Guide to Bakau

"The most traditional of The Gambia's Atlantic Coast resorts, Bakau combines good beaches and facilities with plenty of local colour."

Sitting on the northern tip of The Gambia's Atlantic coastline, just south of the promontory at Cape Point, Bakau mixes modern holiday hotels and a good beach with the character and charm of traditional Africa. So, if you do feel like a break from superb sunbathing and watersports, you can watch the fishermen in their colourful boats returning with the catch of the day. Or maybe have a wander around the old town, with its clapboard houses and tin-roofed shacks, and soak up the typically Gambian culture. The number one attraction is the colourful market, one of the best you'll find this side of Banjul. The stalls are piled high with all kinds of goodies, including fantastic fresh fruit and vegetables, fragrant spices and the local 'fire water', palm wine. As for other places to visit, why not enjoy some quiet time and take a pleasant stroll around the Botanical Gardens, a legacy of colonialism? Don't miss the garden's prize specimen, the rare and beautiful Century Palm, which only flowers and reproduces after 100 years, then promptly dies! Alternatively, steel your nerves and pay a visit to the Kachikaly Crocodile Pool. It's one of the few places in this part of the world where you can get 'up close and personal' with these fearsome, jaw-snapping reptiles with no danger of becoming a light lunch. By the way, if you see some of the locals praying, it's not to avoid being bitten. To many Gambian tribes, the crocodile is sacred and has the power to give fertility.

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