9th January 2013

Au revoir to Senegal!

(Au revoir as we will have to return)

sorry, access to Wifi is a problem - unable to download any pictures onto this blog

We had such a nice time in the Haven of the Zebrabar and St Louis was interesting.  We have now driven many hundreds of kilometres across Senegal and arrived at the Gambia. Senegal is a truly lovely country it has wild life in abundance, lively towns and some beautiful scenery.

As we crossed the country we had to camp out on the wild savannah land. I felt that we were really having a true African experience as I sat where we camped with a cup of tea in my hand. The sun was going down, I had just twiddled with our short wave radio (Thank you Soren) and as clear as day, a voice over the radio said “This is the BBC from London, and now Africa Today”. Really such a pleasure

The drive across the country was a good experience on the whole, if only because nothing went wrong. The roads were mostly good though many were not Macademised so a lot of dust.  Oh no kidding the dust was unbelievable. Bright red dust gets everywhere, including some places I didn’t know existed.  There came a point where we wanted to leave the main highway in order to avoid a wide detour. This meant taking a route marked on our map as a dotted line. In terms of easy navigation this is not a specially good sign.  It was clear enough and not too difficult to find. We passed through open countryside  and through villages where the road was still clear. After some time we came to a village where it was not at all clear which way we should go. In this tiny village we saw a few people gathered at the communal well. We asked for directions which we did not get much response, this was not surprising as I asked in French.  With the quality of my French this was never going to be very productive, coupled with the fact that, they did not speak French.  The main dialect spoken here is Wolof.

I am rather reminded of the Barclaycard advert where Rowan Atkinson speaks in a foreign tongue to a man selling him a carpet. His assistant, Bough, says “I didn’t know you were fluent sir!’ 

“Oh indeed I am Bough, sadly though, not in the same language’, he said.

Ping by this time had found some useful Wolof phrases in a guide book.  Needless to say, that just caused the puzzled expressions to broaden and increasing mirth of the local women.

So what were we to do? The road had vanished, we were performing to a group of truly incredulous people who were until our arrival, quite happily minding their own business.  We were starting to feel a little bit at a loss.

Enter a gentleman who, to my shame I could not remember his name, came up and said ‘Is there some way I can help you?  I just managed to avoid saying ‘no thanks we are managing just fine’! He introduced himself and asked where we are going. I showed him our map. This is the one with the dotted lines showing us where to go. He showed very little interest in it.  I swear he said ‘Ooh you don’t wanna do it like that, you wanna do it like this! Pushing aside our map he said noo! You need to take a different route altogether, and explained what we needed to do.  None of his directions appeared in any form on our map. It can be a little alarming to be in the middle of nowhere, or perhaps more importantly in the centre of someone else’s universe when you are getting verbal directions to move on. 

There are really a few things that are remarkable about this.

1.          It is beyond reason that anyone in this locality should speak English.

2.          When I congratulated him on his superb English, he shrugged it off. I asked where he had learned to speak it so well and in a matter of fact way he just said ‘in university’  it was a bit chastening.

3.          These new directions ultimately proved accurate and indeed saved us a great deal of distance.

4.          Most importantly for me neither he, nor anyone else along this section of the journey asked for payment for giving directions as being asked for money is something that we have had to become accustomed to in Senegal.

We bounced along our new route and every time we got to a village we just said the name of the next village we were heading for and amid some hilarity, someone would point vigorously to a gap between the traditional houses and off we would bounce once more until after about 40 km or so later, we popped out onto a nicely paved highway. We eventually arrived at the border with The Gambia.

Borders are funny places and West Africa is no exception. They can be, confusing even baffling with some bizarre bureaucratic practices. They can be time consuming so don’t arrive late in the day! 

The officials vary between genuinely helpful and pleasant to rude, overbearing and grasping.  Like any one, I want to pass through without any problems and we do tend to pay the local ‘taxes’ but I just hate cops who openly ask for money. And one such was at the border in The Gambia, we had already been politely asked for clothing and for paracetomol, but one policeman, whose function seemed to be to simply write one line in a book with our vehicle details demanded a payment of the equivalent of £40. At first I thought this was a real charge and wanted an explanation. However it soon became apparent that he had decided that we were good for it so he asked for an extraordinary amount. I was really dumbstruck but in the end had the presence of mind to ask for a receipt. He said we don’t give receipts. I said if I can’t have a receipt then I won’t pay and we left without any further protest from the greedy bastard.

We had to have an immigration officer to take us a couple of Km into town to get our passport stamped for reasons that I really cannot fathom. He was a delightful chap, who when I offered to take him back to the border he stoutly refused saying he would get a taxi.  You get to see why it is such a confounding experience sometimes.

The one important thing here is we are no longer having to survive on my terrible French as The Gambia is English speaking. I know it makes us sound like dreadful Brits abroad but it really is quite a relief.

We had to then cross the Gambia River by ferry which is a busy but ramshackle service.  Then as it got dark, we pulled in to the Gambia Highway Lodge where we parked up for the night and ordered a dinner which was served to us in the open air in the pitch dark.  We were sufficiently hungry that this feast of chicken leg, chips, spaghetti and bread was a real gourmet feast, and so to bed.

Breakfast was a strange affair. The Highway Gambian Lodge lacks a bit in facilities, but it has a dining room and breakfast was provided.  We were ushered into a large room which was full of people mostly wearing traditional clothes, although I couldn’t help but notice that at least 2 men were wearing outrageous Bob Marley outfits.

On the table were mugs laid out each containing a significant portion of powdered milk. There was a can of instant coffee and a large bowl of sugar on each table with long strips of teabags. As the room filled everyone seemed to know exactly what to do. They added coffee or several teabags to their mug added warm water and startling amounts of sugar. Some had six or seven spoonful, they then returned to their table and had their breakfast everyone had the same, an omelette, chips with a dollop of mayonnaise and bread. They ate and left. We were informed later that nearly every tribe in the region was represented here as there as there was a national vetinary training day being held. It was quite strange that we were accepted quite casually without any question asked and we felt we fitted right in; it was really nice.

The next was the fairly easy drive to Banjul punctuated with regular police checks. The officers were incredibly friendly but it was still a bit of a pain. Often the officers would tell us their first names and ask ours  and then let us on our way sometimes they wanted to exchange email address  it is all a bit surreal.

Just South of Banjul is a resort called Sekuta where we found a nice campsite.  We arrived on New year’s eve  where the owners Joe and Claudia put on a truly excellent Barbecue  It was just a little difficult because many of the guests here are German/Austrian and speak little English. It was asking a lot of them to maintain small talk the whole evening. I was tempted to type this despatch in Gothic script to give a flavour of the experience.

Here we met Bram a very funny Dutchman who lives in a traditional village in Southern Senegal.  He is very knowledgeable of the culture of traditional West Africans.  He took time to explain to us, something that has really troubled us for a while and that is why a lot of people are openly asking for money for no apparent reason.  I won’t recount the explanation which was so clear, here for reasons of brevity but suffice to say that we both feel very much easier about the whole thing

As we head further south and to warmer climate, insect life becomes ever more apparent, especially big mosquitoes and gnats, whose entire purpose is to suck the flesh off our meagre frames.  If anyone is coming out this way please bring more Jungle Formula Insect repellent!  In fact if anyone wants to make a special journey I wouldn’t say no.

It has dawned on us that having come this far, There are very few other long distance travellers. We attribute this to the various conflicts that are around this region. However, we have met with some pretty amazing overlanders such as Brendon and Oliver (brothers, cycling from Dublin to South Africa).  We thought what we are doing was pretty special, but try meeting these 2! We have been told that they have met up with a couple who are walking from Europe to South Africa! Imagine that!

We are in the process of revising our route, having discovered that it may be difficult to get a visa for Ghana and may yet be impossible to get one for Angola.  If you would all like to get out your atlas, you will see that if we cannot go via Angola then we may have to ship the van for some of the way.

The van has had a service, new fan belt, air filter changed, brakes adjusted and a good clean. We are travelling to the part of Senegal called the Cassamance to stay in Brams village, south of the Gambia. We are told it is even more beautiful and rustic with more wild life and a chance to sample a typical West African way of life.

If you now turn again to your atlas you will see that Senegal completely surrounds the Gambia. After a bit of touring we plan to move on to Mali.

We have become a little anxious about travelling when there are so few other overlanders but we have met up with a really nice Belgian couple Helga and Wauter who are going the same way so we have agreed to link up for a while and feel much happier for it.

More for another day.

I have to say it is fantastic that we are now heading for 5000 views of our blog and we have had some lovely communications from people we have never met. It is so gratifying and makes us very proud that other people should enjoy our witterings.

We both wish all of you a very Happy New Year.

Lots of love

Noel + Ping

Noelbow51@gmail.com   Pingbow54@gmail.com