Bakau is one of the most charming corners of the Gambian coast: a town with its own soul looking out over the Atlantic at the tip of Cape Point, with century-old botanical gardens, a lively fishing harbour, a craft market and, right at its heart, one of the most unusual places in West Africa: the Kachikally sacred crocodile pool. Less touristy than neighbouring Kololi, it keeps the unhurried pace of a community of fishermen and farmers who live alongside travellers without losing their identity.
The highlight is undoubtedly Kachikally: a green-water pool surrounded by forest, looked after for more than five hundred years by the Bojang family, where semi-tame Nile crocodiles live. It is not a zoo but a fertility shrine where Gambians have come for generations to pray for children, health and protection. The gentlest crocodiles, used to people, let you touch them under the watchful eye of the guardians; it is an intense experience, somewhere between tourist attraction and sacred site, that sums up the magical bond between this town and its reptiles.
This guide explores Bakau with a practical eye: how to visit Kachikally and what it costs, what to see in the botanical gardens and the market, where to enjoy the beach and the fishing harbour, how to get there from the tourist coast and where to eat good fish. It is the perfect outing to combine nature, culture and a touch of mystery just minutes from the big hotels.
Bakau is an old coastal town in the Kombo, inhabited for centuries by Mandinka, Wolof and fishing communities, and its most famous landmark is the Kachikally sacred pool. According to tradition, a female spirit —Katchikally— blessed the well after bringing back a child who had fallen into its waters, and entrusted it to the Bojang family, who have looked after it for more than five centuries as a fertility shrine. In colonial times, Bakau became home to the botanical gardens (1924) and grew as a residential town next to Fajara; today it combines that heritage with fishing life and tourism. Its history is told in detail on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The urban heart of Gambia: a tiny capital born as an anti-slavery fort on a river island, and the bustle of Serekunda and Bakau around it.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Bakau is one of the oldest settlements on the Kombo coast, the region in south-west Gambia that looks out over the Atlantic. Long before the resorts and the 'Senegambia Strip' existed, Mandinka, Wolof and other farming and fishing communities lived here, making their living from the sea, their crops and trade along the coast. Cape Point, where the town juts out into the ocean, was a natural landmark for navigation and fishing.
The origin of Bakau's name and its founding are lost in oral tradition, but by colonial times the town already appears as a well-established community, with its alkalo (traditional chief), its neighbourhoods and its sacred sites. Unlike Bathurst (Banjul), which the British built from scratch in 1816, Bakau was an existing African community that the colonial administration gradually drew into its orbit as the coastal region developed.
During the British period, Bakau and neighbouring Fajara became sought-after residential areas, valued for their sea climate and their closeness to the capital. In 1924 botanical gardens were laid out here, a green, orderly space meant for acclimatising plants and for leisure, and they still survive as one of the quietest corners of the town. Little by little, Bakau was absorbed into the large urban area of Kombo, but without entirely losing its character as a town with its own identity.
The soul of Bakau is Kachikally, its sacred crocodile pool, and its story is above all one of belief and oral tradition. According to the account handed down through the generations by the Bojang family, the site's custodians, it all began more than five centuries ago, when two Bojang brothers were tapping palm wine near the well. A female spirit arrived carrying a child on her back and, as she bent down to draw water, the child fell into the pool.
The brothers dived straight into the water and found the child safe and sound, sitting on a large stone at the bottom. In gratitude, the spirit, named Katchikally, declared the pool sacred, blessed its waters with the power to grant fertility and protection, and entrusted the Bojang family with its care forever. According to the same tradition, it was Katchikally who ordered crocodiles to be brought to the well, making them sacred, protected animals.
Since then, the Bojang family, who are Mandinka and also hold the office of alkalo of Bakau, have guarded the shrine, passing the responsibility from father to son. Kachikally became one of the three great sacred crocodile pools of Gambia, alongside Folonko in Kartong and the pool at Berending. All of them are, first and foremost, fertility shrines: for generations, women unable to have children have come to bathe or wash in the blessed water of the well, seeking the blessing of motherhood.
Around eighty Nile crocodiles, Africa's largest species, live at Kachikally, in a green-watered pool surrounded by nine acres of tropical forest that, according to tradition, has not been cut for more than four hundred years: silk cotton trees, baobabs and ficus form a canopy over the water. Unlike their wild relatives, these crocodiles have been used to people since they were young and are fed by the guardians, which makes them unusually docile.
Some of the calmest ones have become famous with visitors; for years the best known was a large crocodile nicknamed 'Charlie', who would happily let people touch and photograph him. The guardians, who know each animal's temperament, pick out the calmest ones and keep a close eye on any contact, always on the back or the tail. For Gambians, though, touching the crocodiles is not a tourist game but a meaningful gesture: they are sacred animals, the embodiment of the well's protective power.
The site also has a small ethnographic museum, a nature trail and a community of birds and monkeys living in the forest. Visitor admission, now one of the sources of income that keep the place running, sits alongside its religious role: it is not unusual to come across Gambians who have come to pray, to ask for a child or to take home a little blessed water, a reminder that Kachikally is still, above all, a living shrine and not just an attraction.
Throughout the 20th century, Bakau and its surroundings changed as the metropolitan area grew. Its closeness to Banjul, the sea climate and the beauty of Cape Point attracted well-off residents, civil servants and, after independence in 1965, the first infrastructure for the tourism that was beginning to take off on the Gambian coast. Fajara, right next to Bakau, filled up with embassies, residences and even an unusual golf club with sand fairways.
When, from the 1970s and 1980s, Gambia took off as a sun-and-beach destination for Europeans, especially British, Scandinavian and Dutch visitors escaping the winter, the Kombo coast filled up with hotels. The centre of that tourism shifted to Kololi and the 'Senegambia Strip', further south, while Bakau kept a quieter, more residential profile, with its Cape Point beaches, its gardens and its craft market.
That relative calm is now one of its biggest draws. Compared with the bustle of Kololi, Bakau offers a slower, more authentic side of the coast: a town where fishing life, the local market, the colonial gardens and the Kachikally shrine sit alongside charming hotels and good restaurants. It is a place where visitors can feel the real pulse of the community without giving up comfort.
Today Kachikally is one of the most visited sites in Gambia and, at the same time, a shrine that is still very much alive. The Bojang family remain its custodians after more than five centuries, combining their religious role with running the site for tourism: visitor admission helps pay for the care of the crocodiles, the forest and the museum, while Gambians keep coming to ask for fertility and protection. That dual nature, tourist attraction and place of worship, is exactly what makes the experience unique.
Gambia's National Centre for Arts and Culture recognises Kachikally, along with Folonko and Berending, as one of the country's sacred sites, evidence of a traditional spirituality that has survived Islamisation and modernity. The coexistence of ancestral beliefs, fertility practices and respect for sacred animals reflects the richness of Gambia's cultural roots, beyond its main religions.
Bakau, for its part, remains one of the most pleasant towns on the coast: a fishing town, a residential area, a green gateway with its 1924 gardens and home to the crocodile pool. Exploring it means discovering a Gambia that balances tradition and tourism, sea and forest, the sacred and the everyday. And at its heart, among baobabs and green waters, the crocodiles of Katchikally are a reminder that here nature and myth have been intertwined for centuries.
