Today in Senegal. Not snow. Not MSG either. Although that wouldn’t surprise me.

Someone told me that they were never keen on visiting Africa before, but after reading my blog entries (and I believe it was the food poisoning one), they really didn’t want to go anymore. I think that’s a crying shame.  

Listen: even though I love to post about things that I find absurdly anachronistic, it doesn’t mean that I’m not enjoying myself over here. Indeed, I maintain that every American should travel to far-flung places – even if you’re going to land yourself in a country that bears no resemblance to its Epcot Center diorama. Life’s way more interesting if you venture outside of your plastic shrink-wrapped chicken breast package- even if the price is suffering a little digestive discomfort. You know what Tupac says: that’s the way it is.

So with that out of the way, I think that I’ve been a little too heavy-handed in showcasing what I perceive as shortcomings in Senegal. My guilt compels me to balance things out by illustrating that there is plenty going on out here that I find interesting and worthwhile. So check out this crazy lake I visited today:

Lac Rose, (also known as Lake Retba) is a place that I have been wanting to tourist for about a year. With each passing month of this Olmsted tour, my lame factor increases for not jumping off the peninsula to check it out on a quick day trip. For the benefit of you Anglos, Lac Rose is French for “pink lake”- and now that you have a vision of some hideous Thomas Kinkade pond in your head, I will happily smash that image to pieces. Like food poisoning, the reality is far more interesting.

First, I give you crappy video footage of the lake as we came upon it today:

 Salt and wind. Beats the dust.

Behold the boats that serve as transport vessels for the slushloads of salt that are broken off from the lake’s bottom and brought to shore. Alternatively the men cover themselves in shea butter (to serve as a barrier to the salt) and wade in for some old fashioned salt collection. They’re probably hiring in case you’re looking fora a career change.

The salt is bagged and placed onto trucks for sale at your local supermarket (or whatever). The lake, similar to the Dead Sea, has a salt content that is ten times that of the ocean’s salinity. The lake thus has no fish- just bacteria and salt that are the components producing the fabled pink color.

But I’m not seeing the pink, despite my relatively-developed right brain capacities. In all fairness, they do say that the vivid pink color is best experienced during the dry season at high noon- but you know what time of the year I went out to Lac Rose? Yeah, dry season. At about high noon.

No matter, artistic license is a beautiful thing- and so are piles of salt in my personal world view.

Not quite looking pink yet, but it’s now decidedly less blue (and isn’t life better in black and white anyway?). I can’t explain the tire- unless find these at the lake’s bottom and bag those up for sale too…

It took me a year to get to Lac Rose, so I’m going to get to pink. I’m on to something as I mess with my camera settings…

Ah ha! The portrait in sepia gets us as close as we’ll ever be to pink today. And as free bonus, you’re as close as you’ll ever get to watching a salt harvester pour a bucket of fresh water down his pants as he tries to rinse off (you’re welcome). I hope he didn’t shave his legs that morning.

Okay you’ve all been patient, and really I’ve been saving my favorite photo of the day for last. As you may know, I love the variety of t-shirts that make their way to the African continent in the name of oblivious adornment. Today’s example was a real winner, and it took some stealth for me to shoot this guy as he walked around completely unaware of how excellent his t-shirt really was:

Rated E for Everyone. Just like Senegal.