Tourist in Senegal

As anyone who lives in a decent-sized city knows, it is often only because you have a guest visiting that you take advantage of all of the offerings that can be found just a stone's throw from home. Since we have R visiting us this week, it was a great chance to check some of the tourist destinations off of our Senegal list.

First was Goree, known mostly for the old slave house, but the Christian churches, Dutch fort, and women's museum were interesting as well. I was surprised to learn that there are currently about 400 Catholics who live on the island out of a total population of 1200.

Our big adventure was to head a mere 50 km out of Dakar to the top of the Petite Cote, Senegal's premier tourist destination complete with white-sand beaches, Club Med equivalents, and more people hawking tie-dye tank tops and beaded necklaces than you thought was possible. We chose the sleepy fishing village of Toubab Dialaw, which came highly recommended by friends and colleagues. We ended up in a small house that sleeps five with steps down to the beach right outside our back door. The payoff for excessively hot and humid weather was the sound of waves crashing against the shore all night right below our windows.

The biggest splurge of the trip was an afternoon at the Bandia nature preserve, which would seem like the kiddie pool if you have been on real safari in East Africa but was just fine for us amateurs. R fulfilled her life goal of seeing rhinos up close, and I was particularly charmed by the herd of giraffes.



There was some end of trip anxiety (mostly on my part) about the not inconsiderable crack we put in the bumper of the rental car. I was imagining how we might talk ourselves out of getting fleeced by the rental car agency after they discovered the damage. (R's experience getting charged 75 euro for a minor ding on a rental car in Greece did not foster much optimism). But after all of my angsting the clerk who inspected our car either didn't notice, or didn't care, since he reported to his boss that there was "rien a signaler" after the inspection.

Left on the tourist to do list: visit to Marche Kermel, walk through downtown Dakar, meal at the swanky cafe in the French cultural center, and happy hour at Club Atlantique.