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

Dakar Station, for trains to Bamako

Decisions, decisions ......

We went to central Dakar the first morning, initially to the port to look at the prices & times of Le Wilis - the new boat to Casamance. I was keen to go by road, Gianni wasn't bothered either way but we had to consider both time & money

Looking at price of 18,500CFA for a couchette each, it made sense to get the boat down to Casamance rather than pay a variety of taxi brousse to Gambia, change currency to Dalasi and find our way out of Gambia and then back into Senegal to Ziguinchor. Added to which we would have had to pay for a night somewhere along the road, an additional expense!

We bought the ticket for the following night's boat and walked into town looking for somewhere to eat and generally milling around. We were both shocked by the amount of small shops owned by Chinese, these small outlets used to be Senegalese owned & run. Now the Chinese have bought them up and have one or two Senegalese working for them.

Heading home!

After one night in Kaolack and a few hours looking around the market, my mind was made up; I was thinking of heading to Thies for a night before going back to Dakar airport for my flight. It made more sense with my cold getting worse and a fever starting to get straight to Dakar. By 10am I was in a taxi heading for the capital.

Hitting a horrific traffic jam at Rusfique, I finally got out of the taxi at 3pm and found another one to Yoff. I decided to stay at Via Via, I'd heard a lot about it and had decided I needed somewhere 'decent' to rest and get better prior to getting the flight.

I spent a great 36hrs there, met a Belgian who got completely ripped off by two Rasta's I'd met an hour before him! Poor guy, he was a journalist but managed to lose 10,000CFA very quickly and find himself in an unknown suburb without any money. A few of us had a good laugh over it!
My final day prior to the evening flight I went into town briefly, La Corniche, getting a taxi there for 2,200CFA & back for 2,400CFA to get a few last minute presents. Didier, a French guy staying at Via Via who'd previously worked in Senegal was suprised I was managing to get Senegalese prices for transport .. and later told a Senegalese policeman friend of his that I was more African than him!!! As I had to leave my room in the morning, the Belgian journalist friend realising how sick I was, was incredibly kind to give him his room for the day before getting my taxi out to the airport!

Arriving at the airport, the hassle didn't stop there, a taxi tout pounced on me as soon as I got out of mine asking if I wanted a taxi - I turned around and said 'How much to Toulouse?'!!!