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ijilo Forest Park is located at Gambia in Banjul. It is an excellent place to be during vacation especially when traveling with children and family. Banjul can be reached by air as there are several flights to Banjul even from international locations. For people interested in exploring wildlife, Bijilo forest park will be quite a destination to spend a day. It is a rainforest reserve situated atop a cliff right on the beach at Kolol. It is at a place called the Senegambia strip 11 km away from Banjul. It is an excellent place for birdwatchers and eco tourists. You can choose to stay at Senegambia or Kairaba so that the forest reserve will be a 10 minute walk from your place of stay.

The forest park is an old reserve that spans 126 acres in all. The forest reserve was closed to visitors till 1991. Since the time it has been opened thousands of tourists flock to the park every year. Before the forest reserve was opened to the general public it was deforested to a large extent. The famous rhun palms were also part of this deforestation. Its valuable wildlife in form of the green monkeys were caught and eaten by the stray dogs. After the deliberate effort of establishing an organized rainforest reserve the green monkeys are being preserved just like a number of other animals and birds.

There is a foot path that leads to the woodland forest, followed by tree savannahs and sand dunes. There are some places for you to be seated while walking through this path. The natural reserve is a home for 133 fascinating species of birds. You will come across various bee eating birds and other species such as a Falcon with a red neck, Prinia and Grey Hornbill.

There are also 4 different varieties of animals living freely in the forest reserve. These include the bushbabies, also called galagos, patas monkey, the vervet monkeys and the red colobus. Kids will be genuinely fascinated in identifying the differences in each of the species of monkeys.

The staff at the forest reserve ensures that the monkeys are not fed by visitors as this spoils the natural behavior of the monkeys. This also makes them fearless towards humans.

You will also enjoy the excellent collection of flowers that have been spread across the forest reserve. The flowers include impressive lilies, the baobab trees, salt tolerant vines, palms, silk cotton trees and wild orchid. It is an excellent place to be for wildlife experts too! They will definitely find something new to explore.