Brufut wood and Tanji Bird reserve

We pulled up in the nature reserve, which Europeans would have called a landfill site. White egrets were massed on the rubbish, I have no idea how they stayed white. We set off from the car through the used condoms and nappies, and then spent the next 30 mins looking at a tree. To be fair it was a constant throb of changing birds. Malick was our guide, of course Chris uses him when he is here. He had a laser pointer that he used to highlight the birds, I was impressed and he did know his birds. We walked around the general area, between the allotments and houses, the locals working hard all around us. Many stopped to say hello. One toddler I remember particularly well, had a used radiator paint roller tightly held in one hand and was using an old broken disposable lighter as a dummy. Life is tough here. We progressed to a water pool area, cans of drink were sold from an ice box, with seats facing some bowls of water. This was our resting point. Then onto the Tanji fish market, first stopping at a restaurant that looked so out of place in this market of broken down sheds and dirty sand. Only tourists eat in this restaurant and as Malick said it had nice clean toilets. This was where the tour went wrong. It was a private booking but due a booking error we shared it with another couple who over lunch (while we were trying to negotiate the price for a second day) mentioned they had only paid for half a day. After lunch we went to the tanji fish market, and walked along the beach looking at terns. The fish market is a chaotic riot of decay. Stalls and smoke places everywhere. Families sit or lay in the huts with bare sand floors, doing apparently nothing or push through the crowds buying and selling. The fishing boats were at one time brightly painted, some were unloading their catches, others were being loaded. Most stalls sell something to do with fish, but not all. New catches of fish were loaded into banks of freezers, packed with ice. These freezers are European cast off, none where connected to electricity, the ice is what keeps them cold. The Smoke house had flatbed after flat bed of fish, all exposed to the sun left to dry, smoke and collect maggot eggs as the flies swarm around. Interesting place but I’m not sure I’d ever eat and fish from there. Then we went home, driving straight past the Tanji nature reserve. It was only once home that I realised Malick had cut the tour short. He had realised that the other couple had only paid for ½ a day so that was what he gave them. We had paid for a full day! So he had nearly twice as much money as he should have had by taking 4 people instead of 2 and then cut us short. He was an arrogant bastard as well, so I never used him again. Chris Packham can keep him to himself.