Saturday, February 2, 2013

Home, the Final Frontier

As the star ship Voyager (a.k.a. Air France 791) leaves Senegal tonight, Saturday, for France and then on to the US (under a different number), at least two of those aboard will carry memories and tales of adventure back to the New World.  They will recall fondly their time in Africa in 2013 and also celebrate their return home to a place unmatched in the world.

Of course, memory fades with the passage of time.  So they will remember best the most recent.  They will still be able to taste the urchins, oysters, mussels, and escargot they had for lunch today.

One of them will fondle her new bracelet and still have a keen vision of the Taureg craftsman who made it along with her earrings.

They will remember the unpleasant things too.  Today’s walk to breakfast through the dirt, grime, and ever-growing litter on the streets.  The many beggars, both young and old, who seem to have no point in life and no hope for change.  And, the air pollution in Dakar.

But the good memories will drown out the bad eventually. They will see in their minds’ eyes the taxis with tails in Dakar and the beautifully dressed women. 

 

The inside of the dome and the stained glass at the Catholic church downtown will still amaze them.

 

 

Their lips will still savor the morning’s café Touba and the taste of a sandwich achee or an omlette fromage or a fresh beignet.  

 

They will still be able to feel the breeze off the Atlantic as they looked to the west sipping a cold Gazelle. 

 

And their ears will still ring with the voices of all the people who love America and want to go there some day or were there and want to share their memories.

Sandy and Terry will share these and their deeper memories with each other and with you as time goes by and they come to the surface.

Now, beam us home, Scottie!

Terry and Sandy

Friday, February 1, 2013

Village des Artists and a Day Without a Sunset

On this Friday, our last full day in Senegal, we were impressed again by the quality of the art produced and exhibited.  Just a few hundred meters from our B&B stands the Village des Artists.  It’s a complex that has both artists’ studios and an exhibition hall.  The artists who work here are considered to be among the best in Senegal.    We visited the studios of 15 or so, purchased one small piece, and viewed the exhibition as well, all within walking distance of Senegal Style B&B.  This is an attraction that does not get enough attention in the guide books.

 

For the third night in a row, we went to Pointe de Almadies for dinner and the sunset over the Atlantic.  Tonight though, air pollution was so bad and extended so far that we could not actually see the sun as it sank in the west.  We hope for better tomorrow when we see our final Senegal sunset before we start home tomorrow night.

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Thies or Bust

How many ways are there to get to Thies?  And, why would you go?  These are questions we answered on Thursday.

Thies, pronounced “chess”, sort of, is the second largest city in Senegal and is about 70 km east/northeast of Dakar.  It’s known as a world class tapestry and rug center, and the guide books speak of its beautiful tree lined streets and colonial architecture.   It was on our list of places to go in Senegal from day one.

But, how to get there and back?  The guide book says take the train or a taxi.  Anybody can take a taxi all the way, but locals don’t.  Sineta, our B&B host, says the train is not a way?  How do locals get there?  The owner of the place we had breakfast suggested in broken English that we take the #36 bus to Dor (wherever that is) and then take a clando (one of the junker cars that ride up and down the road; you flag them down and pay a small fee for short distance transportation) to garage Pikin where we would board a collective (4 to7 passenger) car bound for Thies.  On the outskirts of Thies we would debark the collective and hop aboard a local taxi for the 3 km trip to centreville.  All very simple, if you speak French and understand Wolof.

 

We chose a middle of the road option.  We took a taxi straight from the breakfast restaurant to garage Pikin and boarded a 4 passenger collective to Thies where we took the local taxi to the center of town.  No sweat.

In centreville, we wandered for ten minutes to be sure we had no idea which way to go.  But, talk about dumb luck, at that point a 180 degree spin revealed the big “i”, the Office of Tourism. 

There, Aminata, was holding down the fort.  She made the required reservations for us at the MSAD, Manufacturers Senagalaise des Arts Decoratifs.  She then attempted to find a guide for us but could not, so she locked the office door and accompanied us for the next four hours.

Two hours in the MSAD, including a private three-way shared lunch in the staff room and an introduction to the Director General, left and impression of this place as first class.  Tapestries are designed and made here based on paintings selected by competition.  Only eight tapestries are made based on any one painting.  It’s very hard to get a painting chosen.  Some of the tapestries hang in the UN, in embassies around the world, in large hotels and financial institutions, and in private collections.  All are for sale.  Photos of the tapestries were not allowed.

However, exquisite hand knotted rugs are also produced at the MSAD.  These we could photograph during production, so we did.

The famed tree lined streets of town were “street” of town and it is called the “street without light”.  If it were not paved with sand, and the buildings did not look like they were all falling down, and it were a whole lot cleaner, it could remind you of southern France if your eyes were closed.  This reason to visit should come out of the guide books in my opinion.  But they do have a nice calabash tree at the MSAD.

Aminata helped us get to a small roadside village about 7 km out of town to buy some baskets.  It’s a “Catholic” village that hosts a big basket market on Mondays.  Being Thursday, the selection was limited but plenty big enough for us.

From there, the trip back to Dakar was much the same at the journey from Senegal, the exception being that the traffic was worse, the collective car was an old jalopy, and the crowd noise and pressure at the garage outside Thies was too, too intense.  Sandy has sworn off collectives and the garages associated with them.  

Tomorrow is our last full day in Senegal.

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

To Market to Market to Buy a Fat Pig, Then Home Again, Home Again Jigity Jig

Getting back to “home” Dakar from our campement in Palmarin was more difficult than the trip to Palmarin from Dakar.  We expected to get a bus to Joal that “goes by the place all the time” in the morning.  We saw one go by at 9:00 and another go by at 9:10 as we walked casually out the gate to the road.  We thought we had it made; another would be by in a few minutes. 

You guessed it.  No more busses for at least the next 40 minutes.  So, we sought Amat’s assistance and he flagged down a car whose driver agreed to take us up the road for a small fee to the next town about 10 km away where there is a transportation hub.  There we boarded a minivan that jammed 18 passengers and the driver inside plus two guys on top with various bags and boxes.  This minivan was to take us to Joal, where we could board a big bus bound for Dakar. 

Just short of Dakar, we were overtaken by a bus which stopped in front of us.  It was a very nice, well-equipped, clean, white bus.  Sandy and I were told to get on it because it was going to Dakar – too, too simple to be true.  That's the minivan below after we left it for the comfort of the bus.

Somewhere along the side of the road north of Mbour, now about an hour later and half way to Dakar, the bus stopped, everybody except Sandy and I got off to buy snacks, and nobody got back on.  A blue bus from hell pulled up alongside ours and all baggage and packages on the top of our bus were transferred to it.  At the same time, everybody from our bus was packed into the already full hell bus through the back door.  When we figured out what was going on and got to look inside the hell bus, Sandy refused to get on.  I don’t blame her, but we really had no choice.  Coaxing and prodding of the bus conductor got him to “find” two empty spaces near the front of the bus, and a “there’s no way we’ll ever get a taxi here” from me, finally convinced Sandy to board.

About an hour and a half later, when we had reached the outskirts of Dakar, the hell bus was pulled over for a traffic violation or perhaps a random God-sent inspection.  We took this opportunity to abandon ship and get a city taxi to the B&B.  Finally, a smile returned to Sandy’s face.

The smile was reinforced by a great meal of grilled Thion (local fish) at a restaurant on Pointe du Amadies, the western-most tip of Africa.   We could see America if we stood on tip-toes.

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Mangroves and the Big D Hits T

This morning, Tuesday, Sandy woke up smiling and I woke up running.  After nearly four weeks in Africa, it happened last night.  I don’t understand.  Yesterday, Sandy and I ate the same meals, sometimes from the same plate, ate peanuts from the same vendor, and drank the same drinks, bottled water and bottled beer.  It must be like Lake Wobegone where the women are strong and…

We cut our planned full day in the mangroves down to a half-day.  After a tiny breakfast of a piece of a baguette and instant coffee with sugar and powdered milk, we headed one-half hour south to Djifere on the tip of the peninsula in Amat’s pickup truck.  Before 10:00 we were in a pirogue with our skipper and his boatman on our way across the waves to the national park, its mangroves, its birds, and its villages.  I kept my tummy as calm as possible.

 

 

Three hours later we had seen a few birds and lots of mangroves.  The area is vast and distances are long in the park.  We both agreed that our time and money would have been better spent doing the same thing further up coast in Fadiot where we took a walking tour yesterday.  So, next time you’re working your way down the coast in Senegal, see Fadiot and its surroundings and skip Djifere and the park.

If you do head this way and you are open to simple clean accommodations, try the CALAO campement.  Amat, the owner, speaks passible English, thank God, and he is very helpful.  He is also a musician.  He lived for about ten in France and says he has travelled and performed throughout Europe.  Tonight we will try to get him to play the djembe as well as the 21 string Senegalese instrument that looks like a giant round gourd/guitar with the strings on the sides` of the neck.  Amat tells us it’s a cord and is played like a harp.