Dakar Arrival

Arriving at the airport I wondered if Gianni would be there, my Italian friend I'd met last year whilst hitching into Mauritania. I wasn't too worried I knew where we were meant to be staying; in Yoff at an auberge run by a Swiss woman, Ruth; http://www.senegal.net.tf - Auberge Keur Diame.

Clearing customs was a nightmare, they decided to investigate the contents of my backpack - most of which was childrens clothes & shoes that I was intending to take down to Guinea Bissau. After a bit of a battle with customs I saw Gianni's face outside against the window. It was great to see my travelling partner again and be back in Africa.

We walked a few hundred metres from the airport to get a taxi at a reasonable price. Quotes of 10,000 CFA were being given to us which we ignored and found one on the road out of the airport at the correct rate of 1,500CFA to Yoff.

We went up onto the roof terrace to catch up on the eight months since Gianni had passed my house with his wife Barbara. Luckily I'd bought some chorizio in Spain a few weeks before and a bottle of Rioja whilst between flights in Madrid earlier. The obligatory bottle of gin was waiting for our trip to start!

I'd done a lot of research into this trip which was to take us down to Guinea Bissau and onto Guinea. Between myself and a Czech traveller we put it all on another blog: http://deeper-into-west-africa.blogspot.com