TOURING

We decided we needed some R&R for a few days so we stayed at the Zebrabar and just relaxed on the beach until the 15th. We took a taxi up to St. Louis which is a World Heritage Site full of colonial buildings and caught up on some emailing and walked the streets for the day. The next day we drove to Dakar in order to get our visas for Cameroon which cost us CFA 50’000 each but were able to pick them up in the afternoon. We stayed at the only camp site in Dakar, it seems, Su Nu Gal by the beach which is owned by a French Godfather figure who we suspect only lies in his sun chair all day bossing people around. Dakar was quite a nice city although very large and people trying to sell you anything and everything. Having a chat with them is a lot more fun as they are genuinely very nice people . We drove about 20 km’s south of Dakar to the stunning fishing town of Toubab Dialo where we found a basic but lovely hotel to stay in and just enjoyed the beach and the views that evening.

Next day we ventured further south to Parc National Du Delta Du Saloum where we wanted to do a pirogue boat trip through the mangroves and see the monkeys and birds. After a night of a fantastic bush camp, in the park we think, we were up early so we could be the first ones in the park. It took us almost all morning to find the entrance to the park and once we did we were sent to another entrance as only one of them organises the boat trips. We managed to find a guide to take us through the mangroves for 2.5 hours for CFA 30’000 in total which we thought was too much for what it actually was – although it was nice to go for a little boat ride rather than just drive around in the car. Mid afternoon we decided we still had ample time to get through the border crossing into The Gambia and then take the ferry from Barra to Banjul – oh how mistaken we were!

The border crossing was no problem and we were done just after 18:00 with the paperwork (Milan’s job) while Louise was chatting to the 15 or so children that came up to her for a very long a fun chat in all sorts of languages! Once in The Gambia we bought our ferry tickets (CFA 5’500) and headed for the queue to the ferry in Barra. We thought it would take maybe an hour or two maximum, but the whole wait took more than 5 hours! The ferry’s are regular but they are quite small and don’t go very fast either. After chatting to the locals for the odd 5 hours or so we finally managed to get on the ferry around 22:30 and then arrived at the Sukuta Camp in Serekunda just after midnight. What a day. You can apparently bribe the guys to get on the ferry quicker but we decided to wait after speaking to Jimmy the fixer, a kid that could organise everything apart from snickers bars. We also had a long chat with Jingle Bells who is going to move to Europe to run the drug markets and he won’t be caught by the police because his Marabou (witch doctor) says he can’t be killed or caught. He even asked us to get a knife out of the car so he could show us.

St. Louis: Zebrabar – signs everywhere so its very easy to find. Owned by a Swiss couple, very clean, very nice just on the beach.

Dakar (Yoff): Su Nu Gal – CFA 4’000 per person for camping which is just a scruffy parking lot by the beach. Nothing special but ok for 1 night.