Abuko National Park

I finally made it over to Abuko National Park. The Park is located right across from where I'm staying, but it's taken me nearly a month to venture past the gates. I'm really happy I did. There is one trail, about 2 miles long, that goes from the entrance of the park to the opposite end. It is mostly shaded by gallery forest with huge vines. Some of the palm trees were wrapped in a parasitic tree that made a web around the trunk and ate away at the palm bark. The effect was to have these cylinders of webbed wood nearly empty where a tree used to stand.
All along the walk I encountered wildlife. All over Gambia (and especially in the courtyard of my lodge) there are these beautiful lizards that have yellow heads, blue bodies, and black tails that are tipped white. In Abuko, though, I saw my first monitor lizards. These are huge green lizards with long pointy tails that whip back and forth when they walk. I also got to see the first monkeys I've seen in the country. I saw a whole troupe of yellow monkeys sitting in the trees about ten feet away just kind of looking around. One of them spotted me and got out of the tree and started to approach me. I was alone, and not quite ready to make friends with a monkey, so I walked away pretty quickly.
At the end of the trail is the animal orphanage where the park houses injured animals for rehabilitation. There was a troupe of baboons, a cage full of parrots, and a pen housing some hyenas. The hyenas were incredible! I thought they were leopards at first because they had a really intricate pattern on their fur that I had never seen before. They were also huge! I was very impressed. I can't wait to go back.