Part 1 - Easter Vacation travel-ness

Senegal Discovery!

Travelling is an amazing thing. There are so many ways to travel, so many places to go, things to see, people to meet. What I love the most is that it doesnt matter where you go, you always meet interesting people....people that challenge your the way you think, that re-affirm your faith in humanity and of course people that, honestly, just make you question to what length your patience will hold out!!!

I think that is why it is so hard to give advice on where to travel and what to see because it isnt where you go but who you meet that makes a trip what it is. The landscape never changes but the people do....

Our trip south through Senegal was really fantastic. The first week we spent with Lenny`s dad, on his whirl wind visit to Senegal. It was nice having a car and being able to get somewhere without spending the entire day travelling between towns. It meant we had much more time to see and do!

We visited Joal-Fadiout - twin towns attached by a long bridge. Fadiout being the island town made mostly of sea shells. It boasts a beautiful mixed cemetery on another little island made of seashells. We stayed in a hostel in Joal over looking the river, went for a long walk to Fadiout and along the beach and met a really interesting french man living in Joal writing an ecotourism guide book for the region and carrying out wildlife sensibilization projects with the local communities, particularly in regards to the sea turtle. He was trying to mix responisble tourism with wildlife protection in a way that benefits the community economical but doesn`t risk the environment in the process. Very interesting man! Showed us his impressive collection of various sea creature remains washed up onto the beach!!

From Joal-Fadiout we headed to Saly. Saly is Senegal`s uber-tourist destination. There are two parts to Saly; Saly-Portugal and Saly-Niakniakhale. In Saly-Portugal you could easily be confused about where you are and think that you are in any rish snazy seaside holiday desitination town. Saly-Niakniakhale is a little bit more local with sandy alleys, small boutiques on every corner and sheep roaming free all around. We stayed in Saly-Niakniakhale in a very nice little auberge about 100 m from a gorgeous white sand beach! What I love about beaches in Senegal is that even on the `touristy`beaches you find tons of people milling around. It seems like all the local young boys come to work out, run, play soccer and all the local kids come to splash in the water and poke at washed up sea creatures.
Of course you have all the local vendors too wandering around hitting up the tourists in hopes a good sell for the day!! So much life on the beach! Although, if you want a nice relaxing peaceful sejour on the beach...perhaps not the best place to go. Less than 5 minutes after stepping on to the sand the vendors approach to sell their wares. And this is where it gets interesting....

The men who sell, in general, are quite persistent but if you explain very calmly and apologetically that you are not looking to buy but you appreciate their items for sale and you hope they have a good day, they will often be a little disappointed but will call you `gentille` and with a few pleasanteries move on their way in hopes of a sell further down the beach. The women in Saly just got angry! It didnt matter how polite we were, they got mad and shot death stares in our direction anytime we saw them afterwards. So bizarre...

So, Saly-Niakniakhale was one night and one morning on the beach! After which we headed off to Toubab Diallo. We had hoped to stop at a national park just before Toubab Diallo which is supposed to have an impressive collection of animals but unfortunately the park has been privatized and so entrance was much much more than we could afford! Not sure what the point is of a park that only uber-rich tourists can acces...but that is a debate for another time!

Toubab Diallo! What an amazing little town. Set on cliffs and hilly ground it looks a little bit like greece when you are up top looking down over the village towards the sea! We stayed in an auberge that was built by a Haitian and we had a room with a door that opened up onto a little cliff overlooking the sea!! Too beautiful!!

Sal, Lenny`s dad, was quite taken by this peaceful little spot that he offered to pay for our accomodation if we stayed another night! No complaints there from our end ;)
We spent an entire day just lounging on the beach and chatting with the multitude of Rastas that populate Toubab Diallo! We met one really interesting guy who owned an auberge and club right beside ours. He had lived in Sweden for 8 years to study and work, had swedish nationality and spoke swedish fluently! He had bought this auberge and was running it because he had wanted to do something in his community to help young people find jobs (many of his friends) and he was curretnly building a house so that he could move back. He talked about how hard it was for him to be this sort of in-between person because in Sweden he was never really considered as `swedish`but after so many years away in Senegal he was starting to be seen as `not-senegalese`. He wanted to move back to regain his identity! Very interesting guy!

That was that trip with Sal! The Sunday we left Toubab Diallo in the afternoon and very very impressively, if I do say so myself, Lenny and I were able to direct Sal through the traffic in Dakar to Masco`s house (a friend who we usually stay with) so we could grab dinner and Sal could head off to the airport!

(I would like to post photos but I am using the outside wifi connection and it is just much to slow! So bientot....I promise)