Dakar, Senegal

We flew TACV airlines from Praia in Cape Verde to Dakar, Senegal's largest and capital city. The flight took something like an hour and a half and we jumped forward an hour to be an hour behind London. Senegal is my 100th different country so arriving here brings about a great deal of satisfaction and I was determined to make a big deal of it.

100 countries

VISA
Most nationalities require a visa for Senegal and the online pre-application process is very good. The onsite final application process is a lot more cumbersome. Once you’ve lined up to get the immigration entry stamp, which can take a while, you have to join one of a number of lines leading into small administrative offices behind immigration. You get fingerprinted and photographed and the visa, with your photo on it, is printed out and stuck in your passport. It’s a wonderful sounding process, but it took an hour for the three of us to get done.

DAKAR
Dakar is a big, dirty city and the southern tip near the ferry terminal is where we made our home base. I had booked the Hotel Baraka for our first night since they were quick to arrange the letter we needed for our visa pre-applications. They also arranged to meet us at the airport but we still had to pay 10k CFA (about USD$21) for the transfer. Glen managed to get us into the much nicer Accor Hotel the following night so we could swim but we roughed it the first night. The touts in Dakar are extremely persistent, more so than Morocco. While wandering around we were offered things ranging from shoes, socks, underwear, jewelry, and sunglasses to phone cards and coat hangers. Beer was again difficult to find but we found a shack run by a funny guy who we visited a few times during our stay.  I highly recommend the French Institute for dinner, probably up there with the best meals of the trip.

Our hotel pool with Goree Island in the distance

GOREE ISLAND
Goree was a huge surprise. It’s a twenty minute ferry ride from the terminal in Dakar (5.5k CFA) but the messing around to actually get a ticket and jostle for position adds to the time considerably. The ferry we took to and from the island was fairly crowded but there was no other choice. Once on the island the busyness of Dakar is left behind and everything seems much more peaceful. There are still stores and touts but no cars or motorbikes and it’s far more relaxed than the capital. We even bumped into the Mayor of the island while we ate lunch.

The beach at Goree Island

While the extent of Goree's  role in the Atlantic slave trade is questionable, today the island serves as a symbolic reminder of the suffering caused across the African continent. There may have only been a small proportion of slaves sent from this location but the Slave House is an example of what the houses were like, with living quarters upstairs and cells and the infamous doorway to nowhere down below.

The steps of the slave house

SENEGAL QUICK GUIDE

Capital: Dakar

Currency: West Caribbean Franc (USD$1 = 475CFA)

Language: French, Wolof

Drives on the Right

Beer of choice: Biere la Gazelle