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Last TANGO in Banjul

The car park at the TANGO office in Banjul was beginning to feel like home. There was a reassuring familiarity to the minaret dawn chorus, the security guards who we fed by night and the school children who caught us showering by morning.  So it was wistfully that we plunged south into Senegal once again.

But first we paid a courtesy call to the Libyan consul who had inexplicably picked up our restaurant bill earlier that week and wanted to talk. Intrigued by this opening diplomatic gambit we were keen to try our hand in the great game and presented ourselves earnestly at the embassy.

We sat among piles of green Libyan passports awaiting Hajj visas, whilst sipping Arabic coffee and searching for conversation. Behind us a television flickered with images of Libyan news correspondents hiding behind dark glasses.  As the caffeine began to make me feel dizzy I wondered exactly what we were doing there. So we bade farewell politely and as we turned to exit we were slipped an envelope. 

The Libyan government, the latest signed up sponsor of Atlantic Rising. 

And so to Casamance which is all paddy fields and palm trees. We were greeted at the border by soldiers with rolled up sleeves and bulging muscles, stationed in the region to provide security whilst the government negotiates peace with separatist rebels. The road south to Ziguinchor provided an eye spy of military armaments, and combined with the return of their defeated football team, gave it the air of a town under siege. 

We are now finding our feet in Guinea Bissau where we have met Huw and Bex whose bicycles we have been chasing through West Africa. Their excellent expedition, Listen to Africa, is recording soundscapes which include a recording of a python killing a chicken. 

Tomorrow we are all off on a mini expedition to the Bijagos archipelago, the latest stop-off point for Colombian cocaine destined for Europe. We’ll be out of contact for a few days, but back soon with stories of saltwater hippos and manatees, insha'Allah.