Toubacouta. About 5 hours south of Dakar.
A group of us toubabs left the city for the long Easter weekend and headed for the
Sine-Saloum region in the south of the country. I’ve got a bunch of photos that I want to post, again in the name of showing you that there’s a lot of neat stuff out here:
There’s not much in the way of signage anywhere in this country. The only way to confirm that you are going in the right direction is to ask someone who is walking on the other side of the street (you ask someone on your side, and they’ll just ask you for a lift). Don’t judge the area by this sign though- it’s really pretty down here.
See- I told you. We stayed right here on the delta.
Baobabs abound. These trees are sacred so you don’t cut them down. The work around? You build around them.
Baobabs growing out of buildings, zebra stripes for decor, and helpful signs that let you know that the red button is that way. Merci.
It’s damn hot down here during midday. After hours of circumventing horrible roads with some fun off-roading, we were jonesing for some chilled wine with our lunch. Our place offered us up their finest bottle of local rosé. Plastic fantastic bottle with a tea towel draped over it for a touch of class.
As you likely already know, I am full of class.
After imbibing the hangover-friendly wine, our stressful day continues at the pool…
Like I said, it was Easter weekend. I’m not the most religious person in the world, but I did think that it would be interesting to attend Easter Mass out here in the middle of nowhere. Remember, this country is 95% Muslim, so Sunday morning we took a drive to go and find the nearest church.
Looking for the church in Senegal is not like looking for the church in Ireland- where you just drive till you see the spire. Instead our dialogue went a little more like this:
“Oooh- is that it?”
“Nope, that’s a mosque.”
Wait, I see a sign! I like how the Muslim dude appears to be looking at the “Catholic parish” sign with curiosity.
We’re driving down a random sand road…and yep no kidding there’s our church. There’s even a church bell, which I must say is a nice change from the ubiquitous call to prayer.
It was a full house (with people sitting outside) for the Mass. The church was colorful and the service was animated- but not overtly so. We felt more than welcome and enjoyed the Mass conducted in French and Wolof.
Before leaving Dakar, one of our friends purchased a chocolate bunny to be consumed on Easter morning. Guess what happens when you leave a bunny in the car when it’s 95 degrees outside?
Smooshed or no, the chocolate still tasted good- once it recovered in an air conditioned room. Instead it just became us unwrapping a roadkill-looking easter bunny.
We took a pirogue tour around the delta, and got a chance to see some of nature up close. This island stop above was kind of impromptu. We waded ashore as our driver cryptically informed us, “This island has a queen.” Then he proceeded to take us to the village’s “artisanal market”, where it was just a group of people trying to sell us Africrap. Time to get back into the boat.
It’s tilty because our little boat was tilty. Sunset with baobabs on the horizon was not a bad way to end the day.
But like the streets of this country, the delta is not illuminated. We got back to our place just as it was getting dark.
Okay, so this should give you an idea of how pretty it is down in the south. It was well worth the somewhat long and entertaining car ride through Senegal. As usual, the trip off of the peninsula left me wondering why I don’t do this more often. Besides, I totally need to go back some day and get some more of that fabulous Senegalese Two Buck Chuck.
