around noon hoping to get lunch there.
We ended up taking a taxi, a bus, had a 2 mile hike through a flooded, muddy, overcrowded market, another taxi, which missed our drop off and had to turn around, and then a 2 mile hike through the African bush and finally to the oasis of Makasutu! Our 20 minute ride turned into a 2 hour trek! When we finally got there we were so hungry and it was begining to rain. The man at the enterance showed us a variety of prices for palm wine tasting, dug-out canoe trips and tours through the forest. Unfortnately all of these were outrageously expensive, we really just wanted to eat some lunch AND it was starting to be a pretty intense storm. We told the man our sad story of being poor, hungry students who traveled for hours just for lunch, would he please just let us in for free? After 3 trips to talk to his boss, he finally agreed, pointed up the road and said it was only another 45 minute walk, we better hurry because we didn't need to be hit by lightning and, above all, watch out for the baboons!
With in the first 5 minutes of walking we found a huge exodus of baboons. We immediately started taking tons of pictures and making our interpretations of whatever baboons might sound like. Towards the end of the pack two adult males started eyeing us and bowing up like they were hungry and we looked pretty tasty. Lucy yelled "Run!!! Don't look at them! Don't yell! They can smell fear!" We were all running for our lives. We ducked under a gate and monkies jumped over it. We were screaming like wild banchees. When suddenly a Gambian man came running through the forest yelling and scared away all the baboons. The man walked with us the rest of the way to the resort, which we were incredibly grateful for. We giggled the rest of the walk about how stupid we must have looked yelling and yelling not to yell and arguing about who was more scared!
The restraunt and resort was one of the most beautiful hotels I have ever seen. Every inch was like an African Disney World for adults. There were sculptures and art everywhere with incredible architecture that complimented the vast mangrove, forest and river that surrounded it. The bar and restruaunt were around a large pool with lots of trees full of exotic birds and fresh flowers on every table. The "hotel" were little floating bungalows that could be reached by a long bridge over the mangrove or by boat. The rooms had a big porch, inside was a beautiful canopy bed with colorful silk bedspread and outdoor showers and bathrooms,(the classy kind, not the creepy kind!) We finally got some delicious lunch and continued to explore the hotel. It was amazing! If I were rich I would definitely stay there for a weekend, or maybe a night!
Our way back was much less eventful. We saw the baboons again but they were a lot nicer and we didn't make obnoxious sounds to them. We still had to walk a few miles in the rain, but it wasn't too hard and we got to see a beautiful sunset. We decided to forego the series of taxi rides and just hired one expensive taxi ride home (about $14), which still took about an hour and 45 minutes to get home! We were so exhausted when we got there but so happy to have an survived our African adventure!
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