Day 1 Dakar to Saint-Louis

I made it to my beautiful hotel room without a hitch.

I took a South African Airways flight which stopped in Dakar on its way to Johannesburg. We landed in Dakar at 6am local time and only a handful of us got off the plane. There was one other 40 something white guy who got off with me and the others were all locals. He immediately looked at me and said "DOD?". "Huh?" "Do you work for the Department of Defence?" No. He said "Too bad" I glared. He said "I didn't mean it that way, but you do have a military look. First time in Sénégal?" Yes. "You?" "No. I live here." "Ahhh... interesting."

Anyway, we got our passports stamped and went through customs, which was very efficient, and then walked out the front door of the terminal whereupon we were both besieged by about 50 male taxi drivers begging us to hire them. THEM! NOW! ME! NO ME! It was loud, aggressive invade your personal space-type chaos and we were both separated quickly. What was interesting is that they all spoke nearly perfect English (Someone must have heard our conversation.) So I took a deep breath, tried not to look too overwhelmed and asked a few of them to show me their cars. I found one who had a nice (and I do mean nice - nicer than any Manhattan cab I have taken) BMW car and asked "How much to the Gare Routiére" which is the terminal where I could pick up a bush taxi. He told me and I got in. Then one of the others leaned through the car window and started pestering me for a tip. "For what?" I asked. He said for helping me with my stuff. "I carried my own stuff!" "Yes. You are such a gentleman you'll give me a tip". No. Sorry buddy.

We started to leave and he asked me where I was going, ultimately. I told him Saint-Louis and he offered to take me there directly - for US$200. Hmmmmm... I could take a bush taxi for about 1/10th that amount but I would have to go to the Gare Routiére and go through the same chaos, hassle and badgering and then wait and wait for the taxi to fill up with 6 other people. I had gone about 24 hours with no sleep and while $200 seems high, it is a 5 hour, 400 kilometre trip.

I talked him down to $100 and we took off for Saint-Louis. So here I came to Africa expecting to speak French and take questionable transportation to get around but I am speaking English and in the back of an immaculate luxury car. Is that really an African experience? Shouldn't I rough it a little more than this? Hmmmm...

The first surprise is how good the roads turned out to be. The entire highway between Dakar and Saint-Louis must have been resurfaced within the last 6 months. There wasn't a pothole to be seen anywhere. Between some of the villages my driver was doing 160 klicks (about 100mph)! The second surprise was the driving. Oh brother! We were dodging buses whose back doors were open and men hanging out of the open door precariously on the back bumper; we were dodging completely oblivious people; we were dodging livestock. It was hair raising. Traffic was pretty slow until we cleared the outskirts of Dakar and then we zoomed along. We stopped twice. Once for Muslim prayers. The driver found a group of robed men praying, pulled out his rug and joined them. The other stop was for gas. Both times, groups of young (6-9ish) kids would surround the car and peer in hoping for money. I tried waving them away but they wouldn't move. That was a little unnerving.

I can't remember how many villages of different sizes we passed through. Most were little more than slums with concreteroom-sized houses that were not connected to the electrical grid, but a few villages had some charm to them. The poverty is also unnerving. I backpacked through the South Pacific and only encountered a bit of this in Papua New Guinea. But despite the poverty many of these people wore beautiful robes and looked very elegant - both men and women. Only occasionally would you see someone in dirty or torn clothing. Everyone appeared well fed too. As the morning wore on there appeared groups children on their way to school and they seemed fairly well fed and clothed too.

The cab driver was chatty, pointing out the places we passed through, including his hometown and the Senegalese President's home town. We finally arrived in Saint-Louis around 10:30am went over the bridge, onto the island and found my hotel. I got my stuff out of the back of the taxi and then the driver started pestering me for another $50 for petrol. "We agreed on $100" I reminded him, but we settled on $30. I figure they need the money more than I.

The hotel is very quaint, in the French colonial style that is found all over the city. I have a beautiful room with French doors that opens to a balcony which looks out onto the Senegal River over the border into Mauritania. (I am going to walk across the border tomorrow so I can say I have been to Mauritania.) The owner of the hotel, Marcel, is a warm friendly guy and I am trilled to be here.

The only drawback is the Wifi service is very slow and spotty, so uploading pictures is a chore. But I managed to save a few here: Flickr.com Day 1

More tomorrow. I need to sleep.