Off the grid in Saly

From the mouth of BethAnn:

“15 DAYS LEFT TILL THE RACE FOR HOPE DC – TEAM BT NEEDS $16,383.64 TO REACH OUR GOAL OF $50,000.00 FOR 2010. Well, this morning at 3:30 a.m. I departed for Boston, MA with friends for Monday’s Boston Marathon. This is a DREAM come true and one that I thought would never happen 5 years ago as the doctors were not sure I would ever be able to run again.”
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Early on someone told me how good it felt whenever you got out of Dakar.  Speaking from experience, I know that it’s easy to get caught up in one’s needlessly cloistered peninsular existence (and also not having to consider battling the traffic of Rufisque or the Bourne Bridge).  It might be a bit of a mental battle to pick up and go, but when you finally do, you wonder what it was that deterred you in the first place.


For all intents and purposes, I experienced this notion for the first time this week.
I’m a visual learner, so I automatically assume that you are as well. Here is Saly.
Somehow my attempts at congeniality are paying off, because I was invited to tag along to the Petite Côte with a super sympa family for five days. Real vacation! C’est quoi, ça? I am currently installed in straw roofed villa, typing happily without internet connection; the biggest dilemma of each day entails what stretch of ocean will be haunted for 6 hour stretches. In the past 48 hours I have swam more than I have since I was a kid. That’s a travesty in itself, especially considering the fact that I’ve spent the last ten years of my life as a sailor. I am definitely not accustomed to type of coexistence with the ocean.




 
Our humble abode. I’m on vacation with quite possibly the cutest 2 year old ever. It’s a contest between the two of us to see who has the best French vocabulary.
Megan’s Deep Thoughts while on vacation: why is it that there always a ton of pools clustered around the biggest pool on the planet?  “Honey, let’s go to the ocean so we can swim in a pool!”  (Yes, I swam in this pool)
I’m not trying to kill you with a vacation slide show, but it is really incredibly beautiful and chill out here.
This photo sucks, but the food certainly didn’t…

 
The other dilemma of the week is what kind of amazing food and drink will we consume?  Fried brie, ridiculously large shrimp, mojitos or a selection of home-cooked food that makes me suspect that I was Lebanese in a previous life.
Neat-o straw roof. I think this is my favorite part of the villa (but the grill is a big bonus too)
Neat-o kitchen. This is for you male readers



Note to self: spend as little time in the city as possible