at the risk of getting eaten by a crocodile

This afternoon, a friend from the Gambian government took me to see a few of the sites around Banjul.  The first we stopped was Gambia’s sacred crocodile pool: this pool was discovered long before colonial times, the home of myriad crocodiles, and has since developed into a must-see spot in Bakau.

As we approached the pool, we saw a crocodile or a model of a crocodile lying out in the open, stock still.  I started to ask one of the attendants in the crocodile was real, and he said, The plastic one?  So I walk over to the plastic crocodile and begin to reach out to touch his long nose when another attendants firmly instructs me not to touch the snout, as it’s very dangerous: just the tail.  Oh.  Not plastic.