Going crazy for wax, the multicolored fabric that a tailor can transform into a dress overnight. Enjoying the teranga, which is not just hospitality, but also welcome, care, and appreciation. Wearing a mask not to protect from Covid, but to avoid choking on dust. Encountering hyenas and chimpanzees, baboons and crocodiles. Quenching thirst with baobab or hibiscus juice. And rewarding oneself with coffee, Touba coffee, strong and spicy, fragrant. In Gambia. By bicycle.

Cecilia Gentile has her Africa, and more. In 2006 she wrote "Good Morning Senegal" (Ediciclo), in 2009 "Follow the Women - From Beirut to Palestine Pedaling for Peace" (Ediciclo), in 2012 "Children in Hell - 11 Childhood Stories from Gaza to the Occupied Territories" (Salani). This time, she couldn't resist Gambia's call: "3 Friends, 3 Bikes Wandering in Gambia" (DeiMerangoli, 124 pages, 16 euros). The three friends are her, Vassilis, and Lesley. The three bikes were purchased in Gambia: a Carrera mountain bike ("Even if some gears don't work"), a Hercules hybrid with a rack ("4200 dalasis, 60 euros, it will be the most expensive") and "the third is a nameless city bike, the writing worn out by time. It's a women's frame, with only three gears, the right brake is a coaster brake". A simple, peaceful, popular way to connect with the territory and especially the people: "We'll be like other Gambians moving on second, third, or fourth-hand bicycles. But unlike them, we'll be privileged because on the local second-hand market, our bikes are considered top-notch. Yet they'll surprise us in many ways".

It's not a book about an exploit, nor a record, nor a miracle. It's a travel diary, a collection of chronicles, an anthology of adventures. Part guidebook and part manual, part autobiography and part essay, part photo album and part sentimental map. And it couldn't be otherwise for Cecilia, first a teacher of Italian and Latin, then a long-time journalist for "Repubblica", and always a Fiab member. Someone who just goes. Someone who doesn't hold back. Someone who travels and knows how to travel. Someone who looks, studies, writes, photographs. And before doing so, breathes, smells, tastes, touches. A tough woman who can be moved. A gentle one who can also get angry. There's the cost of a water bottle, the cost of a raft to cross the river. There's a young woman working on a European project to teach other women how to cultivate land productively, there's Aladin guiding at the Slave House, showing chains and torture instruments.

Gambia is - if one can say so - very African. Taxi drivers who, with their broken-down taxi, rent another car just to work. Traditional healers promising to cure diabetes, asthma, infections, incontinence, fever, abortion, sexual weakness, eye problems, and stomach pain. Waiters who swear to serve lunch quickly and then take four hours. Kids who first take orders, then go to the market to shop. Taxi brousse (brousse means savanna) that load bikes and luggage on the roof and lose luggage along the way. Drivers who tie the accelerator with a string, strange, right? Indeed, the bus stumbles, coughs, finally stops, everyone gets off and then onto another bus that happened to pass by. Yet a magic. Yet an enchantment. Yet a spectacle. Yet like a disease. Yet an irresistible call. Will you return to Gambia?, the last question on the last night. "Yes, I want to return", Cecilia's promise. No doubt. Neither her, nor us.

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Cecilia Gentile will present her "3 Friends, 3 Bikes Wandering in Gambia" tomorrow, Thursday, February 27, at 6 PM, at the bookstore L'angolo dell'avventura, Lungotevere Testaccio 10, Rome. Free entry.