What little I know about The Gambia....

Before planning this trip I didn't know where The Gambia was.  I actually thought I was going to Zambia!  On the west coast of Africa, tiny, anglofile Gambia is completely embedded in francofile Senegal .   My grandson pointed out that Gambia resembles a finger being poked into Senegal. For some reason, it's The Gambia, not Gambia, but for the sake of easy reading, I'm acknowledging the "the" and omitting it. The area has a long history of nomadic people, great empires, and a thriving local slave trade that morphed into the Portuguese, French, English and American slave trade.  The boundaries of the African countries were defined far from Africa by the Europeans in 1845.  England apparently didn't want Gambia since it was just a small strip of riverbank along the Gambia River, far removed from other British colonies and had no resources to easily exploit, but no else wanted it either so it remained a British colony until it's independence in 1962.  The Gambia has had the usual political, social and economic upheavals shaking off colonial rule to become an independent county.  Today, it has a stable, but oppressive government and is one of the poorest countries in Africa in spite of  thriving resort cities on an idyllic looking white sand coast.