Breakfast was taken whilst looking out onto a terrace
containing a splendid Kigella or Sausage Tree, an equally gorgeous
Traveller's Palm, a Chorisia speciosa or Floss Silk Tree, Coconuts,
Bougainvillea and Pritchardia. It was hell.
The Gambia is hot and during our stay the humidity
was around 80%. We learned pretty quickly that this is not conducive
to outrageous 'English mad dog' activity. The best place to be when
the sun is overhead is to be in a hotel room with the curtains drawn,
standing under a very powerful fan driven by a 400bhp Pratt and
Whitney engine. Failing the availability of such a device, the next
best place is under a very large tree. In any village or town, there
are usually a number of very large trees, but there is always one
that has historically served as the focus for the village social
life; a meeting place, which serves as a deliciously cool refuge
from the sun.
The four major trees were the Baobab, the Mango,
the Silk Cotton and the Flame tree.
The Flame or Flamboyant Tree, Delonix regia, richly
deserves its name. It is massive with pinnate leaves bearing up
to a thousand leaflets. It bears rich red flowers of mind-boggling
beauty. To cap it all, it sports giant dangling, undulating leguminous
peapods two feet long. Initially, these are green but open to a
brown-black. When dry they rattle if shaken. It was a prominent
feature in the gardens of the wealthy. At dusk, we would watch the
leaves of the tree in the hotel garden fold up for the night, after
which we'd trot off to observe the frantic activity in the Calabash
Tree.
The Calabash & the Wonjo 
