I had finally arrived in Dakar and was ready to put my feet up and rest a bit and the coast seemed like the place to do it.
Dakar is an interesting city with modern design clashing with the traditional all set along a gorgeous piece of coast line. It had a very cosmopolitan feel to it, but I could still find all my food on the street. I spent the first day just relaxing; the hostel I was in was next to the beach and had an open rooftop that was the perfect place to kick back.
I had never seen such an active population; the beaches were full of men exercising or playing foot ball. They were running or playing basketball or doing aerobics and this seemed to be a common them as the beach even had some built-in facilities like pull up bars and lifting benches.
The food in Senegal revolved around seafood with a French flare. There was a dish called thieboudieune which consists of rice, fish and some vegetables all presented in a certain way, delicious. They had Senegalese couscous which when combined with a peanut stew was extremely tasty.
I had to get my Mauritania visa here and wanted to get that out of the way, so I headed to the embassy and the whole process went smoothly enough, I was told to pick up the passport the next day.
In the same hostel was staying a woman named Abby who was doing a Law fellowship working with a bank in Dakar and Geri an Aussie woman who was traveling around Africa. They were two very contrasting personalities and it made for some interesting discussions.
We decided to take a day trip out to Ile de Goree, a small island just off the coast of Dakar. It played a significant part in the Slave trade and is home to many old colonial buildings. It is tiny with no cars on the island just some narrow winding roads. The boat ride out to island was quick but gave great views of Dakar and along the coast.
Ile de Goree was a pleasant quite place with many picturesque colonial buildings painted in bright colours with ironwork balconies. The whole place had a peaceful feel to it but its past peaked through in monuments and museums providing information on its shady past. From the top of the island the view was spectacular though and the bay where the boats bombed quietly was a lovely sight. We had a drink near the bay and watched the island life pass by before heading back to the mainland on the Ferry.
Now Dakar has a few amazing sites, mosques, old French buildings and the classic Mamelles Lighthouse built in 1864 topping a hill overlooking the sea, but even this is dwarfed by the African Renaissance Monument. You may have heard of this or seen pictures, it is brand new and the creation of the current president, it cost over $27 Million of public money to build and at 50m stands taller than the Statue of Liberty. It has a distinctly angled style feeling more like it belongs in the USSR than in an African country. The president has also claimed intellectual property rights and wants to receive 35% of any profit raised.
Seeing it in person was an interesting experience. It is a ridiculous site to see, you can see it from all over the city as it stands atop a hill near the light house. The pictures just do it justice. It consists of a man who is looking out to the “future” with a boy sitting on the bicep of the outstretched arm and in his other arm he pulls along a woman whose dress has slipped of one of her breasts. If your ever in Dakar check it out, you can even go up to the observation platform in the man’s hat, unfortunately it was closed when I was there.
I had decided to head to The Gambia for a few days since I was so close. I had heard mixed reviews about The Gambia and wanted to see for myself. It took about five hours to get from Dakar to Banjul, having to change cars at the border and there is a ferry to get you over the river to Banjul, but it was an easy journey. A pod of dolphins swam with us across the bay. One good thing is that Senegal and The Gambia don’t require visas for a lot of nationalities.
I stayed in a hostel right on the beach and it was a nice beach, again there were a lot of people exercising up and down the beach. The first day I went swimming but like in a lot of the Atlantic coast there was a rip tide and it makes it a bit tougher to swim. The rest of the day I spent swinging in a hammock on the beach reading and relaxing.
I met a couple volunteers from various NGO’s and ended going out to some local clubs with them at night time. The night’s life was good, and the music had a great beat. We spent the night dancing and chatting, like most of the volunteers I have met they were easy to talk with and we all have a similar mind set.
The next day they took me on a tour around the Banjul and the surrounding areas. The city itself is small with only a few sights, the streets still retain some colonial buildings with a few modern structures and monuments thrown in, it had a very quiet feel for a capital city. The surrounding areas along the coast were all picturesque and we spent time sampling the seafood or walking through markets. We looked at going up river, but no boats were going that day, so I was out of luck. I spent the even like the last, letting the rhythms control the night.
The next day I spent the morning looking around another part of the coast before heading back to Dakar. I enjoyed the small part of The Gambia that I saw, and I would like to go up river if I go back but it was not what I was looking for, it was very similar to what I had seem in other parts of the Atlantic West African coast.
Dakar was just a quick stop over as I wanted to head north to see Saint-Louis up near the Mauritania border; it was the first French Settlement in Sub Saharan Africa. Geri had decided to join me so early in the morning we hopped in a car to Saint-Louis and arrive before midday.
Saint-Louis had been the administrative capital and so the central island was a spectacular collection of colonial buildings ranging from administrative through hotels and restaurants to houses. The main bridge joining the island to the coast was a spectacular iron structure that had been built in the 19th century. We spent the day checking out the center island and walking through the colonial streets before heading to the local fishing villages to watch the frantic scene of boats coming in, nets being unloaded, and piles of fish being piled up.
That was my last stop in Senegal, the next morning I said my farewells to Geri as she was heading back to Dakar and I Headed north to Rosso the border town with Mauritania. Here things were about to change drastically, and I was about to enter a completely different world.
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