The Gambia is a thin green country, shaped like a tongue lolling out of Senegal along the river that gives it its name, and its most intriguing monuments are its stones. Near Kerbatch, in the Central River Region, a group of circles of tall laterite pillars stands in open woodland, each circle made of upright stones as tall as a person, shaped by hand and set in a ring. They belong to the stone circles of Senegambia, which spread across the lands on both sides of the border, and number in the thousands, with several different groups listed together as a World Heritage property in 2006. The tradition of putting up such circles seems to have lasted from about the third century BC until the sixteenth century.
Nobody knows exactly who built them, but excavations suggest that they were funerary monuments for important people, each with burials beneath or beside the stones, and that the builders were an organised society with iron tools and a well-developed trade network. The laterite was quarried in blocks and trimmed into pillars, and some of the stones weigh several tonnes. The stones are red-brown, pitted and warm to the touch in the afternoon, and they stand in long grass with shea and baobab trees, the sort of place where you walk quietly.
The road here is the Trans-Gambia Highway, which connects the north and south banks of the river, and its quality has improved in recent years with a bridge across the Gambia at Farafenni, opened in 2019, that replaced a slow and unpredictable ferry. The riding is flat, hot and mostly straight, with goats, cattle and donkeys always liable to wander across, and shared taxis that stop without warning. Police checkpoints are frequent and usually friendly, so carry your documents and a smile. The best time is the dry season, from November to February, with cooler mornings, though in the harmattan season dust haze hangs over the land.
Farafenni, a lively trading town of nearly thirty thousand people sixteen kilometres away, has fuel stations, a big market and basic hotels, so fill the tank there before you turn off. Nearby villages have small shops with soft drinks, bread and sweet tea, and in the evenings you will hear drums. Carry water and a hat, and carry some small notes, since change can be scarce. A guide at the stones will add to your visit, and a small fee is expected.