Rudi & Mirella left on Monday to go to Mboro, after spending four months in Europe, whilst Alan and I enjoyed a couple of days relaxation, swimming in the sea and visiting St Louis. There were very few people around the town as today is the largest festa for all Muslims. The end of Ramadan.
We eventually find our way down the coast to Mboro and set up camp in the grounds of Rudi & Mirella’s bundo plot. Quite a few German and French have bought up land from the poor villagers and built homes for themselves. The local labour is very cheap (about €30 per month) and not very good since all they really know how to build are their round thatched-roof-huts. So the foreigners sit around with drinks every evening complaining about so and so or how how the bathroom floor doesn’t drain or the kitchen walls are crooked and how they can’t stand the Senegalese mentality and their laziness. These people think they are still in the time of the colonies and when I was asked if I could live in Senegal said “no” because since I don’t like the way of life here or the ways of the people why would I want to spend all my life complaining about them. Choose a place where one is happy and you don’t have a problem. Their attitude is just “Granduer!”
We had to go into Dakar on Friday to get our visas for Mali, which took no time at all, at the Embassy, but nearly all day into and out again of Dakar due to the infamous traffic. It was a releif to get back to Mboro to the pease and quite with just the sounds of different bird calls and having our chotapegs under the Baobab tree. That evening we drank “BUI” a refreshing drink of Baobab juice.
Now that we were refreshed too physically from our mad dash through Western Sahara and Mauritania, we left Mboro on Monday 30th October to start the next part of our journey towards The Gambia.
Just south of Dakar we stopped at a nice hotel with extraordinary architecture. The Sabo Baden has a magnificent view over the ocean through the room windows. The rooms were very hot, but that’s to be expected, as the humidity at this time of the year is normally very high, as high as 90+% it’s uncomfortable even for the locals. This was the first time since we left England and the ferry boat to Bilbao that we slept in a proper bed, though I must say that our inflatable mattress in our roof tent can’t be beaten for comfort.
As we continue down the coast road, the next day, we pass the Badia Game Park, which has a few giraffe, antelope and monkeys but decide that we would rather spend a few days in Senegal’s largest game park, The Niokolo-Kobo, when we come back in after The Gambia.
We pass through Kaolack to a town called Passi and onto Foundougne to camp on the edge of the Siné Saloum delta. The campsite is the Baobab 1 which is run by Ismaila and his son Faram. It only has bungalows but they allow us to park up and use our roof-tent, even giving us a key to a vacant bungalow so we could use the shower and loo.
Next day we spent the morning walking up the beach and going through the small villages in the afternoon. Alan choose some great material in one of the villages and had two pairs of typical Senegalese trousers made to measure. They cost 4500CFAs a pair to have made about € 6. That evening by 20:00 they had them made and by 22:00 they had also made me a beautiful wrap skirt. We decided to eat at the sites restaurant instead of cooking for ourselves, what a treat. Our diner was special. Since a van load of Belgian tourists had arrived Faren called in the local Jembe players. Drummers who really knew how to drum well and the atmosphere was definatley very African and the dancers girations and energy spell binding! or something!
We drive from Badiara Douane towards Wassadou where we have a GPS point for campment. We eventually arrive at the Wassadou campment, which is on the outskirts of the Niokolo Kobo National Park, late in the evening. The camp is very beautiful, situated on the edge of the Gambia River where baboons, birds and hippos loudly complain with each other, in the dank forest, on the opposite bank of the river.
We camp here for two days just to get some washing done and dried. Joining the local washer women of the camp I chat away until one of them tells me that I am washing my clothes wrongly and in true African style shows me what to do! I do admit that back home a machine does it for me. After a couple of days we and our clothes are clean and ready to move on. Our idea is to go through the National Park southbound and onto Mali by the police post at Kedougou then onto Saraya and Kenieba, but by the time we get our Carnet de Passage stamped out of Senegal we are told that the river at Saraya is full and that we cannot go that way as the river crossing is too deep and is impassable. So now we are back at Kedougou police post having our Carnet stamped back into Senegal and have to drive back 230kms towards Tambacounda.
This takes nearly the whole day and having seen only a few monkeys, a dik-dik and a lot of military police setting light to the tall yellow grass in the “World Heritage Park”, we come across a campsite called “Darsalam” and pull in for the night.
No sooner have we set up camp another off-roader, looking well used and dusty drives up to us and stops. A French couple come over and introduce themselves. Alain & Rosemary are old hats at this kind of life and within minutes we are sharing our evening menu; a leg of mutton, which they bought off a “Boucherie” by the wayside and my curried onions and carrots with rice. Our broken French and their broken English conversations are interesting as the lamb roasts over our rustic, bushcamp fire.
Our journey the next morning is in the same direction as theirs so we follow each other to Tambacounda, a large town on the way to the border to Mali. Here we stop to once again fill the cars with fuel and get our staple daily diet of bread, cheese and water. As we drive through the centre Alan is looking for a bank, and stops to ask a policeman, bad move the policeman fines Alan 3000CFAs (€4.50) for not wearing his seat belt, despite the fact that no of the locals are wearing theirs. The policeman orders us to follow him to the police station half a kilometre away; we have no room in the car so he sets off walking, but after 100m stops a taxi and jumps in. I try to stand my ground in French by pointing out all the tens and hundreds of broken down cars with rust everywhere, with no lights, carrying 7 passengers or more, no windscreens and all the drivers, not wearing a seatbelt! Another policeman shouts “your fine is 6000CFAs I shout back “the other policeman said 3000CFAs” He shouts back, “I’m the chief and I ask what I want” I have the last word and say “no we are here to pay you 3000CFAs!” He writes out our ticket and notices that Alan’s licence has our Italian address on the back of it, he starts talking to us in perfect Italian. He spent 7 years in La Spezia working for the railway. He didn’t let us off our fine, but having spent much longer in the station than necessary, we shake hands and smiles all round start off for the Mali border along with Alain & Rosemary.