Semester 17 Chapter XXIII: Unloading

Okay, here we go again. This time from this random little bagel café in Prague. Just arrived from Amsterdam and got some lunch at one of my favorite spots in the area (what’s up Haikky) and I got about an hour before my bus to Brno departs. So why not use this opportunity to add another installment to this saga.

We made it back to the Hague last Saturday evening and I spent the rest of the weekend pretty much decompressing. The temperature jump was quite intense but I made myself go for a run on Sunday and I repeated that couple more times that week. I really feel that if you push yourself to spend some time on the fresh air even when it’s not great out there, you handle all of it better. Plus running felt really good after the longer break.

I also got back to yoga. Which felt good as well. Managed to do 6 classes during the week and I’m happy it still goes. I mean… I’m not still not very flexible but I have fun with it and I see some tiny little progress. Got back to my regular headstands, too. After the three-week break, it was kinda shaky in the beginning but it’s still there.

Apart from that, it’s been mostly back to work. My regular schedule plus some catching up due to some African days off. I spent most of the week by myself which gave me some appreciated me time but I also had a chance to do some on-line hangouts with some of my favorite people. And I got out for a walk with the neighbor at some point. So yeah, pretty chilled week.

On Friday, I was considering going to a rave but since I’d arranged a day in Amsterdam for Saturday, I decided I’d pass. I feel I could use a rave tho. Gonna try to make it happen sometime soon. By not fucking myself up, I secured a lovely slow Saturday morning with some workout and before 11am, I was on a bus to Amsterdam. Spent the whole day with my dear friend over there… Cafés, good food, long talks on everything that had happened since the last meet-up. At 9:30pm, I was on a bus to Prague which brings us here.

On Friday, The Hague experienced a massive temperature jump. We went from about 3 degrees to 17. I actually enjoyed a beer out there in a park before going to bed. Being in Prague now, it’s back to winter. I saw fields covered with snow on the way here. It’s not freezing but it’s definitely still winter.

And before I close this up. We live in crazy times. We live in times, where nazi salutes are getting normalized, where discrimination and authoritarianism are being celebrated, where facts seem to lose value, where messages get lost in information chaos and where a group of very rich unelected people somewhat decide what happens next on both national and global scale. And future doesn’t look great. And it’s a bitch because I feel we’re entering a stage where staying idle might not be an option anymore as long as you want to look into the mirror not feeling disgusted. Been thinking about it a lot, been talking with some of my closest people… The way things have been developing these past couple of days… If we keep this trajectory, doing nothing is no longer an option. We have to find a way to become loud, we have to find a way to influence others, we have to find a way to reconnect with one another and we have to find a way to understand we are all in the same boat. Trump supporters, leftists, underprivileged, immigrants, LGBTQ+, people of color, anybody and everybody. We are all affected by greed of ultra-rich, by algorithms… We are all purposely divided and led into thinking we are each other’s enemy. But we’re not. The enemy is corporate greed and cynical and corrupt individuals attached to it. This shit fucks up our lives, our dreams, our planet. And we all need to sit back and think what can we do. And it is tricky because activism on platforms owned by Musk and Zuckerberg seem like some Black Mirror shit, but we do need to figure this out. Cause in couple of years, some kid might ask: “So what did you do when fascism was breaking out?”. And “nothing” should not feel like a feasible answer. I don’t have the answers, I don’t even have a plan for now but we cannot turn a blind eye here. Too much is at stake. So much love to Bernie, so much love to everybody reaching out, so much love to everybody not disconnecting. It all matters, every single bit of it. Every small action, every act of empathy and kindness.

So yeah, let’s not give up just yet. There’s thousands of people in the street in Germany right this second protesting nazis, there’s smart people all over the internet providing tools and guidelines on how to deal with this. Humanity is a beautiful thing if you give it a chance to blossom. Shout to all the good people out there, shout out to everybody who gives a fuck... And as long as we don’t lose hope, we got this. One!

Highlights:

The Hague.

Prague.

White Lotus.

Semester 17 Chapter XXII: Like I Have Never Left

Okay, here we go. This time from the Casablanca airport. Having a bit of a layover over here so let’s take this opportunity to add another piece to this legendary series called Shanghai Czech-in. Which has nothing to with Shanghai at the moment. But I’m still Czech. And I’m checking in. Anyways, let’s cover the rest of the adventures.

 

The last three weeks have been for the books. So much shit, it’s kinda difficult to wrap one’s head around it. Let me try tho. Last weekend I got back under the water. We went to one of two scuba diving centers in Dakar (actually also in Senegal and most likely in the whole Western Africa) and I conducted a try dive as an instructor. Because they let me. It was a boat dive not too far away from the beach right by the dive shop and it went beautiful. I had been out of water for a year and a half but everything immediately clicked and I felt like home. That made me super happy. Guess I have done enough dives for this shit not to go away. It was two instructors and two students, the other instructor being the dive center owner. A bit older French dude who was so unorganized, uncoordinated and annoying, it was fucking up my vibe a little. But I found my little pocket and eventually just enjoyed being down there. And I hope I’m gonna get to do more of that this year. Visibility wasn’t great as it was pretty sandy, but it wasn’t terrible neither and we did see quite some turtles. I really hope diving will make its way back to my life at some point. It’s love and ain’t going anywhere.

 

That was Saturday. On Sunday, we went to one of the bus station in the city and hopped on a minibus to Fimela. See, in Senegal you basically face four options when you wanna travel between cities. It’s either private taxi (the fastest but also most expensive and quite frankly most boring), buses (we took one from Saint Louis, they are pretty comfy but don’t go very often and don’t really cover small towns and villages), minibuses or “sept places” (they cover most of smaller towns) and shared taxis (they go pretty much anywhere as long as there’s enough people with the same destination to fill the car). Now, with private taxis and big buses you are somewhat in control of your scheduling. With minibuses and shared taxis not so much. You just show up, find a motherfucker that goes where you want and wait until the vehicle is full which can take between 2 minutes and 2 hours. We were kinda lucky tho; the ride was fast and cheap (around 6000cfa including baggage on the rooftop). And let me tell you, people throw anything and everything at those rooftops. I have seen stoves, I have seen buckets of fish, I have seen live (!) goats. I’m not sure what the manual says but I would not be surprised if it was something like “don’t place heavy objects on the roof of the vehicle”. Well, fuck that obviously. And it’s not just minibuses, it’s also the shared taxis, many of which are down to the skeleton and engine. Doors not working, windows cracked, wouldn’t go beyond gear 4, but still somehow magically going. With like half a ton of shit on the roof. It’s all a fucking experience, I tell you. Anyways, in Fimela, we ran into this local dude Omar (what’s up Omar!) who took us to the village of Palmarin for additional 6000cfa. The car was beaten as fuck but it was a reasonably short ride and the Omar seemed like a really cool dude.

 

Around the coast, there are about 4 villages called Palmarin which caused slight confusion but we figured it out. It’s an area from which they source salt, mostly for domestic market. You see many salt fields, you get to walk through some of them, it’s all very picturesque. We ended up staying in a remote bungalow for two nights. The accommodation was very basic and for the money we paid not that great but it provided some welcomed peace after the bubbly Dakar. Plus the beach was pretty much empty. The thing that always comes back is plastic tho. It’s really everywhere. Apparently, they try to deal with it, they try to educate people but it’s fucked. Infrastructure sucks, people got used to just throwing it around, and the amount of it (even in pretty remote locations) is alarming. You do get used to it but it’s really like a whole new element in the landscape. Sand, water, trees and plastic.

On Monday, we went to the office of their national park, got a guide and went for an easy guided tour. Now, the guy was this middle-aged dude who really wasn’t in the best shape but he was super nice. Told us everything, we needed to know, took us around baobabs, cattle and salt ponds all the way to this cute spot by some mangroves and then swam with us. It was a really cool lazy afternoon and man… Some of these visuals. Did way more video than pics but I’ll try to throw some around.

 

Tuesday, we called up my man Omar once more to take us to the village of Dangane (that was 10000cfa – still a pretty good deal). See our destination for the following two days was Mar Lodj. And in order to get there you need to take a boat from Dangane. And yet again, you got options. Either you get a private boat for about 3500cfa each (boring) or you do the public one (300cfa) with all the locals. Again, you really have no idea when exactly you gonna go but you always end up going and it’s much more fun. Both Palmarin and Mar Lodj were amazing in terms of lack of tourism. You see some whites here and there but it’s really super chilled. No resorts, no western restaurants, very basic infrastructure, very calm. Mar Lodj doesn’t even have cars so people use horses and carriages. Which reminded me of Gilli Islands in Indonesia. This time, we had a pretty awesome accommodation. Hammocks, nice room, beautiful surroundings. One day, we took a guided tour around villages nearby, we spent some time on some beaches and also paid a visit to this reggae place by the water couple of times. See, reggae is apparently a pretty big thing down there. I can easily imagine spending a month or two in a place like that. It felt therapeutic. Oh, and the night sky with no light pollution. Universe is gorgeous, all you gotta do is pay attention and give a fuck.

 

Thursday, around 11, we took a public boat back to Dangane and the we went on a streak of public taxis. We took the first one to Joal, then we took the second one to the Joal station, then there was the third one which took us to Diamniadio and the final one to Toubab Dialao. Shit took us like 5 hours, we had a chance to see some of the craziest cars but we made it and checked into the last hotel on our journey. And I’m gonna shout this one out because they are fucking incredible. Casa Yoss, what’s up! See, I usually don't have issues traveling as a vegan. It has never caused me any headache, if I mingle with locals and say I don’t eat this and that, I get no weird looks, I always find a way to keep my stomach full (usually with local ingredients, too) and if anything, it sometimes becomes a topic of discussion. And with an exception of like two situations where I was a part of a group (which I could have handled better had I relied a bit more on myself), it caused me no headache. And in Senegal, you get local veggies, they grow peanuts, you definitely got options. And Happycow recognizes couple of spots, too. Anyways, I’m also totally okay with sometimes being a bit of an ass and double checking what’s in my shit cause you know… Saving the world, being all nice to animals and shit. And for the record, I do acknowledge the difference between chunk of fish or beef in a Tesco refrigerator in Prague and fish that’s caught by a local dude in a village in Senegal. Still not my thing, but if everything was that, we wouldn’t face the horrors we do. Not of this volume. Casa Yoss, tho. I asked them if they could accommodate a vegan motherfucker and they wasted no time. As a welcome dish, I got a plate of sweet pastry, they prepared and awesome breakfast, the staff was absolutely stunning, room was great, there was a pool and they let us to a super late check-out for free. Our flight was Saturday 2:30am and they let us keep the room till 11pm on Friday. Everywhere else they would just charge you a whole extra day. So yeah, if you’re in the area, this is where you wanna end up. They have a terrace with some spectacular view at the sea, they provide lunch and dinner, they rock.

 

The last two days ended up being a major win. We chose Toubab Dialao over another night in Dakar without having much of an idea what to expect. The place was cute, beaches were surprisingly clean, there were many cute bars playing reggae, there was a Happycow recommended restaurant with delicious food. And that extra day with late check-out was just a beautiful bonus. I was toes deep in the sand on a beach about 5 hours before my flight. Fucking hell.

 

So yeah, that’s it. Super happy I got my ass down to Africa once more, super happy I got to see Mauritania and Senegal for the first time, super happy about all the memories I made with all the people along the way. Huge thank you to everyone involved. Sending love to everybody out there and some extra love to all my vegans. We got this. One!

Highlights:

• Mar Lodj.
• Casa Yoss.
• All The Love.

Semester 17 Chapter XXI: Mauritania & Senegal Adventures

Okay, here we go again. Been a bit longer but that’s just because I’ve been switching places, experiencing whole lotta cool shit and generally enjoying some serious traveling once again. This time around, I’m in this apartment in Dakar and after many many days, I’ve managed to get some time for myself. So I’m gonna give you some updates on what the fuck I’ve been on these past two weeks.

 

Our flights to Mauritania went pretty smooth. Royal Air Maroc is an okay airline. They do not have an individual entertaining system (which I don’t really care about that much) and their online system is most likely the worst one I’ve ever dealt with (meaning, nothing works and you end up calling their impossible help line for every stupid thing including special meal or confirmation of a fucking change of times they suggested – something that other airlines deal with by two clicks in the booking management) but the journey itself was smooth. At the airport we got a pick up arranged and then we dived deep into Nouakchott.

 

I hadn’t been to an African country in a while and there’s always some degree of weirdness connected to it. Especially if you end up in countries that are not doing that well. It’s fucked seeing child beggars everywhere, it’s fucked seeing infrastructure lacking, it’s fucked seeing plastic waste suffocating cities and even desserts and countryside (boy, we went so wrong with all this plastic shit; just to think there was none of it around couple of decades ago), it’s really awkward being in a position of (on local standards) extremely wealthy white dude just enjoying your little ride in the middle of all of this. It’s centuries of oppression, it’s historical, it’s cultural, it’s been happening forever. And it’s super complex. And there are no simple answers to any of this. It’s just a bit overwhelming sometimes. Still super grateful to be fortunate enough to be around for all that. It’s humbling, it’s stimulating, it gives you different perspectives… But there has always been and there will always be some sense of being out of pocket.

 

First couple of days in Nouakchott, I was pretty much on my regular working schedule. I still have an opportunity to discover the area a little bit. Our host was kind enough to leave her car with us which allowed me to drive in the local traffic. Which was a movie. There are virtually no rules, half of the roads are not paved, cars are coming left and right and the only thing people kinda respect are traffic lights. Sometimes. And these cars. Sometimes you see models with no lights, no windows, completely fucked up, but somehow magically still going and carrying 7 people or some shit. You almost gotta pinch yourself to make sure you’re awake. We also went to a really cool beach not far from the city twice, we roamed around the place, we visited some dunes in the outskirts… I feel we saw quite a lot. Nouakchott is a bit different from the other African capitals I’ve seen so far. Even in the poorer countries, there’s usually something like a city center with couple of high rise buildings, there are some parks or other clear orientation points. This city seems very chaotic. All buildings are very similar, there are many barely standing, everything is 1, maximum 2 floors and there’s sand everywhere. But yeah, we did visit some nice restaurants and cafés. Alcohol is fully illegal in the country so there are no bars. And there’s very little tourism. Pretty unique thing.

 

The clear highlight of the Mauritania leg of our travels was the dessert trip which marked my first time seeing Sahara. 4 days of something unbelievable. We had a local guide in a 4-wheel Toyota Hilux, we traveled most of it on it’s back in the open air, we were disconnected from the internet, we barely saw any people, we slept under the dunes with no light pollution, we saw different oasis, we climbed some dunes, we had fire in the evening, we drove through valleys that looked like some Mad Max sceneries… Shit was absolutely wild. It was all so stunning and unreal. I took my old GoPro with me and if I feel like it, I might make a short video edit out of this little adventure but man… Super happy I got to see that. It’s amazing to me that a country like Mauritania with so many inequalities and issues manages to be safe like this. Safe enough to do trips like that without a worry. It’s party non-violent nature of locals, partly religion (I guess), partly surveillance (there are road checks every couple of kilometers on the backbone road across the country)… But yeah, it was all very smooth and our guide was amazing. I assume locals don’t really travel outside of the capital a lot. The road was mostly really empty. And judging from how good it was, it has to be relatively new. We did spent most of the time off-road tho. Anyways… Shout out to everyone who was a part of this!

 

That was Friday to Monday. Tuesday morning, we got picked up by a car and for 70 EUR per person got transported to the city of Saint Louis, north of Senegal. It went smooth, we took the dirt road through the Diawling National Park, we saw flamingos and all kinds of other birds, it was all picturesque. I also crossed an African border by land for the first time. It was fast as there were not that many cars and motorcycles. But it was a hot mess. Typical crowds of child beggars, people selling sim cards, people constantly knocking on your window. Intense. We made it to Saint Louis for lunch and we spent 2 nights over there. It was pretty cool but it sometimes really makes you question what are you doing in a place like that. You can barely walk 5 meters without someone trying to sell something to you or a kid crying that they’re hungry. And you understand all of it, you understand that this is what it is and you do give some money away because it’s all so sad. But it never ends. And you really feel like shit. It’s just too much. We did have a chance to do cool things, too. We walked around the historical center, we visited the Hydrobase beach, we shopped veggies at the local market. And we managed to get on an early morning bus on Thursday (yesterday) that got us to Dakar around noon.

 

And that where we’ve been since. The place has much more of a city vibe than Nouakchott. There are hipster cafés, things are often quite expensive, you see quite a lot of white people around (same as in Saint Louis). In the evening, we went to this old factory spot which is now a gallery. They had a little party going on over there. And that felt like Europe. Majority of people were white, prices were pretty much Dutch… Quite a jump. We didn’t stay long, afterwards we briefly explored the surroundings and headed home at a reasonable hour.

 

Today, I worked a lot but that’s it for me for the next week. I’m taking couple of days off to make the most out of the last week over here. There’s more shit to see, more situations to get into, more memories to make. Sending love to everybody reading. Straight from warm Dakar. One!

 

Highlights:

• Sahara.
• Saint Louis.
• Dakar.