Discover Fathala Wildlife Park in Lower River Division, Gambia - Book Wildlife, Outdoor Nature & Family Events with Varoom

Summary: Obviously the main attraction is the animals, but the hotel element was fantastic too. The glamping style lodges were beautiful, well equipped, clean and with a 10/10 air conditioning set up. The bar prices were totally reasonable, and the restaurant food was much better than expected, with a short ever changing menu for you to choose from for dinner. - The main thing we want to comment on is the helpfulness of all the staff. The lead waiter whilst we were staying there, in particular, could not have been more accommodating - gave the feeling he would have driven us to the border himself had he not managed to secure us a transfer (which of course he eventually did). Totally recommend.

Summary: Staying at Luigis complex and others elsewhere, Nick organised this on the street just up from the hotel with Timo Tours. With hotel pickup at 6:50 am, driven to the ferry, priority on ferry boarding, seats on the ferry, escorting off the ferry, different vehicle towards Fathalla, queuing to get out of The Gambia, passport stamps etc, queuing to get into Senegal, more passport stamps, 600 Dalassi to get round the no yellow fever problem, Norway not on the acceptable visitors list, more donations, big queues, more donations, no queues, drive to Fathalla, two hours bumping around Fathalla, very good local guide, lunch on the way back, fried or boiled, low risk of Banjul belly or Senegal S., repeat of double immigration again, back to the ferry, home by late tea time. All for about £85, far less than you can pay. Daily wages are about £2.00 per day so these are big sums of money. 87 Dalassi to the pound. Credit cards are useless, there are money changers everywhere who seem to be very honest. The park was excellent with a central feeding area where many of the animals are seen. Termite mounds are most impressive. The giraffes are usually somewhere else noshing trees. There seemed to have been a severe widespread fire and ground vegetation had not recovered. Neither snakes nor Tetse flies were seen. We did not do the standing near lions extra. February is in the dry, not baking hot nor humid season. Sitting in the front cab of the vehicle was fine in relation to the heat with no aircon. The ferry trip was quite unreal, we were advised to be careful of our kit, not to be ostentatious, nor photograph soldiers in pick up trucks with pillar mounted machine guns carrying AKs. My camera with a 300mm lens was fine for the animals. A small camera would have been marvellous for the scrum and scenes getting on and off the boats and immigration. It would have been great if I had taken my small Canon which I can use unobtrusively with one hand and stuff back into it’s belt bag rapidly. A phone is far from ideal in the scrums. Timo tours were brilliant at getting us through all the obstacles safely and back again. It was a very memorable trip. Perhaps take bags of sweets for the kids at the border crossing and buy some fruit from the ladies as they are so poor.

Summary: It’s a long journey, with ferry crossing and border controls it took almost 12 hours of travelling. The National park was worth it., also seeing local culture markets, local people going about their daily business, very insightful. Time not wasted. It’s a small-ish park on a scale of others in Africa, but still amazing to see many animals roaming around. At the park after onboarding a large jeep / army vehicle we set off on adventure. It took 2 hours to observe the following animals: 2 families of giraffes, zebras, antelopes, rino, monkeys, wild hogs, multitude of birds, and crocodiles. Lunch was at the on-site pizza restaurant with a traditional pizza oven. Very tasty pizzas. It was a quiet day, not over ridden by tourists. A lovely day, but be embrace chaos and length of travelling.