Bijilo Monkey Park — Attraction in West Coast Division

The Monkey Park is located close to the Kololi and Senegbian hotel areas. From the hotels you can easily walk to the park in about 10 minutes. The entrance to the park is quite unobtrusive. At the entrance there are walnut vendors where you can buy nuts for your monkeys. Admission tickets are sold in the rearmost building. Ticket price is 150 GMD per person. I don´t recommend taking a guide to the park as you self will find monkeys moving around .... or the monkeys will find you. Even getting lost in the park is practically impossible, you just follow the paths. The area is bounded between the sea and the road so that you cannot be misled. A lot of monkeys are seen and they are calm and take nuts out you hand. Also take good photos is easy there. The forest is suitably shaded so you can visit it even in the hottest times. Drinking water should be reserved as the park does not sell water. Great experience worth a visit.

Apinapuisto sijaitsee lähellä Kololin ja Senegbian hotellialueita. Hotelleilta kävelee helposti noin 10 minuutissa puistoon. Puiston sisäänkäynti melko huomaamaton. Sisäänkäynnin luona on pähkinän myyntikojuja, joista voi ostaa apinoita varten pähkinät. Sisäänpääsylippuja myydään takimmaisessa rakennuksessa. Lipun hinta on 150 GMD henkilöltä. Puistoon ei kannata ottaa opasta, sillä löydät omatoimisesti liikkuenkin apinoita.... tai siis apinat kyllä löytävät sinut. Puistoon eksyminenkin on käytännössä mahdotonta, kuljet vain polkuja pitkin. Alue rajautuu meren ja tien väliin, niin että et voi joutua harhaan. Ainoita näkyy paljon ja ne ovat rauhallisia ja ottavat pähkinät kädestä. Niistä saa myös helposti hyviä valokuvia. Metsä on sopivasti varjoisa, joten siellä voi vierailla kuumimpaan aikaankin. Juomavettä on syytä varata mukaan, sillä puistossa ei myydä vettä. Hieno kokemus,...

The most unprofessional National Park I’ve ever seen 😹. The entrance doesn’t look official, the park ranger advice you to feed the monkeys, and he will also advice you to get a guide (which the “local price” is 800 dalasis). He came up with a story that a Polish couple decided to go without a guide the day before and got bitten all over by the monkeys 😹. We didn’t get a guide and it was FINE! Anyway, the park is cool, and the experience is definitely going to be unique. The monkeys are so used to eat from the tourists that they will keep waiting for you in the trail, with their big beggar eyes staring at you. Many tourists get a guide a get some cool pictures with the monkeys in their shoulders. We didn’t do it, but it’s a cool thing.

About the morality of the whole thing, i am not sure. The monkeys seem to not have enough food in the park and do bother people living in the region, stealing food and possibly getting killed in the process (even our host, who lives in Brufut, said the monkeys come regularly to his house to steal papayas). However, feeding the monkeys feeds into the system of not-sustainable livelihoods to the animals, which will always depend on...

The park is very nice. I was there twice. First with my Gambian husband and our kids. It was a great experience, we had a calm walk through the forest and fed the monkeys. The following week I went there again with a Gambian female friend and our kids. As soon as we paid the Tickets and nuts, the so called manager of the park stopped us in a very rude way and told us we needed a guide, otherwise our kids are in danger. When I rejected to hire a guide, he still tried to scare us, using the fact that we came there without any man. My gambian friend also said something to him and he told her in wolof to be quiet in a very very rude way. I said I feel uncomfortable with they way he speaks to my friend. His reply was, that she is his daughter, meaning he is an older man and she is a young woman, so he could talk to her however he wanted. This was kind of a sad and shocking experience for me and I couldnt really enjoy the walk in the forest. To see how women are still treated here in Gambia, even tough they are equally by law, it is sad to see and makes me to doubt if I even want to...