AT A GLANCE
Why go?
Kachikally Crocodile Pool in Bakau is one of The Gambia's most extraordinary places — a living shrine where ancient Mandinka fertility traditions coexist with one of West Africa's most unusual wildlife encounters. The sacred pool, tended by the Bojang family for over five centuries, shelters dozens of docile West African crocodiles that visitors can walk among and even touch, while the surrounding 9-acre complex includes an ethnographic museum, a nature trail through undisturbed tropical forest, and the continuing spiritual heartbeat of a community's faith.↗↗↗
A Living Sacred Site
Kachikally is not a zoo or a constructed attraction. It is a functioning spiritual site — one of only three sacred crocodile pools in The Gambia (the others are at Folonko in Kartong and at Berending) — that has served as a place of healing and supplication for centuries. According to the oral history of the Bojang family, who have been hereditary custodians since the 15th or 16th century, a forest spirit named Katchikally appeared to the family's ancestor Ncooping Bojang and tested his sons' character by claiming her child had fallen into a well. When the young men proved their kindness by rescuing the child, the spirit revealed the well's power: any woman washed in its waters would conceive. The brothers in return gave the spirit the first two creatures caught in their fishing nets — two crocodiles that their mother placed in the pool. Those two reptiles have multiplied into the community you see today.