Picked up the children from school at 12.00pm, don’t seem to have done much at school this week, on asking locals they said they will start learning next week. We ate lunch then decided to visit ‘Charlie’ at the sacred crocodile pool at Katchikali, Bakau. The pool is considered a magical place and bathing in the sacred pool can cure infertility and bestow good fortune, regular rituals are performed by locals for this purpose.
We set off in the car stopping to get some air for the tyres not from a garage but a guy at the side of the road, very strange. On reaching the street there was a throng of people exiting the mosque after their Friday prayers one such person asked if we needed help and told us to park up at the large tree as the road was too bad to continue any further. Lamin as he was named took us down some small side streets between compounds and smelly drainage ditches to the crocodile pool. We paid our entrance fee and applied some mosquito repellent no sooner had we set off we could see the head of a large female under a drainage water outlet. We were told that in the rainy season the crocodiles sometimes escape and are found in the Gambian compounds and have to be captured and returned to the pool.
We continued to a wire fence surrounding a murky green pool in which we could see a small crocodile on the surface, then suddenly there was a gap in the fence and Lamin said we could walk around the pool. Paul and Bradley walked along and I joined them only to get a picture of a baby crocodile sat on a rock. We came to some seats with one of the guides sat with a crocodile at his feet, this was the famous Charlie we were asked to sit down and pat his back, very strange. We managed to get a photo of us touching Charlie however it was a bit too scary. Behind us there was a large pregnant female with gapping mouth we were told not to go too close as when pregnant they can be very aggressive. We noticed bonga fish on the ground, the guide informed us he feeds them well so visitors are able to walk amongst them, I think they must have been drugged as very docile.
We set off in the car stopping to get some air for the tyres not from a garage but a guy at the side of the road, very strange. On reaching the street there was a throng of people exiting the mosque after their Friday prayers one such person asked if we needed help and told us to park up at the large tree as the road was too bad to continue any further. Lamin as he was named took us down some small side streets between compounds and smelly drainage ditches to the crocodile pool. We paid our entrance fee and applied some mosquito repellent no sooner had we set off we could see the head of a large female under a drainage water outlet. We were told that in the rainy season the crocodiles sometimes escape and are found in the Gambian compounds and have to be captured and returned to the pool.
We continued to a wire fence surrounding a murky green pool in which we could see a small crocodile on the surface, then suddenly there was a gap in the fence and Lamin said we could walk around the pool. Paul and Bradley walked along and I joined them only to get a picture of a baby crocodile sat on a rock. We came to some seats with one of the guides sat with a crocodile at his feet, this was the famous Charlie we were asked to sit down and pat his back, very strange. We managed to get a photo of us touching Charlie however it was a bit too scary. Behind us there was a large pregnant female with gapping mouth we were told not to go too close as when pregnant they can be very aggressive. We noticed bonga fish on the ground, the guide informed us he feeds them well so visitors are able to walk amongst them, I think they must have been drugged as very docile.
Charlie
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