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Some impressions of Senegal

Wednesday, February 21st, 2007

We’ve been in Senegal for a few days now, so I’ll discuss some of my thoughts.

It’s certainly interesting and different to be in sub-Saharan Africa for the first time. As a region, West Africa is poorer than Africa as a whole, and that’s certainly been evident so far. Dakar, the Senegalese capital, is not a great city by any stretch of the imagination, though it’s supposed to the most cosmopolitan capital in West Africa, so I’m not sure that bodes well for future cities. Fortunately we had a really good time there regardless. Through ‘couchsurfing’ we stayed with a Benin couple, Sorif and Sariyou, who were very welcoming and friendly and it allowed us to have a different kind of experience from the usual tourist one. Three other travellers were staying at the house at the same time and that made it even better as everyone got on well and we were able to go out eating and to a live music bar together. As far as sightseeing goes, we spent one afternoon on a nearby island, Goree, which a few centuries ago was a holding place for Senegalese slaves before they were shipped to the Americas (about three years ago, this island was featured in an episode of ‘The Amazing Race’, for what it’s worth).

In West Africa there aren’t that many buses for transport, so it’s usually by ‘bush taxi’, usually a pretty beaten up car with an extra row of seats in it to accomodate seven passengers. Yesterday we took one of these for about five hours to the northern colonial town of Saint-Louis, the first French colony in Africa. While Saint-Louis will never be confused with Cartagena or the other great Spanish colonial cities of the Americas, it does have a certain faded charm about it, and it’s certainly nicer than Dakar. There are many colonial buildings on the island that makes up the heart of the French settlement, and it’s pleasant and safe to walk through the streets. We’ve had two nice meals here as well, so in all I think this will be perhaps the nicest sizeable place that we’re going to visit in West Africa.

Memories of being very cold in Meknes only four weeks ago are fading pretty quickly. It’s not unbearable (yet) but it’s reasonably hot, probably in the low 30s Celcius, and the days are longer than they were in Morocco.

Overall we weren’t really looking at Senegal as being one of the main countries of the trip so we’re going to continue on to Mali soon. There’s a presidential election here on Sunday, and the general rule in any African country is that when there’s a presidential election, be somewhere else, just in case there’s trouble in the aftermath. So we’re going to go back to Dakar on Friday to pick up our Mali visas and hopefully we can get to Mali on Saturday night or early on Sunday morning.

It’s going to be harder to upload pictures to the web from now on but hopefully I’ll be able to put some up when we get back to Sorif’s place on Friday.

The real Africa – it’s a (very) long story

Monday, February 19th, 2007

Now that we’re south of the Sahara, I guess we can say that we’re in ‘real’ Africa, a first for both of us. Two days ago we took the second leg of our flight from Dubai – our eight-hour layover in Morocco turned into 28 days – and are now in Dakar, Senegal.

Our plan for Africa has changed so much that it’s worth an entry in itself. As I think I noted in a previous post, our very first plan was to fly from the Gulf to Cairo, and go overland across North Africa through Libya, Tunisia and Algeria before flying to Morocco for the final part (the Algeria-Morocco border is closed). We monitored the Libya visa situation for several months while we were in Doha and eventually determined that visas weren’t being given to Americans.

So we cut Egypt and Libya out and, by this time knowing that we had more time than we’d thought, decided to add the West African countries of Senegal, Mali, Mauritania and the Gambia. Then we decided that Niger (not Nigeria, which is a different country) would be great to visit, and Gambia got the flick.

Unfortunately that wasn’t the end of the tinkering as the Algeria situation is another difficult one. You’re supposed to get the visa in your own country and it’s only valid for 45 days from the date of issue. This made it impossible for us to get it even in Qatar, so we were going to try in neighbouring countries and see how we went. A couple of weeks ago we decided to give up the Algeria (and thus Tunisia) section of the trip and add two more West African countries – Burkina Faso and Benin.

The result of all this is that we’re not going to the two major countries of the original itinerary (Libya and Algeria), and suddenly our North African trip has become a West African trip. We’ve recently been thrown another curveball (long story, not worth explaining), and the consequence is that about an hour ago we decided to ‘trade’ Mauritania for Ghana (finally, a non-French speaking country!). So now our three months in West Africa looks like this: Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Niger and Benin, from where we fly out on May 19.

I’m actually really happy with the current plan (should it hold up) because it gives us a much different experience from the first few itineraries. The main West African countries we wanted to go to – Mali, Mauritania, Niger – are more like North Africa in their geographic makeup, religion etc. Now, by adding three smaller countries in the southern part of West Africa it feels like it’s a more varied trip and isn’t just all Islam and desert – it’s Voodoo and jungles instead…

Having said all that, I’m still probably looking forward to the (mostly) Saharan countries of Mali and Niger the most of the remaining places we’re going to visit.

Meanwhile, we spent our last few days in Morocco on the Atlantic coast in the seaside towns of Essaouira and El-Jadida. Essaouira is by far the more famous and popular of the two, but I liked El-Jadida much more (perhaps precisely because of that). El-Jadida has an old Portuguese fortress that contains (among other buildings) a few mosques, a couple of churches and a synagogue, as well as a vaulted underground cistern which was really quite impressive and almost unique – the only other place like this that I’m aware of anywhere in the world is Justinian’s sixth-century Basilica Cistern in Constantinople.

Anyway, some photos of both towns are here.

The High Atlas

Tuesday, February 13th, 2007

We're back in Marrakesh now after spending the last three days in the High Atlas, one of the great highlights of the trip so far.

We didn't end up doing exactly what we'd planned, as we were derailed by ... [Continue reading this entry]

A room with a view

Saturday, February 10th, 2007

For US$14 at the Hotel CTM, we got no smiles from the staff but a room with an unbeatable view over the Djemma El-Fna, the most famous place in the entire country and the pulsing heart of Marrakesh.

The ... [Continue reading this entry]

The end of the Moroccan winter…

Thursday, February 8th, 2007

...insha'allah.

It's been warmer and sunnier the past few days now that we're gone further south, and the cold of Meknes and the snow (!) of Fes seem in the distant past (I forgot to mention that it snowed ... [Continue reading this entry]

The Sahara

Sunday, February 4th, 2007

We've just returned to civilisation (if Erfoud deservers such a lofty title) after a few days in the Sahara. We took a two-night camel trip to a place called Erg Chebby, which is the main part of the Moroccan ... [Continue reading this entry]