29 November – St Louis to Dakar, Senegal. 17,974 km.
We were only stopped by the police once on the way into St Louis which is good going as the police in this area are numerous and corrupt. The guy wanted to see all our documents and waved us on with a big smile when he found them all to be in order. We were meeting up with some friends at Zebrabar the following night but wanted a night in St Louis. We’d heard the 19th century town was delightful so we drove into the chaos and tried to find the campsite! (Hotel Dior 15,59.84N: 16,30.58W) St Louis is formed of three parts: the first and oldest part is an island in the middle of the Senegal River from there the town spills onto the mainland to the east and a sand bar called the Langue de Barbarie peninsula to the west. A pair of rickety bridges connect the three parts together.
We crossed the first bridge carefully as this has been in place since 1897 – originally built to cross the Danube – it is 507 metres long, made of metal and makes a hell of a noise when a Mog is driven over it!! We had the address of a campsite but ended up driving down an extremely narrow sand road – I nearly wore out the horn alerting goats, sheep, children, women at fruit stalls and men on scooters that we were squeezing down the road... turns out that the road we should have been on ran parallel to our sand road! The town is named after King Louis XIV, was the first French settlement in West Africa, founded in 1659, and remained as capital of the French colonial empire. This connection is strongly shown in the town’s architecture. We found a campsite right on the beach and jumped into a taxi heading for the town centre for supper. We wandered about this pretty, if slightly crumbling, town and found somewhere for our first beer since Morocco. Suddenly the electricity went off in the whole town but, by chance, the hotel we were sitting in had a generator so we were bathed in light watching people stumble about in the dark outside!
After a quite night on the beach with only the sound of the waves we left the campsite and parked the Mog in the centre so we could go shopping and walk around again. We found a wonderful shop selling clothing, bedding and bags. It is a co-operative of 15 families within a 150 mile radius and all the items are hand-dyed and made for the shop with all the profits going back to the communities. I bought two pairs of trousers and Oz a fabulous orange shirt! After stocking up on water, veg and baguettes we trundled towards Zebrabar 20 kilometres to the south. (Zebrabar 15,51.87N: 16,30.73)
On leaving St Louis we were once again stopped by the police but this time it was a different matter. He said that we had made an ‘infraction’ by not indicating as we pulled off the highway when he gestured for us to stop... I pointed to the still flashing indicator light and said, “We are still indicating” to which he shrugged and told us we needed chevrons for the back of the Mog. By this time I’d got out of the Mog and pointed to a lorry in front of us and said, “camion” then to the Mog and said, “camping-car” - ironically we’d only taken the chevron sign down a few days earlier when we mended the cycle cover. Eventually he gave up and let us go but this was a warning that we should be very vigilant in future.
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Views of St Louis all involve pirogues! |
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Zebrabar is a wonderful place to relax. |
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Zebrabar is situated on the mouth of the Senegal River down a 2 kilometre track near the village of Gandiol. It is a relaxing campsite with bar, restaurant and lookout tower! Run by a Swiss family it is well known on the overlanding circuit... so much so our last night there we were ‘treated’ to being kept awake most of the night as the Amsterdam to Dakar rally arrived in drips and drabs. One of the rally participants then had the nerve to complain that we were making too much noise as we had started the lorry at 8.30 am the following morning!
It was lovely to meet up with our good friends Craig and Barbara from Motorcycle Outreach along with the intrepid Mr Mutch (of MAG) riding his Harley on these bad roads. Craig and Barbara were leading a Globebusters tour of 10 motorbikes through West Africa for 6 weeks. We joined the group for supper and a quiz on two of their three nights they were at Zebrabar and are hoping to meet up with them again at Serekunda in the Gambia this week. There was a great mixture of people on the tour and a vast wealth of travel experience which made for stimulating conversation... really nice to spend time with these people.
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Eventually we dragged ourselves away from Zebrabar and drove to Dakar to collect a parcel sent out by my best friend Keef. He had received varying requests for items to include in the parcel – from maps to Marmite! All we need to do was negotiate the chaos of traffic into the city, find somewhere to stay the night, keep the lorry safe from thieves and find the UPS office the following morning!! Simple really!
Unable to find the only campsite mentioned in the guidebook we ended up in town and at a hotel for the night. Tipping the night guard we hoped the Mog would be safe on the Dakar streets – which of course it was as everything has a padlock on it!
The following morning we had to update our temporary carnet that the border officials insisted we purchased at Diama. We went into the office at Place de l'Indépendence in Dakar (to find the office go to the Royal Air Maroc office and look to the right as you face RAM – go into what looks like an office building set slightly back from the other buildings, take the lift to the 5th floor and walk down to the 4th (I kid you not!!) and you will find the customs office through the first door – ask someone to show you as it’s not easy to find, we showed someone the paperwork and they took us straight there)
We were not charged for this renewal but were told to come back at 4pm to collect it having arrived at 10am! We said that we needed to leave very soon and were very polite and smiley... he then completed the procedure in less than 5 minutes having spoken to his boss! We had to show him our carte gris, vehicle insurance, passport and driving licence (IDP) for the owner of the vehicle and the original temporary carnet.
Despite being told at the border at Diama that we could renew at “any customs office in Senegal... there is one in nearly every town" we asked again in Dakar and the response was that the only places to renew the temporary carnet were at Dakar, Kaolack, Tambacounda and Zinuinchor.
The renewal now lasts for a whopping 15 days! When we’ll need to complete the procedure over again but we are leaving for the Gambia before this so will get a new one when we come back into Senegal.
Once we had our new temporary carnet in our sticky hands we hightailed it out of Dakar after a visit to the supermarket where we managed to find the only salt and vinegar crisps in the whole of Africa... we bought 4 bags! We also managed to find the UPS office so collected our parcel after a little discussion with the girl who looked totally confused that I wanted to collect a parcel from a courier company!! Once again, thanks Keef... much appreciated! We decided to drive to Lake Rose for the night as this was not too far and time was ticking on. This is where you will find us on the next update...
Join us then... Kate, Oz and the Mog.