The town of Bakau, just 12 km from Banjul, the capital of The Gambia, hosts an interesting site. A pool with crocodiles, which surprisingly allow themselves to be touched and petted. The pool is named Kachikally (also Katchically or Katchikali) and belongs to the Bojang family which has been administering it for 500ish years.
Crocodiles are drawn to vibrations and will pounce on a stick hitting the ground (check out my video below)
The site is promoted to be a sacred pool in which barren women can bath to wash away whatever has been holding them back from conceiving. After performing the sacred ritual bathing, the woman is told to remain faithful to her husband and not to shake hands with other men for a year. Faithful adherence should bring her a child. Required elements of the ritual includes bringing “a humble petition” of “Kola-nuts and other small offers” to the Bojang family.
These days, it seems, the vast majority of visitors are tourists, drawn by the strangely docile crocodiles, and the fact that once in Gambia, the number of attractions are quite limited.
I journeyed there by taxi from my hotel which was further down along the coast. Once entering Bakau, the taxi veered to the right, leaving the main roads and winded its way into neighborhoods in search of the pool. The roughly built cinder block and cement homes were covered by dilapidated plastic and tin corrugated roofs, and the roads bore no road signs. The many wrong turns and the quickly degrading roads (dirt paths?) made the distance to the pool seem much greater. In fact, the driver was trying to get to close to the pool, but kept getting thwarted by mud roads which had dried leaving huge ruts making them impassable by his car. Finally, he stopped at an intersection and pointing down yet another impassable road, indicating that I needed to walk down until the next intersection and take a right to reach my destination. A little dubious, I took his word and ventured forth. Sure enough, just a three “block” walk landed me in front of a wall painted to look like a swamp with crocodiles and bearing the title “Kachikally Crocodile Pool and Museum”.
Entering, I was met by a guide who collected my entrance fee and led me about a hundred yards to the pool (after I suggested that I would visit the museum at the entrance at the end of my visit). The pool and its surrounds are a kind of oasis in the middle of the town. The approximately 9 acre site is surrounded by trees and swamp-like growth and you quickly forget that you are in the middle of a populous town. Right in front of the pool lie the main attractions, 2 meter long crocodiles sunning themselves with their mouths wide open (which look ominous, but is their way of keeping cool). I was the only visitor at the time, but it was startling to see several guides seated just 8-10 feet from these reptiles which strike such fear in southern US States and which generate headlines when their encounters go horribly bad for local Floridians (and often their pets) caught by surprise.
…crocodiles have been around for over 200 million years; so I can’t believe that feeding a couple of generations of them fish could change their natural instinct.
I stopped in my tracks and turned to eye my guide, who smiled reassuringly, as he had presumably done many times before. We are creatures of habit, and it takes a while to break them, especially when the habits are born from scientific and historic proof and center around our self-preservation. My guide explained that the crocodiles are not interested in human meat because they are regularly fed great amounts of fish. This process of feeding them fish has been going on for “many generations”. I stepped around the crocodiles, hoping that it was with enough distance to give myself time to react if they took an interest in my ample calves or glutenous maximus. Having passed this bask (the apt name for a group of crocodiles), my guide showed me along a path through the thicket surrounding the pool, pointing out other crocs, including a mother lying on top of her nest (*that* one we avoided since a mama may attack not for food, but defensively, I was told).
Arriving back at the original bask, I somehow felt more at ease. I can’t really explain why. It wasn’t due to the fish=food explanation, because even with the little I know about reptiles, I do remember that crocodiles have been around for over 200 million years; so I can’t believe that feeding a couple of generations of them fish could change their natural instinct. Perhaps it was because, having returned to this spot, the crocodiles still hadn’t devoured the guides sitting mere feet away from them, chatting and laughing.
My guide told me that I could pet them. Still being the only visitor there at the time, brought to mine questions. Where were the other visitors? Had these crocs already devoured the last group of them? Was this whole thing a sadistic hidden camera trick? There was a little blood on the tooth of one of them. But even that was explained away as coming from one of the many leeches that bite them.
I took a step closer, and then another one. Then there I was, bending over and petting a live crocodile, smiling at the camera as my guide took my picture. Around this time, a few other visitors arrived, and seemed to take to the crocodiles much more quickly than I had. Possibly because, unlike me, they were able to witness the bravery/stupidity of someone else first.
Bathing in a pool with crocodiles will solve your infertility?
As I said, I can’t explain why I became complacent. It just seemed perfectly natural to wander around the crocodiles, touching them, asking questions, and staring into their gaping, tooth filled mouths. Their semi-catatonic state made me think that perhaps they were sleeping (though their eyes were open and eerily followed you as you moved around). I asked my guide about this, and he smiled again (in fact, I think he never quit smiling). He asked me to get my video camera ready. He said that they were always alert, and ready to pounce on food. What got their attention would be the vibration the food would make when it hit the ground. Sure enough, he tossed a stick, and as you can see in my video below, they jumped when it hit the ground, and only stopped when its smell didn’t register as food.
That shattered my illusion. These were the same crocodiles which I had, moments before, wandered among and treated like family pets (while making all sorts of vibrations).
On the way out, I wandered through the museum, which held some interest, but is definitely not why you come. There were no taxis, so I walked to the main street and the Bakau craft market. Although I was the only tourist in sight, I didn’t feel unsafe. Several people asked me where I was from and they were kind enough to point me in the right direction through the winding, unmarked roads.
The following video show how active the crocodiles can be:
Why go?
- So you can pet a crocodile. Where else can you do this? Even if you don’t want to take that risk touching them (I couldn’t argue with that), you may feel comfortable getting close enough to see details you wouldn’t otherwise be able to do.
- You may see larger examples of Crocodiles elsewhere, but you won’t get this close to them.
- The guides seem pretty knowledgeable about their star attraction, and can answer many questions.
- If you’ve been wanting to have children… bring some offerings.
What you need to know:
- Taxi drivers all know about Kachikally, so they can probably take you there. Although how close they can get you to it depends on the roads at the time of your visit.
- The entrance fee was 100 Dalasi.
- The pool is located on Google Maps, but there are no road signs when you are walking through that part of town. Everyone there knows the location, and my experience was that people are friendly enough to point you in the right direction.
- Don’t enter the site if you have fish in your pocket? This is only an assumption, and didn’t come up while I was there. But if that’s what the crocs *do* eat…
- The AccessGambia.com website lists the phone number of the Pool as: +220 7782479 or 4497802 and the email address as: kachikally@ganet.gm
- The hours of operation are listed as 9am till dusk
- Despite the overwhelming tourist trade, this is still a sacred site. You should behave accordingly.
Kachikally Sacred Pool & Museum
Location: Bakau, The Gambia
This sacred fertility pool is home to about 100 crocodiles, which, strangly, allow visitors to walk among them and even touch and pet them.
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Head to the link in my profile for more details: @mytravels.hdf
.
Picture taken: 10/2017
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#KachikallyCrocodilePool #KatchikallyCrocodilePool #Kachikally #Fertility #Bakau #TheGambia #Gambia #PettingCrocodiles #StrokingCrocodiles #CrocodilePool #TouchingCrocodile
Kachikally Sacred Pool & Museum
Location: Bakau, The Gambia
This sacred fertility pool is home to about 100 crocodiles, which, strangly, allow visitors to walk among them and even touch and pet them.
.
Head to the link in my profile for more details: @mytravels.hdf
.
Picture taken: 10/2017
.
#KachikallyCrocodilePool #KatchikallyCrocodilePool #Kachikally #Fertility #Bakau #TheGambia #Gambia #PettingCrocodiles #StrokingCrocodiles #CrocodilePool #TouchingCrocodile
Kachikally Sacred Pool & Museum
Location: Bakau, The Gambia
This sacred fertility pool is home to about 100 crocodiles, which, strangly, allow visitors to walk among them and even touch and pet them.
.
Head to the link in my profile for more details: @mytravels.hdf
.
Picture taken: 10/2017
.
#KachikallyCrocodilePool #KatchikallyCrocodilePool #Kachikally #Fertility #Bakau #TheGambia #Gambia #PettingCrocodiles #StrokingCrocodiles #CrocodilePool #TouchingCrocodile
Kachikally Sacred Pool & Museum
Location: Bakau, The Gambia
This sacred fertility pool is home to about 100 crocodiles, which, strangly, allow visitors to walk among them and even touch and pet them.
.
Head to the link in my profile for more details: @mytravels.hdf
.
Picture taken: 10/2017
.
#KachikallyCrocodilePool #KatchikallyCrocodilePool #Kachikally #Fertility #Bakau #TheGambia #Gambia #PettingCrocodiles #StrokingCrocodiles #CrocodilePool #TouchingCrocodile
Kachikally Sacred Pool & Museum
Location: Bakau, The Gambia
This sacred fertility pool is home to about 100 crocodiles, which, strangly, allow visitors to walk among them and even touch and pet them.
.
Head to the link in my profile for more details: @mytravels.hdf
.
Picture taken: 10/2017
.
#KachikallyCrocodilePool #KatchikallyCrocodilePool #Kachikally #Fertility #Bakau #TheGambia #Gambia #PettingCrocodiles #StrokingCrocodiles #CrocodilePool #TouchingCrocodile
