West Africa’s uncharted waters

RIVER GAMBIA NATIONAL PARK, Gambia — Stealth is required when on the lookout for chimpanzees on Baboon Island, a place reachable only by boats small enough to navigate the shallow tidal waters.

It’s a remote part of the Gambia River, and there were few tourists on this part of it, aside from me and the 20 other guests with Variety Cruises, the only river cruise company that operates on the river.

During an excursion, which we experienced from a wooden double-decker boat purpose-built to navigate these waters, the only other tourists we saw were on a handful of smaller, canopied wooden motorboats. Carrying up to about six people each, they weaved in and around our vessel, also trying to catch sight of the chimps that live on one of the park’s several chimpanzee rehabilitation islands. The guests on my sailing, on the 44-passenger Harmony G, are among the few who have experienced a cruise to this part of the world. 

Variety Cruises’ West Africa itineraries are the only river sailings offered to this part of the continent. And there aren’t many river cruises in Africa to begin with, outside of those on Egypt’s Nile and on the Chobe River in southern Africa between Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia. 

My 10-day trip, The Rivers of West Africa, was a seven-night hybrid ocean and river cruise that sailed roundtrip from Dakar, Senegal’s capital, and included a pre- and post-cruise hotel stay at Terrou Bi, a luxury resort in the city. 

The Harmony G was built to operate on ocean and inland waterways, which the company’s two West Africa itineraries both navigate.

Guests on these itineraries spend most of their time in Gambia, visiting Banjul, Tendaba, Kuntaur, Janjanbureh, Kaur and Kunta Kinteh Island. But the sailing also makes stops in Senegal, including the coastal village of Djiffer. Trips sail roundtrip from either Dakar, or Banjul, the capital of Gambia, depending on which itinerary is selected.

Welcoming tourism development

My fellow passengers were all experienced travelers who often journey to remote parts of the world. 

For them, a huge appeal of this region is how relatively unknown it is compared to the destinations tourists usually gravitate toward in Africa. But tourism providers in Gambia hope that the country’s visitor numbers will continue to grow post-pandemic.

Kalle Manneh, owner of Gambia Tours & Traveling Agency, escorted our group for much of our time on the Gambia River. He served as our tour guide, giving our group perspective and context on the cultural and historical aspect of the villages and areas we visited, particularly through lectures both on and off the ship, before turning us over to other local guides in each destination.

Manneh said tourism in Gambia had been on the rise prior to the pandemic and has replaced agriculture as the biggest economic driver for the country.

“Tourism has been one of the major key pieces of income in the country,” Manneh told me during our chimpanzee-viewing excursion. “But the landscape for tourism today is that tourism has gone down since Covid.”

According to the WTTC, visitor spend in Gambia is down 21.2% since 2019. 

Still, Manneh said tourism has had a positive impact on some of Gambia’s more remote areas, like Tendaba and Janjanbureh, where many people are directly or indirectly involved in the tourism industry. The industry directly supports those working at hotels, restaurants, tourism boards and organizations and private tour companies such as Manneh’s. Others, such as vendors who set up shop in front of hotels or at the piers travelers are known to frequent, benefit indirectly from tourism.

“A lot of youth finishing their studies today want to engage themselves in tourism,” Manneh said, adding that there are schools in Gambia that train people in hospitality, transportation and other aspects of the travel industry. 

“Generally, tourism is an area that plays a great role in the income coming into the Gambia. And even though since Covid, tourism has gone down, Gambia Tourism is doing its best to try and bring it back,” he said, referring to the country’s tourism authority. 

Constantine Venetopoulos, brand director at Variety Cruises and part of the third generation of the family that owns and operates the Greek company, said Variety is well aware of the benefit tourism brings to Gambia.

“Some amount of tourism is beneficial because it opens so many doors. It creates more jobs. It creates more awareness,” he said. “It creates more of a mix between the community and other places.”

Experiences steeped in nature and history

Part of Gambia’s appeal is how pristine and untouched it is. 

The River Gambia National Park, located in the country’s Central River Division, is just a few miles upriver from the village of Kuntaur, the last navigable point on the river for small ships, such as Variety’s Harmony G.

The smaller boats we encountered on our chimpanzee-viewing excursion belonged to Kairoh Garden in Kuntaur, a guesthouse and ecolodge that was one of the only other tourism operations I saw in Kuntaur. 

Even with so little competition, a few people on our boat, which can carry around 30 people, were a little annoyed that the smaller boats got in the way of their photos and that the noise from their motors disrupted the tranquility of the afternoon on the river.

It made me wonder about further development of Gambia’s tourism infrastructure. One one hand, more tourism creates jobs and financial opportunities for locals. But on the other, I could envision this area being overrun with more boat traffic, possibly negatively impacting the chance for wildlife sightings. Not to mention the tourism experience people come here for, especially as the pool of places that truly provide off-the-beaten-path travel dwindles and concerns about overtourism drive people to look for alternatives.

Gambia may not stay under the radar very long. Chimpanzee-spotting is among many things to love about this country. During our sailing, we petted and posed with crocodiles at the Kachikally Crocodile Pool and Museum and saw rare birds at Kiang West National Park and Bao Bolong Wetland Reserve, a protected area with salt marshes and a mangrove forest. And the sights seen while walking through the village and market of Kaur felt unique to this destination. 

Variety provides a mix of historical, cultural and community tourism excursions and encounters in West Africa. 

Slavery is a major theme of many of the activities and excursions featured on itineraries here. West Africa was one of the hubs from where millions of Africans from along the coast and around the region were trafficked and sold into slavery during the Atlantic slave trade from the early 16th century through the late 19th century.

Remnants of that time period are preserved through sites like Goree Island, which was the largest slave-trading center on the African coast, located off Dakar; the Slave Dungeon Museum in Janjanbureh; and Kunta Kinteh Island, which was also an export center of enslaved people and served as an important access point to the interior of the continent.

However grim this history is, and difficult to fathom when standing in the very spots where people were once shackled, these sites are a hugely important part of West African history. The idea of a society not knowing where it’s going until it knows where it’s been could not ring more true in these locations.

But Variety’s West Africa itineraries are not all about the history of slavery, or even all about wildlife. There’s a big focus on community tourism, as well.

Benefiting the community

West Africa, particularly Gambia, is a destination close to the hearts of the Venetopoulos family, owners of Variety Cruises. 

The company’s second-generation owner, Lakis Venetopoulos, who died in June 2021, had spent some time in the region when a client chartered one of the company’s ships to sail there.

Constantine Venetopoulos, one of Lakis’ sons, said his father saw an opportunity to not only launch cruises but for Variety to help support the education infrastructure of Lamin Koto village, a short drive from the port of Kuntaur. Community leaders had approached Lakis about building a school in their village.

“The students from that area didn’t have a school to go to,” Venetopoulos said. “If they wanted to go to school, they had to take a boat to cross the river. But the kids who couldn’t afford that boat didn’t have anywhere to go. So that’s why we decided to help build that specific school.”

Today Lamin Koto School educates about 100 students and provides a source of clean water from a well located on the property.

The Rose Museum, a building currently under construction on the school’s property, will help expand classroom facilities and house special objects and historical artifacts donated by the Explorers Club in order to deepen educational opportunities. 

Guests on Variety’s West Africa itineraries can visit the Lamin Koto School when calling on Kuntaur. They are welcome to bring donations, such as school supplies, for the students when they visit, something many of the guests on my sailing did. 

During our visit to the school and, really, to any other village we visited where kids greeted us, I found that water bottles and soccer balls were in especially high demand. The kids love practicing their soccer skills in any open field they can find, and water bottles are important because they can fill them up at wells in their villages. 

What was special to me during our group’s visit to the Lamin Koto School in February was the donation of 200 school uniforms handcrafted by designer Christian Allen, who leads a sustainable fashion brand called Nikki Green in Los Angeles. 

Allen, who is Venetopoulos’ friend, learned the students needed uniforms and stepped up, offering to design uniforms made from recycled materials such as linen and cotton that could help keep the kids cool under the hot sub-Saharan sun. He also took the students’ Muslim customs and traditions into consideration when designing the uniforms, creating hijabs of stretchy, sporty material and longer skirts for the girls.

“I’ve never had the opportunity to incorporate the charity aspect into my work,” Allen said, adding that this visit to Africa was one of the most memorable experiences of his life.

“With this being my first trip to Africa, and to go in a way where I could bring something to contribute to a community that is lacking certain resources, was very special to me,” Allen said. “I’ve never done anything on this scale, and to do it with this new line that I’m a part of, it just felt so good.”